Recent fury about a Google Box was again unleashed at
the latest CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas
this year when a rumor spread that Google would be
unveiling a Google Box. Causing its stock price to rise and
Google watchers’ hearts to drop when there proved to be
no substance to the rumor.

For now Google seems content to ‘piggy-back’ on other
systems. It has announced it will be partnering with
Motorola to place the Google icon and search on certain
Motorola cell phones. So close, yet so far.

Google still insists it is not building a Google Box.
But does it really matter what Google wants… Internet
users want their Google Box and they will get it in one
form or another. It might not even come from Google.
Their lost!

If you haven’t been following the Google Juggernaut, you
may be wondering what’s all this buzz about a Google Box?
Simply put: it’s a rumor/hope/dream that just won’t die.

What are consumers, customers, Internet users (everyone
on the planet) all clamoring for?

They are clamoring for a newly minted integrated ‘all-in-one’
portable handheld device, with a Google OS (operating system)
and an RSS powered Google Browser (via the Firefox model)
that’s an Internet/Phone/Laptop/XM Radio/Ipod Video/TV/GPS/
and last but not least a Search Engine.

If such a device is built it would finally bring the
Internet (screaming and kicking) into our future wireless
universe. It would be our dream technotopia device. One that
would meet all our electronic/communication needs and place
them firmly in the palm of our hand.

It would place all the World’s Information, Videos, TV shows,
Music, a Billion Web Sites, and Aunt Sally neatly in the palm
of your hand. It would deliver all this with the Google Brand
Name, quite frankly who else would you trust with your Aunt
Sally?

Not only should Google Build it, they should give it away
for Free or next to Free, make it affordable to the lowest
income demographic on the planet. It would simply be good
business. It would simply be a better return on its
shareholder’s money.

Technically such a device or Google Box could be built right
now. The resources and expertise are available, just might
take a hefty down payment to give birth to this baby.

Is such a venture realistically feasible for Google to undertake?

As we see from their offer of providing free broadband Wi-Fi
services to the lucky residents of Mountain View, in the
heart of Silicon Valley, it is not that far-fetched. It is not
such a leap of faith that someone at Google may be musing at
the possibility of a world-wide wireless system delivered on
a Google Box.

Advertising is Google’s Bread and Butter. Consider the
Google Box as just a virtual version of your morning
newspaper. It would be the perfect vehicle to carry all
that Google delivered advertising. Delivered to everyone
anywhere in the world. Advertisers would be lining up around
the world for a piece of that action.

Actually, if you really examine the implications of such
a delivery system. Google must build that Google Box or
lose out to others who will build such a delivery device…
it just won’t have the Google name.

How far are we from such a delivery system? How long will we have
to wait for the eternal Google Box? Don’t hold your breath
but have you heard any good rumors lately?

The author runs a modest website on Bizware and Business Solutions, including a section on VoIP Phone Services. VoIP Phone Service
Why not visit his site and get a few Free Marketing Tools for your business. Titus Hoskins Copyright © 2006. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Titus_Hoskins

Together, Google AdWords and Google AdSense make up two sides of the game. Here is how the Google AdWords and Google AdSense game works.

With Google AdWords, you pay Google to advertise for their keywords in Google AdWords ads. The Google AdWords ads are shown in two places:

- On Google’s search engine results pages (SERP’s) for those keywords

- On other people’s websites that are members of Google’s AdSense program and that have those keywords in their content

If you look at the second bullet above, you will see that with Google AdSense, other people pay you (through Google) to advertise their websites on your website.

Like most games you can play either side. If you are playing the Google AdWords and Google AdSense game, the question is: Are you winning or losing the game? And if you’re losing, how do you become a winner?

When Google AdWords ads are shown in their search engine results, Google makes all of the money from the advertiser. When the ads are shown as Google AdSense ads on other websites, Google splits the advertising revenue with each of those websites. The exact percentage is unknown, but it is commonly believed to be about a 50/50 split.

So how do you win the Google AdWords and Google AdSense game? There are two ways:

The first way is to be on the Google AdWords side of the game, where you pay for advertising. If you make more money from sales resulting from the Google AdWords ads than you spend on advertising, you win. This can be quite profitable, if you can succeed. After all, how often would you trade $1 to get $2? As often as possible, right?

This isn’t always as easy as it sounds. It is possible to lose quite a bit of money before you learn how to play the Google AdWords side of the game. Many people wind up spending more for advertising than they profit from sales. You have to be patient and persistent, and you have to watch your numbers. You have to cancel the campaigns that aren’t working and improve the ones that are.

The second way to win the Google AdWords and Google AdSense game is to be on the Google AdSense side of the game. You display other people’s Google AdWords ads as Google AdSense ads on your website. Every time someone clicks on one of the Google AdSense ads, you make a percentage of the advertising fee Google receives. This can vary from a few cents to a few dollars.

If you have content targeted towards popular keywords that command high advertising revenues, you make more for each click. This isn’t always easy either, but the good news on this side of the game is that it does not cost you anything at all while you are learning! If there are no clicks, you don’t make any money – but you don’t lose any either. This is in stark contrast to the Google AdWords side of the game, where people can lose hundreds or thousands of dollars.

You only need two things to play the Google AdSense side of the game:

- A website with content targeted towards keywords that pay well

- Targeted traffic to that website

Christopher Knight, owner of EzineArticles.com, actually gave me the idea for this article when he commented recently on an article of mine. Christopher said, “…thankfully Google Adwords EXISTS because without it, EzineArticles.com would not be the thriving community it is today.” Article directories like EzineArticles.com and my site, ElectricText.com, thrive because of Google AdWords and Google AdSense. There is an interesting symbiotic relationship between article authors, article directories, Google AdSense publishers, and Google AdWords advertisers:

- Authors write articles and submit them to article directories because they want to build their reputation, their website traffic, and their incoming links.

- Article directories publish the articles (generally for free) because it allows them to build up huge content sites, build their website traffic, and make money from advertising. Often the article directories make money by being Google AdSense publishers.

- Publishers need content for their newsletters and websites because it allows them to also build up content sites, build their website traffic, and make money from advertising. Often the publishers are Google AdSense publishers as well.

- Google AdWords advertisers need the content-based websites to display their Google AdWords ads so they will build their website traffic and make money when people click on their ads, visit their websites, and make purchases.

When it all works right, everyone wins. But if you have to choose between being a Google AdWords advertiser or a Google AdSense publisher, the safest bet is being a publisher with a content site and Google AdSense ads. You have everything to gain and almost nothing to lose.

