As Microsoft look to have completed a serious search engine coupe following a major deal with Yahoo, other areas of their software empire are looking far from stable. With today’s announcement that Firefox is nearing a billion downloads, Internet Explorer’s market share stands at just 60%; whilst still a healthy lead – Mozilla now have around a third share – it’s a shrinking margin in an area that they formerly had near complete domination.
Whilst the ten digit figure Firefox has amassed will raise eyebrows, it is slightly misleading. The download statistic covers every download since it was launched back in 2004 and includes all updates and multiple entries by single users across many devices. However, with 31% of market share, which has included some record breaking gains, Mozilla’s Firefox is certainly by far and away the leading competitor to Microsoft’s Internet browser dominance.
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When we initially take on a new client, one of the first things we always check is to see if Google Analytics has been correctly implemented. We regularly see websites which have the Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC) implemented incorrectly. You will be amazed at some of the scenarios including only adding half the code, or only adding the code to a selection of pages.
Very often if the Analytics Account isn’t recording the data it is normally due to the tracking code not being implemented correctly on every page. It needs to be every page otherwise nothing will be recorded. Don’t forget to add the code to your 404 page so you are able to monitor how often your error page is shown.
No Tracking Code = No Data!
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The world of football has learnt two important lessons about the Internet in as many days. After yesterday’s announcement that Tranmere Rovers were available to buy on eBay, Tottenham Hotspur striker Darren Bent made the kind of Twitter faux pas that would shame Habitat.
First up Tranmere Rovers though. The small Wirral based club with a big reputation for giant killing may be League 1 also-rans, but they came into focus when their owner reacted furiously to their attempted sale on eBay. At $10m for an opening bid you wouldn’t have thought it would be much of an issue, but Chairman Peter Johnson thinks differently suggesting it’s “not a second hand bike we’re selling.”
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There have been few stories that have garnered quite so many virtual column inches as the Microsoft and Yahoo merger agreed earlier this week. The conclusion to a drawn out and often barbed takeover bid of the software giant and the second largest search firm has taken many by surprise.
Yes, Yahoo did the right thing by accepting that their search but somewhere in the process they have managed to lose the “boatloads of cash” Carol Bartz said they would have to be offered and replaced it with “boatloads of value.” Unfortunately investors appear to be more interested in the more tangible financial benefits of a cash heavy takeover, with 16% of their value wiped off almost as soon as the deal was struck.
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Optimising a website with any notion of your targeted keywords is like setting off in a dinghy without any navigational tools, heading west and hoping that you’ll discover America. Yes, there’s a chance you’ll make it, but you’ll have an epic struggle and could well end up lost in the search wilderness.
Think of SEO as a cartographic process, with keywords acting as the perfect route. It helps you to map out exactly where you’re going with your site, defining what areas are good to explore and those that are best left alone. Key terms are essential in every aspect of SEO, without them you’ll be working on sheer chance alone, just as you would in a dinghy across the Atlantic.
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Tweetminster, the definitive home of UK politics on Twitter is set to introduce new and improved functionality following fresh investment. The £100k will be used to develop their Livewire tracker, which traces the latest political trending topics here in the UK with the assistance of The Independent newspaper.
The site itself has come from humble beginnings and looks set to become a major player in the Twitter services sector with their continued development. If you’re looking for UK political news straight from the horse’s mouth Tweetminster has always been the place to go.
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Could having overly efficient Internet security actually be harming your company’s productivity? Well Google’s former chief information officer Douglas Merrill intimated as much in a speech at the Black Hat USA 2009 conference.
He warned of business owners splashing out huge sums for Internet security without a real understanding of exactly what it was getting. The clampdown in online activity could well reducing the amount of productivity that staff are able to be involved with, thus causing a detrimentally restrictive culture.
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The Yahoo and Microsoft deal has quickly changed from ‘highly likely’ to ‘complete’. For the next 10 years, the two former rivals will be working in partnership to close down the gap to runaway leaders Google.
The deal itself isn’t quite as simple as Microsoft providing Yahoo with Bing, whilst they get on and do the rest. The complex agreement is yet to be given the green light by regulators, so don’t expect anything concrete to happen for a good few months.
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The new Twitter home page has been unveiled. Whilst it may not be the most revolutionary design, it does include one key addition, Twitter search.
Now, without even having to sign up with Twitter, you can immediately take advantage of their search facility and see what the world is talking about. With homepage integration, far more people will be able to access Twitter and use it to track down breaking stories and local news in an instant, regardless of whether they are a member or not.
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The day has finally come where the oft-mooted deal between Yahoo and Microsoft may actually come to fruition. After more than a year of legal wrangling and buyout proposals, the two search giants appear to have come to an amicable agreement. Not before time too.
Yahoo currently holds a very strong second position in the global search volume charts with Microsoft’s Bing trailing some distance behind in third. Unfortunately for both, Google are leagues ahead and have been for some time. A collaboration between the nearest competition has always been the only realistic way for anyone to usurp Google’s stranglehold, and finally that looks like it could happen.
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Not all that long ago all of our news would come from the media. Whether it was the morning newspaper, radio or television, accessing the latest stories was pretty much a standardised formality. However, the rise of the Internet and, more particularly, the blogging community has all but put paid to traditional media sources.
Internet bloggers have a number of advantages over their offline counterparts. First and foremost is the immediacy of the online platform. As soon as a blogger receives a lead they can get started on a post and have it live within seconds. There’s no red tape, no editorial to pass through and no restrictions on content. Almost anything goes on the Internet, something the media can and probably never will be able to replicate.
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First Class Sailing are an existing client of Impact Media, who are keen to look at ways of getting even more out of their search engine marketing.
Adding a Blog to any site is a great way to get fresh updated content onto your website, to keep the search engines coming back for more. They help to engage your audience as well as improve your visibility for the blogged about subjects. More…
If your Internet connection hasn’t been up to scratch you’re by no means alone. With news that broadband in the UK is falling below the speeds that most providers are claiming to offer, clearly something is a little amiss.
Fortunately for the providers they are protected by that key phrase ‘up to’. This ensures that they don’t fall under any of Trading Standards terms of service laws. It’s particularly bad news for Tiscali users. They were found to be the worst offenders, offering somewhere between a miserly 3.2 and equally uninspiring 3.7Mbps on their standard ‘up to 8Mbps’ package. Not good.
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If ever evidence were needed that the world of search engines was not yet ready to roll over and accept Google as the unassailable overlord, Yebol surely provides it. The new upstart has slipped in under the radar a little, but with a new human-based semantic search, it’s certainly worth a look.
The company claim to have developed a whole new algorithm for search. This is, of course, nothing new in itself; Bing, Cuil, Wolfram Alpha, etc., the list goes on. What it does add though, is a human element. If you search for short terms (currently many longer ones still appear to be confusing it) you’ll get a whole list of options and suggestions. This is intelligently managed by the standard algorithm spiders, which determine a site’s strength and credentials, as well as human operators who refine searches for optimum relevance.
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Government dossiers are usually of the highest confidentiality and of utmost importance. However, one that has snuck out of Whitehall recently, according to the Daily Mail at least, is quite the opposite. Government ministers have been getting advice on how to use Twitter.
Recognising the ballooning popularity of the social media site, some Internet savvy politicians have already jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. This 20 page guide though is designed to encourage those who haven’t yet taken up the mantle and give them advice on what to write, who to follow and how to interact.
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