One of the smartest things you can do is to pick a niche with high-paying, popular keywords that are searched frequently. Then build a content site around those keywords. Surf article directories like EzineArticles.com and ElectricText.com for great content, and you will be well on your way. Add Google AdSense and perhaps some affiliate links or your own products. Drive traffic to your website by writing and submitting articles to the article directories. Watch your website statistics and your Google AdSense reports. Adjust as necessary, and keep adding content and submitting articles.

Now you know the secret to winning the Google AdWords and Google AdSense game.

Mike Adams has been creating and promoting websites almost since the Web began. His ElectricText.com site is one of the growing numbers of article directories where you can submit your articles or find great content to help you win the Google AdWords and Google AdSense game: http://www.electrictext.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Adams

Google Co-op is currently in beta test. As with any new service that is being beta tested, there are still some things being “worked out”. The documentation is somewhat limited and lacking, making it a little difficult to understand and implement Google Co-op. The remainder of this paper will provide a high-level overview of Google Co-op to help individuals better understand what it is, how they can use it, and what they will see. Subsequent papers on the topic will delve more into the “nitty-gritty” of how to implement it.

At its most basic, “social web” (aka Web 2.0) is a process whereby users provide information and opinions, and share them with others. It is the sharing that provides the social aspect. Users can share information about what they find to be valuable. A good example of this is del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us) where users share links to their “favorite” information on the web (for example, favorite articles, or web sites about a topic etc.). Other examples of “user-vetted”, or user-contributed information, would include Wikipedia (the open, user contributed, encyclopedia), and DMOZ (the open directory). There are many other examples.

“Social search” is the same process of humans providing and sharing information to help improve the results that a search engine presents to various queries. Google Co-Op would appear to be a strong move by Google into the social search arena.

Google Co-Op Components

Google Co-op consists of two things:

1. Topics
2. Subscribed links

Topics

Topics is simply Google’s way of saying “area of interest”. Topics allow users a way to provide labels (or tags, or categories) for information on the web. A user does this by associating a URL with a label (for example, http://www.google.com might get the label “search_engine”). These labels simply tell Google what a particular URL is all about. Users may use labels for topics that Google already has under development, which include: health, destination guides, autos, computer & video games, photo & video equipment, and stereo & home theater. Users may also develop labels for their own topics (for example, if a user has an interest in “wine” they may develop labels for the topic wine, which may include “wine_regions”, “wine_types”, etc.).

The process of labeling content will benefit everyone in several ways. Labels will provide Google with a vast amount of information about what web sites are all about, potentially down to a very granular, or individual page level. In addition, by taking the time to label a site, users are essentially “voting” on what sites are valuable to them. As these votes accumulate over time, Google will have a clearer picture of what sites are authoritative on a topic or topics. It is not hard to come to the conclusion that with time, Google will start to use this data so that sites with a lot of votes will start to appear much higher in appropriate search results.

Subscribed Links

Subscribed links provide several very beneficial features to both users and web publishers. Subscribed links provide:

* End users a means of altering or tailoring their search engine results so that they receive more relevant search results as well as results from sources that they “trust”
* End users a potential means of saving time since the results that they need may actually appear in the search results, negating the need to click through to the site
* End users another mechanism to “vote” on sites that they find to be valuable or authoritative by going through the process of subscribing to those sites
* Publishers with another means to make content available to end users

With subscribed links, publishers can make a subset of their information available to end users by submitting their subscribed links via an XML file to Google, and letting users know how and where to subscribe. Users who value the content of particular publishers will subscribe to their subscribed links. In so doing, the content for subscribed sites will appear at the top of search results when the users searches on relevant terms. In essence, the user alters their own search results by subscribing, so that content that they find to be more valuable appears at the top of search results.

As a site gains more subscribers, Google will most likely, with time, come to see it as more authoritative. As has already been mentioned earlier in this article, it is not hard to jump to the conclusion that such a site will appear higher up in Google search results for relevant search terms over time.

Google Co-Op Will Improve the Content That Users See

The whole process of labeling and subscribing has the added benefit of being self-vetting. This means that spam sites, advertising sites, and sites that provide marginal or useless content will be pushed down in search results. Social web dynamics in action means that users simply will not bother to label or subscribe to poor quality sites in high enough volumes for them to be seen as authoritative and useful. The end result for all should be better and more useful search results.

What Users Will “See”

At this point you may be wondering how users actually see Google Co-op search results. Google Co-op content appears to the end user in one or more of three ways:

1. As “Refine Results”: Refine results are search refinements for the topic. This is a set of predetermined categories that can be used to refine a search for a given topic. For example, a search on “Boston” will yield a “Refine results for boston:” box at the top of their search results with the following categories: Dining guides, Lodging guides, Attractions, Shopping, Suggested itineraries, and Tours & day trips.
2. As “Subscribed Links”: A Subscribed Links results box that presents the results from one or more of the authoritative sources to which a user has subscribed at the top of Google’s search results. For example, if the user were subscribed to a travel site, and they searched on “Boston”, they would see an “About Boston, MA” subscribed links box at the top of their search below the “Refine results”.
3. “Labels”: Labels appear for result items within a search. A label is a tag that appears below a search result. For example, an item after the title and brief description might say “Labeled Dining guides”. These labeled sites show up below the subscribed links, but above Google’s organic search results.

Users who do nothing will see search refinements for the health and destination guides topics areas at the top of any relevant set of Google search results (try a quick Google search on “Boston” to see “Refine results for Boston”). This is because Google subscribes everyone to those topics by default. In fact, there does not appear to be any way to unsubscribe from these two topics. Users will also see relevant labels from these two topics below search results for sites that have been annotated by users or publishers.

Users who subscribe to the subscribed links of web sites and search on terms that are relevant to those authoritative sources will see items from those sources at the top of their search results. The end-user’s search results are altered from what they would “normally” see and they will see the “Refine Results”, “Subscribed Links Boxes”, and “Labels” for the sites with which they have subscriptions. By subscribing, the user alters their own search experience so that it is more relevant and tailored to their own needs.

To see this in action go to Google’s directory (http://www.google.com/coop/directory) and subscribe to one or more of the listed subscribed links.

Conclusion

While still in its infancy, and going through the growing pains that are normal for services that are in beta test, Google Co-op clearly has a lot of promise to enable Google to provide much more powerful and relevant search results to users. As the volume of labels and subscribed links grows, as well as user “votes” by going through the process of labeling sites and subscribing to sites, Google Co-op will become a very powerful and important force impacting both how people go about searching, as well as what search results actually appear.

Rob Pirozzi is a contract writer for CityTownInfo.com. CityTownInfo is a quick reference web site that provides statistics and indexes on thousands of cities and towns across the US, as well as articles, comments from local residents, and more. The web site may be found at: http://www.citytowninfo.com/. To subscribe to citytowninfo.com’s subscribed links visit http://www.google.com/coop/profile?user=008291016253664647185

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rob_Pirozzi

A Google Sitemap is a very simple XML document that lists all the pages in your website, but the Google Sitemaps program is actually much more important than that. In fact, the Sitemaps program provides a little peek inside Google’s mind – and it can tell you a lot about what Google thinks of your website!

Why Should You Use Google Sitemaps?

Until Google Sitemaps was released in the summer of 2005, optimizing a site for Google was a guessing game at best. A website’s page might be deleted from the index, and the Webmaster had no idea why. Alternatively, a site’s content could be scanned, but because of the peculiarities of the algorithm, the only pages that would rank well might be the “About Us” page, or the company’s press releases.

As webmasters we were at the whim of Googlebot, the seemingly arbitrary algorithmic kingmaker that could make or break a website overnight through shifts in search engine positioning. There was no way to communicate with Google about a website – either to understand what was wrong with it, or to tell Google when something had been updated.

That all changed about a year ago when Google released Sitemaps, but the program really became useful in February of 2006 when Google updated it with a couple new tools.

So, what exactly is the Google Sitemaps program, and how can you use it to improve the position of your website? Well, there are essentially two reasons to use Google Sitemaps:

1. Sitemaps provide you with a way to tell Google valuable information about your website

2. You can use Sitemaps to learn what Google thinks about your website

What You Can Tell Google About Your Site

Believe it or not, Google is concerned about making sure webmasters have a way of communicating information that is important about their sites. Although Googlebot does a pretty decent job of finding and cataloging web pages, it has very little ability to rate the relative importance of one page versus another. After all, many important pages on the Internet are not properly “optimized”, and many of the people who couldn’t care less about spending their time on linking campaigns create some of the best content.

Therefore, Google gives you the ability to tell them on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0 how important a given page is relative to all the others. Using this system, you might tell Google that your home page is a 1.0, each of your product sections is a 0.8, and each of your individual product pages is a 0.5. Pages like your company’s address and contact information might only rate a 0.2.

You can also tell Google how often your pages are updated and the date that each page was last modified. For example your home page might be updated every day, while a particular product page might only be updated on an annual basis.

What Google Can Tell You About Your Site

Having the ability to tell Google all this information is important, but you don’t even need to create a sitemap file in order to enjoy some of the perks of having a Google Sitemaps account.

That’s because even without a Sitemap file, you can still learn about any errors that Googlebot has found on your website. As you probably know, your site doesn’t have to be “broken” for a robot to have trouble crawling it’s pages. Google Sitemaps will tell you about pages it was unable to crawl and links it was unable to follow. Therefore, you can see where these problems are and fix them before your pages get deleted from the index.

You can also get information on the types of searches people are using to find your website. Of course, most website analytics tools will give this information to you anyway, but if the tool you use doesn’t have this feature, then it’s always nice to get it for free from Google.

But the best part of the Sitemaps program is the Page analysis section that was added in February of 2006. This page gives you two lists of words. The first list contains the words that Googlebot associates with your website based on content on your site. The second list contains words that Googlebot has found linking to your site!

Unfortunately, Google limits the number of words in each list to 20. As a consequence, the inbound links column is partly wasted by words such as “http”, “www”, and “com” – terms that apply equally to all websites (hey Google, how about suppressing those terms from the report?). That said, this list does provide you with a way to judge the effectiveness of your offsite optimization efforts.

When you compare these two lists, you can get an understanding of what Google thinks your website is about. If the words on your Site Content column are not really what you want Googlebot to think about your site, then you know you need to tweak your website’s copy to make it more focused on your core competency.

If, on the other hand your inbound links don’t contain any keywords that you want to rank well for, then perhaps you should focus your efforts in that direction.

Above all else, you really want these two lists to agree. You want your inbound linked words to match up to the site content words. This means that Google has a clear understanding of the focus of your website.

Additional Benefits of the Sitemaps Program

Google has even started notifying Sitemaps-participating Webmasters if they are breaking any of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This can be very valuable information if your site suddenly becomes de-listed on Google and you don’t know why.

Only Sitemaps participants can get this information, and it is only provided at Google’s discretion. In fact, Google will NOT notify you if you are creating worthless websites that offer no original content, or if you are creating thousands of doorway pages that are redirecting to other web sites. Google doesn’t want to give the sp@ammers any clues as to how to improve their techniques.

How Do You Get Started with Google Site Maps?

The first thing you must do is obtain a Google Account. If you already have a Gmail, Adsense, or Adwords account, then you are all set. If not, you can register an account by visiting the Google Accounts page (https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount).

Building your sitemap file is pretty easy to do if you are familiar with XML, and if you aren’t you can always use a third-party tool such as the ones that are listed on Google’s website (http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html). Google also has a “Sitemap Generator” that you can download and install on your server, but unless you are fairly adept at managing Python scripts, you should probably stick to the third-party tools.

At any rate, once you have your Google Account and your Sitemap file built, the rest is very easy. All you have to do is:

1. Log into your account (http://google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/siteoverview)

2. Type your website’s URL into the “Add Site” box and click on “OK”

3. Click on the Manage Sites link for the website you are adding, and add your sitemap file to your account.

Google Sitemaps – An Excellent SEO Tool

Google Sitemaps help Googlebot quickly find new content on your website. They allow you to tell Google what’s important, what’s new, and what changes often. The tools provided to webmasters through the program can play a vital role in helping you understand how the search engines (especially Google) view your website.

Using this information you can dramatically improve the position of your website and quickly clear up any issues Google finds. You can also use the tools provided by Google to gauge the effectiveness of your off-site optimization efforts so you can better focus your time and energy on activities that bring you the most success.

Matthew Coers is an Internet marketing expert. His website, ProfitChoice.com contains online courses designed to teach entrepreneurs how to build a website and make money online. Download his FREE Internet Marketing report, 7 Days to Website Success.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matthew_Coers

Google explains everything and lists Sitemaps resources at:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html

To use Google sitemaps, you must first sign up for a Google Account. If you already use Google Adwords, Analytics, Gmail or other Google provided tools, you can use your existing account to submit a Google sitemap for your site. Get an account at the following URL if you don’t already use Google services:

https://www.google.com/accounts/

NON-PROGRAMMER SMALL BUSINESS WEBMASTERS WANT SIMPLICITY

Many webmasters struggle to understand even the simplest HTML and meta tags and after visiting the Sitemaps program page when it was first announced in the summer of 2005, those small business site owners went away sadly shaking their heads and mumbling. They complained, “I can’t even add PERL scripts to my own CGI bin and properly set permissions on page files – how am I going to install and debug a Python script on my server, run cron jobs and generate XML files?”

Apparently Google heard all that grumbling and came back with the newly released “Webmaster Central” to answer the concerns of excess complexity. They no longer require you to be a geek to get all your pages into their index. They’ve created tools to make the job of submitting all of your pages for inclusion in their index very much easier to handle.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

The first listed “Site Status” tool lets you check indexing of your sites. If you enter an address into that search box and press the “Next” button, they’ll return a page with a button labeled “Take me to Google Sitemaps” and encouraging use of the sitemaps tools, regardless of whether you’ve already submitted that sitemap or not. They’ll list some minor details about the site entered such as:

Pages from your site are included in Google’s index.
Some of these pages are indexed without a title or description.
Googlebot last successfully accessed your home page on Aug 18, 2006

They list “Potential indexing problems” and then state:

More details about your site may be available

By using Google Sitemaps, you can learn more details available only to site owners, such as:

o errors Googlebot encountered while crawling your site

o top search queries that return your site

GOOGLE SITEMAPS DIFFERENT FROM HTML SITEMAPS

Let’s back up for a moment though. Webmasters have been told for ten years now to build a sitemap into their web site that lists all of their pages (if it is a small web site with under a hundred pages) or at least listing major sections of their site (if they have thousands or tens of thousands of pages.) So what is the difference here?

Google sitemaps are actually XML documents (not public html pages) that hold much more information about your web pages to help Google determine several things. They list the “priority” or importance, “last modified” dates, and “change frequency” of each page. But the creation of those documents had required webmasters to install that Python script on their server. Available at:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=137793&package_id=153422

Or webmasters had to use third party software to generate the required XML file. Google recommends a brief list of sources for third party software to help them programmatically create the XML sitemaps:

http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html

I’ve personally tried several of those third party tools and found two of the web-based sitemap generators lacking, one of the downloaded software tools crashed my computer (and created havoc for me), so what is a small business owner without programming skills to do?

Those business owners who are non-programmer types and want to use Google Sitemaps complained that Google was favoring geeks over business owners. They wanted a simple way to submit all of their pages to Google without running cron jobs on their server and debugging Python scripts.

PLAIN TEXT SITEMAPS FILES NOW ACCEPTED

Google heard our grumbling and now allows simple lists of URL’s in a plain text document. All you have to do is create that list of page files, save it as sitemap.txt and upload it to your server. Then you log in to your Google Webmaster Central (AKA Sitemaps) account and tell them the URL of your sitemap text document.

Before you submit your first sitemap URL on a domain, Google requires you to put a “site verification” meta tag on your site home page and click a “Verify” button to prove you own the site. Anyone with a Google account and access to your server can do this. You can add or remove any authorization tags placed by anyone with access to your server who is no longer authorized to see this data.

WEBMASTER CENTRAL TOOLS FOR SITE OWNERS

In the “Diagnostic” tab, there is a tool that will validate your robots.txt file, tells you which pages are restricted by that file and lists problem URL’s and reasons for the problems. It also lets you make changes in a copy of your robots.txt file locally, which shows immediately how changes would affect the next crawl by all Google bots, including the Adsense and PPC landing page quality crawlers! They warn on that page that local changes don’t affect your own robots.txt file and remind you to make the changes to the file on your server.

Another useful “Diagnostic” tool lets you set your preference for canonical URL’s to include www or non-www versions of your site. (This last item shows how seriously the Google team takes this canonical issue.)

What other tools are provided in Webmaster Central?

Under the “Statistics” tab in Webmaster Central is are “Query stats, Crawl stats, Page analysis” links with more data on your pages. The Query statistics show your top 20 search queries that searchers have used to find your web site and your top 20 click through queries. Those data tables provide some interesting and sometimes unexpected detail about how visitors find your site and allow you to further optimize and funnel those visitors. The “Crawl Stats” promises to show PageRank and distribution of PageRank throughout your site and in comparison to other sites.

The “Sitemaps” tab simply lists your submitted sitemaps for all your sites and shows the dates “Submitted, Last Downloaded, and Sitemap Status.” The status tells you if there are errors, and what they were (not allowed, external site links, 404 error page not found, etc.) I’ve just submitted a new sitemap on a just reserved, created and newly posted site this week and will report back on how long it took for index inclusion on that site to record the effect of early sitemap submissions.

LIFTING YOUR SKIRT FOR GOOGLE

Finally, there is a “Tools” link in the upper right corner of the “Sitemaps” page which allows you to “Download Data for all sites”, “Report Spam in Our Index” and a “Reinclusion Request” link to use if you’ve been banned for questionable techniques. Clearly, since you are doing all of this from within a Google account, you are openly providing Google with your information and making all spam reporting and reinclusion requests under your name from within a Google account. This suggests that you trust Google with all information they hold on your sites and any complaint made about search engine spam.

Currently there are ratings tools from within the Webmaster Central site to let you tell Google if you like the tools with a smily face, a neutral face and a frowny face. This may not last as the program comes out of beta, but lets you tell them what is useful and what isn’t.

Still need some help? Try joining, reading, searching and posting to Sitemaps and Webmaster Central Google Groups. Posts from webmasters get back responses from knowledgeable members. Watch for the little green “G” logo for Sitemaps team members for particularly definitive and useful recommendations.

http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help
http://groups.google.com/group/google-sitemaps

Want ongoing official Google blog posts about Webmaster Central?

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/

If you’ve had trouble getting all your pages indexed and want to use those informative and useful webmaster tools and reports – give Webmaster Central a try.

Mike Banks Valentine operates SEOptimism, Offering SEO training of in-house content managers
http://seoptimism.com/SEO_Staff_Training.htm as well as contract SEO for advertising agencies, web development companies and marketing firms. http://seoptimism.com/Ad_Agency_SEO_Contracting.htm

Content aggregation, article and press release optimization & distribution for linking campaigns.
http://seoptimism.com/Linking_SEO.htm

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Valentine

So how do you pare down your Googles? Let’s take a look at two of the biggest search engines: Google. Now, I’m a Google nut, but I have also used Yahoo from time to time.

Let’s start with the basics on Google. You type in a couple words and viola, pages return with information. You start sifting through.

Tip #1: Get exact results by adding “quotation marks” around your search term

Most people know that if you type in more than one word, for instance, a name, search engines will return every result that contains those two words. I searched first on my name, Judith Brandy. Google brought back every website that had the words, Judith and Brandy in its title or description. It included a liquor site, people who were names Brandy with a different first name and assorted other junk that was irrelevant to my search. I was Googling myself to see where my articles had been placed. So, Brandy DVDs and Videos at Search Extreme, would not help me. Surprisingly, I popped up at the top as an ExpertAuthor on an article site and found out that a couple of my articles had been picked up on some other websites already. This was nice know, but as I scrolled down, I found relevance disappearing before I reached the bottom of page one. So I added the quotations, and viola, a much more narrow, relevant search result was returned. So the addition of quotations was a real plus.

Tip #2: Narrow the results you receive by adding a space followed by a minus signed followed by the words you want to exclude.

For example, say you want to search on Battletar Galactica, but you don’t want to get every website and blog out there. You don’t want to get the original Battlestar Galactica television show from 25 years ago. You want the new, reimaged Battlestar on television now. So you type into the search box “space” (that’s not the word, by the way. You hit the space bar once) and then type a minus “-” sign plus the term you want to exclude like I’ve done below:Search term: Battlestar Galactica -original – This takes out any website that covers the 1978 original television show, Battlestar Galactica.

Tip #3: Get up-to-date stock quotes without going past the search page.

This is an easy one. Simply type in a stock symbol and it will return the company name, latest price and price chart at the top of the page, plus all relevent websites connected to it below. So I typed in GOOGLE STOCK SYMBOL to get back GOOG, then I typed GOOG into the box and it returned a chart, the open-high-low as well as other website where it can be further researched. Needless to say, Google is doing quite well. Google now has a new web browser called Chrome, geared completely to Google and Google products.

Tip #4: Type in certain questions about people and places and get answers.

Are you interested in the population of Tokyo, Japan? Or New York City? Would you like to know where Edward James Olmos or Joe Flanigan were born? Would you like to know what is “rabbit proof fence”? These are the kinds of questions you can ask Google.

Simply type the following:

“population of Tokyo, Japan” with no quotes and Google returns “Japan – Population: 127,417,244″

“population of New York City” with no quotes and Google returns “New York City – Population: 8 Million”

“birthplace of Edward James Olmos” and Google returns “Edward James Olmos – Place of Birth: East Los Angeles, California, USA”

“birthplace of Joe Flanigan” and Google returns “Joe Flanigan – Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California, USA”

“who is Joe Flanigan” you wonder? Well, type it in and you’ll get an answer. “Joe Flanigan … has long-running guest roles on numerous television series, including Profiler, First Monday, …” and a link to where you can find out more.

Try the last one yourself. Type in what is “rabbit proof fence” and Google returns . . .

Tip #5: Find out where an area code or zip code is located quickly and easily.

Ask Google. Type – area code “610″ and Google will return this answer – Area Code Look Up and ReferenceListing of the majority of Area Codes throughout the US and the world. … 610, PA, SE Pennsylvania: Allentown, Reading, 484, 835 … – no muss, no fuss, just the facts at lightspeed. Tip #6: Get the weather of any place in the world Type “weather plus a location” and Google will return the current weather plus, for places in the United States, four days worth of weather and a few graphic representations in 0.09 seconds. Much faster and easier than surfing over to the weather channel and looking it up. You don’t need the quotation marks, by the way.

Tip #6: Google is a calculator

Type in 25 x 25 and Google will calculate and deliver you the result of 625. Instant calculations online. Divide = / and Multiply = *. Plus and minus are + and -.

Tip #7: Get the local time any place on Earth.

What time is it in Venice, Italy? Now you could surf on over to the World Time Clock, scroll through and find the country, find Italy, find the city of Venice, but why waste time? Simply type in “what time is it in Venice, Italy” and Google will return the correct answer, plus a link to where you can get more information all in 0.26 seconds. Be sure and check out Google’s new web browser called Chrome, geared completely to Google and Google products.

Tip #8: Going to a foreign country? Do current monetary conversions.

Simply key the following into the search box – 23000 yen in US dollars – and Google will return a quick conversion: 23 000 Japanese yen = 196.68197 U.S. dollars. If you’re headed to Asia, this is invaluable and easy.

Tip #9: Check on flights and airports.

Do you want to find out if a flight is delayed or if an airport is having weather problems? Here’s an easy way to find out before you start surfing and calling. Type in the airport number for instance PHL Airport and search. The first link that pops up will take you to the AIRPORT STATUS INFORMATION which is provided by the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center. The status information provided on this site indicates general airport conditions… It also provides a link to a Glossary of Air Traffic Management Terms if you need clarification.

Check on the flight is just as simple. Type the following “United 134″ as an example and Google will return Track status of United Airlines flight 134 with links to Travelocity, Track status on Travelocity – Expedia – fboweb.com.

Tip #10: Google tracks Fedex, UPS and USPS packages

If you have a tracking number type it in and Google will return the latest information on your package:

- UPS tracking numbers example search: “1Z9999W99999999999″

- FedEx tracking numbers example search: “999999999999″

- USPS tracking numbers example search: “9999 9999 9999 9999 9999 99″

Google also has a spell checking option which automatically looks at your query and checks to see if everything is spelled right. Did you ever “sort of” know how to spell a famous person’s name? Google’s spellchecking is based on the number occurrences of all words on the Internet, so it is able to suggest common spellings for proper nouns (names and places) that might not appear in a standard spell check program or dictionary. You can also use it as a spell checker in a way.

Word Speller: If you type in a word that you kind of know how spell, Google will return “Did you mean: spell aardvark” It’s not a dictionary, but it is a quick way to get words you already have an idea how it’s spelled.

Google has a wealth of other features which I haven’t even touched on yet. I encourage you to click on the I’M FEELING LUCKY which give you results, check out the Advanced Search which gives you many more choices and links, Language Tools which has a small translater with a good number of languages and an option to add yours. There’s even a language called “Bork, bork, bork!” Go find out what it is. It’s all quite interesting and will greatly expand your Google mindset. There is a lot more you can do with Google than the tips I’ve outlined. Check out my website link to their features page for a complete look at Google features. And even though they have a lot of features listed, I keep finding other ways to use Google. I think of this search engine as a creative entity constantly growing.

Free report on the new Google Chrome Web Browser

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Judith_Brandy

In theory, it is simple – if you have something interesting to someone else, if you build a website with the honest to goodness goal to provide something useful for someone else, that someone else will find you. That is also how the creators of Google describe their main goal, to more or less have a great repository of information, and help people of our planet find useful stuff.

In practice, it is not that simple. It is not that simple because there are thousands, possibly even millions of sites like yours, because you might be running a very honest online business, selling some very useful product, but do not have unheard of, exceptionally grand ‘content’. If your site is listed on page 265 of a search results set, be sure you will never get any visitors that way.

Unlike Yahoo and others, who rely on human involvement, Google does everything through automation. Websites are indexed (or crawled, or spidered – all terms refer to the same process) by their indexing software called Googlebot. Googlebot looks at websites daily, and rules programmed into the software decide which of your pages make it into the main Google index and which don’t. After your site was indexed, whether it was submitted for indexing by a human or the robot just stumbled upon it, your pages are ranked, so Google knows on which page of a search to put your site on, and on what search phrases should your site even be part of the result search.

The Googlebot is very smart and works really well. Keep in mind however, that is just a piece of software, a very sophisticated one, but it’s just a computer program. Consequently, it has a set of algorithms (rules) it uses to index web site content (information), a set of capabilities (as I said before, Googlebot is really intelligent) and a set of limitations. As such, there is an impressive number of ways in which one can trip up the Googlebot and make it impossible for it to index your content. Alternately, the Googlebot can index your site well, and then people will find it when searching for words it contains.

This article will try to teach you all the basics necessary to achieve consistency and persistency in Google, starting with the very basic step: getting indexed by Googlebot, Google’s indexing robot.

1. Read Google’s own Webmaster Guidelines

The people behind Google seem to have two main things down to a science: One, most of their algorithms (rules) are so secret, that all us non-Google employees do is speculate. Two, their guidelines are very simple, direct and precise. Following their guidelines will never hurt your site’s ranking. Disregarding their guidelines can and probably will hurt you in the long run. So go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html and read what Google has to say about itself.

2. Have text links.

Make every single page on your site accessible via a text-based link, as opposed to Javascript, Flash, DHTML (Dynamic HTML), etc. Googlebot’s native language is text.
Google says: “Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.”

This is probably the number one key to your site’s existence in Google. Googlebot is actually a robotic, browser-like software, based on the venerable Lynx browser. The reasoning behind this approach is that the creators are trying to get as close as possible to emulating human browsing, making sure your website is actually human friendly. Consequently, by downloading Lynx on your computer and looking at your site through Lynx (http://lynx.isc.org), you will see more or less exactly the information Googlebot can read and index and the links Googlebot can follow. You will also see HTML errors on your pages and places where a robot would be stuck and could not reach the rest of your site.

I know it is very unfair to those of us who understand and love the potential of websites built completely in Flash, or other engines. However, until the nice folks who run Google figure out a good way to crawl inside a Flash file and extract the appropriate information, we are stuck with standard HTML.

This is not to say that you cannot make your site really pretty and fill it with Java Script and Flash eye candy. But you must have regular text and standard text links. Usually you can achieve the desired effect by having extra navigation menus based on standard text links.

3. Avoid frames.

Avoid frames at all cost. If you must use them (for example to make someone else’s page look like it’s part of your site), do not use them on your front page.

Frames are like the plague, they sneak up on you. It is incredibly easy to lose Googlebot’s tracks inside a badly formatted frameset. You might hear that some of the robots, including Google’s Googlebot and Yahoo’s Slurp are quickly gaining capabilities to go inside frames properly. My philosophy is, until a feature becomes ubiquitous, if you’re uncertain, leave it in the closet.

4. Keep the number of links on a given page less than 100.

This comes straight from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines: “Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).”

This looks more like a suggestion and I am not 100% sure if you get penalized in any way or if Googlebot just stops reading your links after 100. I can however tell you from personal experience that I tried a page with 700 links and it seemed fine. Then one day I tried to view the page from my Blackberry PDA and I got this strange error message saying my page is illegally formatted. After I split the page into several ones with 80 links each, the pages worked on the PDA also.

Who cares about the Blackberry? Well, if you’re reading this and your goal is to get visitors, then your main concern should be not to alienate anyone. Remember, today more than ever, people use different devices and different software to access the web. Every visitor is a potential customer. Every employee at a major US lawfirm and many other corporate people use a Blackberry.

Lastly, why would you need that many links on one page anyway? Let’s say, for example, that you specialize in promotional products – corporate branded gifts, such as pens, caps, mints and other products (called sometimes ‘premiums’) imprinted with one’s logo. Your name is John Doe, and you decided to name your company JDPromos (not very imaginative, but will do for our examples). You would want to have every item in your catalog as a text link, so every item gets indexed as a link and as a keyword. Also, those who run forums, ezines, blogs, might want to have standard links to their articles, as the software they use might create dynamic links, invisible to certain robots.

5. Give every page a meaningful title.

Give every single page on the site a complete and meaningful title. This is also directly from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. See Rule #1.

Incidentally, for those who are fascinated by the debates on the death of the Meta Tags, the
<title></title>
tag is not a Meta Tag, but a required element for every page.

The “title” tag is supported by every web creation tool out there, and goes in the header of a web page (between the “head” and the “/head” tags).

Google offers the ‘allintitle’ syntax, which lets users search only text that appears in a page title. A lot of people who integrate a Google bar into their websites allow users to get results only by title. There are over 29 million results returned for Untitled Document.

Most of us – myself included – copy and paste template pages, out of the convenience of not having to recreate all design elements from scratch. If you do so, do not forget to change the title.

Make sure your title is not just a list of keywords and that it is related to the actual content of the page. Google can and will check that, before deciding on your page’s ‘relevance’.

6. Do not place important text inside images.

Google says: “Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.”

It is very tempting to create images with text inside them, for the very simple reason that as designers, we are not limited to the very few font (type) options that basic HTML allows. Also, different browsers tend to display things differently nowadays, so it is much easier to create a text image, which will be shown consistently and not worry about styles, operating systems, etc.

7. Use descriptive “ALT” tags.

The “ALT” tag is used as a text alternative (hence the name) for images and image links and was designed so that text browsers (such as Lynx) do not just display a generic ‘Image’ for every picture link you might have. If all your links say ‘Image’, how would a potential visitor know what they are?

Make sure that the text description is meaningful and accurate. Take our promotional items company as an example. Let’s say they have a picture of a tradeshow display, as an example of a service they provide outside the ordinary imprinted mint boxes, calculators and keychains. If the “ALT” tag only says “display”, that is what Googlebot will see and index. If the tag says something like “example of a tradeshow display design”, that is certainly more useful and more Googlebot friendly.

Please note that although the “ALT” tag does count and Google seems to put a high price on this tag, it ranks lower than plain text.

8. Use meaningful descriptions for links

With the risk of sounding like a scratched CD, I’ll have to say this again: Whether you use picture links or text links, please use meaningful text inside your tags so that Googlebot can associate that text with that href link.

In other words, let’s pretend again that we are designing that website for that imaginary promotional items company we called JDPromos. If you intend to put a link to a set of sample coffee mugs promos, say something like “link to JDPromos samples of branded coffee mugs”, not just “coffee mugs”, or even worse, “click here for pictures”. Never use link text like “read more” or “go here” or “download it”, “click here”, “don’t click here”, you get the picture – I hope.

Don’t try to fool the Googlebot with hidden links or duplicate content or irrelevant pages of words like “sex” and “hot girls.” The Googlebot doesn’t like being played and you will be penalized, one way or another, in the long run.

9. Use a “description” tag for every page

Include a

<meta name=”description” content=”[insert your site's description here]“>

tag in your page header to summarize your site. Use a meaningful one or two sentence description, do not keyword spam.

Even better, include descriptive text on the site’s front page where users can actually read it. This text will appear as the description for your site in Google results.

Place more important content higher in the page than less important content in a page, Google does categorize text on a page based on it’s position, text at the bottom of a page is considered less important, or ‘relevant’, to use one of Google’s own terms.

10. Use short query strings

Use URLs with query strings sparingly, if at all possible. Query strings are also called dynamic pages. You can usually recognize dynamic pages by the presence of the “?” character. Keep in mind that the shorter the list of query string parameters, the better. Be aware that not every search engine robot can crawl dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.

11. Never use the “&id=” parameter

If you must use query strings, or dynamic pages, never use the “&id=” parameter as part of the string.

I know this might sound ridiculous, as it might be hard or impossible for you not to use the “&id=” parameter, but if you are a programmer and you can change the variable’s name, replace “id” with something else. Otherwise, Googlebot will just skip that page.

Google says: “Don’t use “&id=” as a parameter in your URLs, as we don’t include these pages in our index.”

12. Use robots.txt

Use robots.txt to show the Googlebot around your site. This ancient and very standard mechanism for directing well-behaved robots like the Googlebot will allow you to specify places where the robot is not welcome, whether for privacy reasons, or for reasons of avoiding Google penalties. You might want to keep the robot away from your cgi-bin directory and other places you maybe don’t want available to the entire searching population of the globe. Remember this is a guideline, not a barrier, robots that are not programmed to comply, will disregard. Bottom line, use the robots.txt to guide Googlebot, but not to enforce strict security.

Google says: “Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled.”

13. Make a sitemap

A site map is just a page on your website where you guide your users through the structure of your site. The most basic form of sitemap is a page that lists all of your pages, with a brief description and a link – all text, of course. When you make the sitemap, follow all the rules above and don’t forget that the purpose of the sitemap is to guide your human visitor.

Google says: “Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.”

14. Use the Google Sitemaps project

At the time of this writing, the fastest, best and most accurate way to make sure your site is properly crawled and indexed by Googlebot is to participate in the Google Sitemaps project.

In a nutshell, you make a sitemap as an XML page and submit it directly to Google. Google then sends Googlebot to index your site. Besides the speedy free submission, you also get a good amount of statistics and the opportunity to fix potential errors in your site.

Please note that the XML sitemap needed for the Google Sitemap project is intended specifically for Googlebot, and is different from the sitemap described in the previous Rule, which is intended solely for human users.

Also, do not be afraid of XML, Google’s sitemap is a very simple text file and they give you all the necessary information and directions at: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps

Good luck!

—
Andrei co-owns Bsleek – a company that specializes in web design, hosting, promotional items, printing, tradeshow displays, logos, CD presentations, SEO and more. Andrei has amassed an extensive technical knowledge and experience through his career as the CIO for a major travel management company and through his past careers in military research, data acquisition and airspace engineering. He also consults for Trinity Investigations, a New York based PI firm.

—
Bsleek – Redefining cheap web hosting [http://www.bsleek.com/hosting/]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrei_Smith

Everyone is aware that every month, there are changes made in the search positioning rankings. In fact, everyone is hanging around anxiously and excitedly over how their web site would fare against thousands of competitions for a high Google ranking.

These changes, everyone knows, are also the result of the latest update in the Google Algorythms. The changes in Google’s algorythm affect the customer web sites or those websites indexed in Google. This latest Google news on the Algorythm change ensues by MVI marketing support team.

In connection with this, MVI tweak client sites to take the opportunity of the new Google algoythms. The changes determine the new site rank positioning of the web sites.

However, because Google control the Algorythms in the ranking, they also have control of its results and easily sidle up their clients into top ranks.

Google indeed has control of the Algorythm and is decisive on the web sites’ ranking in their database. Free services or charge-nothing site listing often do whatever they wish. Google is quite an expert in this kind of subtle “manipulation.” In addition, they will not deny this to people in the SEO arena.

The latest Google Scoop

You might feel that Google guards their Algorythm updates secretly and you will not know them until Google loads them up at the target month. Now, SEO people, out there, here are some of the Google SEO updates you will come to expect in September 2006! Check them out!

Google SEO’s focus for the new algorythm in September 2006 is solely based on links. Its main goal is to drive on how Google uses links.

Before long, September will be along and this scoop comes from the Google information to their staff on how to understand the necessary Google algorythm changes to be done so that they can react immediately once the changes are done.

Google Bombing – recent Google algorythm strategy

The most recent strategy introduced on September is the “Google Bombing. It will result into having a multitude of web pages with the same links and with the same key phrase used within the text links, all pointing back at the same page within a web site. If you are worrying over the low traffic turn out of your web sites, even if they have relatively high page ranks, these Google Bombs will be an incredible and effective way of building you site traffic.

This strategy has two versions:

1. The first version can be run by websites on their own.

2. The second one can be used for humorous and malicious purposes.

In all likelihood, the Google Bombs may create the same effect for your website what affected George Bush when people bombed the phrase “MISERABLE FAILURE” and pointed all links to George Bush.

You know, as a fact, that when users key in the phrase, miserable failure, the search inevitably redirects you to the White House Website! What’s more, the users are even automatically redirected to the biography of George Bush.

How can Google Bombs become possible?

This Google SEO trick is very possible to happen and effectively benefit your site. Every SEO personage knows that Google does not only search the web page contents of the web sites. They also count how often a site is linked to and the link texts used.

Online community members affect the results of Google searches. Google Bombing trick will most likely be affected by these main criteria of Google in searching web sites. To take advantage of this, start linking your web sites to chosen locations.

Don’t you know that the Google’s search engine results can be manipulated? You just need a small group of users, like you, with web sites that link the link text you use in as few as 32 web pages. Well, now you do know.

If you are a marketer that represents a company-based web site, then you can also do this trick and gain advantages for your web site, and actual company, too. Your company’s affiliate program, introduced on your website can play up well. Have those affiliates and other related company’s link to you with identical text within the links.

Once you get enough, Google will be led to believe that your company’s web site is well recommended on a particular subject. You might even bag the top 1 ranking because of this tactic.

If you feel that your web site really needs a boost in its web traffic, then you might consider early on shifting strategies. By the time, September 2006 comes and Google introduces its Google Algorythms updates, full hilt, you will be ready.

Mary Murtha has BLS and M. Div degrees majoring in biblical studies and ethics. For more information about Google News [http://www.bestgoogleinfo.com/Articles/Google_News.php] and Google Search Appliance [http://www.bestgoogleinfo.com/Articles/Google_News.php] visit: Best Google Info [http://www.bestgoogleinfo.com]

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mary_Murtha

Google seems destined to dominate the web (aka Shades of
Big Brother) for years to come… keeping a close eye
on all our Internet activity with large databases
tracking our every (abiet aggregate) move. Since privacy
has become an antiqued and obsolete word in our ever
increasing public world, this can be very disconcerting.
And it is not just the web, Google is branching out in
so many directions, it will play a major role in our
daily lives off-line as well as online.

Regardless of whether you love or hate Google, you must
not ignore the importance it will play in the success of
your website or sites. As a webmaster you must take full
advantage of what Google offers or face an uphill battle.
As an online marketer it would be just as unwise not to
explore all avenues of this gentle giant.

Years ago, I joined the Google Adsense program where
webmasters place the targeted Adsense advertising code
on their webpages in order to receive a small share of the
advertising revenue. It changed forever how I viewed Google.

As a struggling webmaster and marketer, I have to admit,
receiving those Monthly commission checks from Google
was a Godsend. They still are. Acquiring a high PageRank
and receiving all that free targeted Google traffic is an
even greater Godsend. It has put my sites in the black and
keeps them producing revenue, month after month.

Google presents a legitimate way of monetising your site
or sites. It gives you a monthly cash flow that covers your
hosting fees and provides you with a monthly income from
your sites. It can be a great starting point for anyone wishing
to earn an online income. Google must be explored and utilized
to give you this monthly income.

Regular readers will know I like to keep things simple, as
simple as possible.

So lets put to one side the very complicated and risky
endeavor of using Google Adwords advertising to bring
targeted traffic to your site for this usually takes some
training and skill to get right. In other words, you have
to know exactly what you’re doing or you may lose a lot
of money. However, if you want to learn more about this
advanced Google profit system, the best resource is still
Chris Carpenter’s Google Cash.

But for now, lets keep things real simple. I always take the
simplest route where possible.

Google Cash File

I keep a very popular page on my site called Google Cash File
– it explains my simple methods of working Google to bring
in a monthly income. Just simple steps you can take to earn
money from Google. You can find the link to this Google page
in the Resource Box below. Granted, you can spend money
on info products and software but you don’t have to, I started
with all free information and worked my way up. As I earned more
income, I invested some of it in good software like Brad Callen’s
Keyword Elite… but again, you can use all free programs
and resources to earn money from Google.

Here are four revenue sources from Google that I use:

Google Adsense I use Google Adsense code on all my webpages…
visitors click on these targeted Adsense ads and I earn a small
percentage of the ad revenue.

I also earn by marketing three Google Referral Products through
the Adsense program:

Adsense Referral I get $100 for each referral I make to Google,
as long as that referral joins Adsense and earns at least $100.

Google Firefox Bar I earn $1 for each referral that downloads
the Firefox Browser and then uses the Google Search Bar. Might not
sound like much, but this quickly adds up.

Adwords Referral Google will pay me $20 for each Adwords
referral that spends $100 on Adwords advertising within 90 days.
Another good revenue stream.

If you have a popular site and promote these three Google
referral products along with the Adsense code, you will be
surprised at how much extra income you can earn each month.
Granted, Google is no way as generous as most of my other affiliate
programs I promote with my sites but Google is an Easy Sell!
People trust Google, people respect Google, but more importantly
– people like using anything Google. This factor simply means
more money for you if you take full advantage of Google’s referral
products.

In the resource box below you will find a link to a page
where I have listed all the techniques and methods I use to put
Google products on my pages to earn that monthly income.
Again, these are very simple steps you can take to make Google
pay you each month… so what’s keeping you from turning that
Big Brother into a wealthy Uncle (aka Cash Cow) who sends you a
generous allowance each month. It doesn’t get any easier than this.

Everyone is profiting for Google, find out how you can too! Click here: Google Cash File Copyright © 2006 Titus Hoskins. Get a Free Desktop Calendar & Planner. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Titus_Hoskins

But if you knew what I do, you’d realize that there are tools provided by the search engine that help you learn more about your traffic, and may even help drive visitors to your site.

Here are five ways that Google provides free traffic assistance.

#1 – Google will Help Your Pages Get Discovered with Google Sitemaps
[https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login]

Google Sitemaps is a program that gives you the opportunity to present your site’s pages to Google in XML or text. Google will then come by and spider the pages, getting you indexed faster.

Take note that this doesn’t necessarily mean that your pages will be listed for your favorite keywords, only that discovery will take place a lot faster than with manual submission. Google Sitemaps will also give you some basic site stats if you verify your site, such as the top keywords for discovery, errors it found when crawling, and the types of documents at your site.

If you find compiling your sitemap for Google in the correct format difficult, try the SOFTplus GSiteCrawler Google Sitemap generator. It’s my favorite Sitemap generator, free and easy to use.

#2 – Google Will Talk To You and Your Webmaster In His or Her Native Tongue or Plain English with the Webmaster Section
http://www.google.com/webmasters/

The Google Information Page for Webmasters should be your first stop when you want to know more about anything that has to do with your site and its relationship to Google and any of its many flavors of search such as Froogle. Particularly for new site owners or operators, checking this page first has saved many from needless anxiety.

Most of the basic information is in straightforward language, with links to details for geeks like me.

#3 – Google will Tell You What It Knows with Web Page Information

If you type info:yoursite.com into Google, Google will tell show you a page that has your link at the top of the page, with a short description, and the following phrase “Google can show you the following information for this URL”.

This special page compiles several queries about your site including pages that contain your URL (all the pages Google knows of that are linked to you).

#4 – Google will Help You Analyze Your Traffic with Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/

After a recent purchase of Urchin Stats, a free online version has been made available, and re-branded as Google Analytics. This cookie-based invisible visitor tracker can give you information that go a bit beyond standard stats such as bounce rates, visitor loyalty, keyword discovery results for a single day, click paths through your site, and page views per visit.

With the ability to analyze your traffic, you can help learn where the holes in your site are, and how to keep them on your site for longer periods of time, as well as better ways to steer a visit towards a specific action, such as a subscription. Results come in flavors for the executive and the search marketer alike.

There’s currently a waiting list to use Google Analytics due to popular demand.

#5 – Google Will Advise On Getting the Most from Your Traffic with Conversion University
[http://www.google.com/analytics/conversionuniversity.html]

Google Analytics also has two content sections that are available to all, called Conversion University. While the articles are decidedly slanted towards AdWords users, a prudent read yields many clues that can be applied to preparing for visitors who arrive through organic search discovery. One reference area is called “Driving Traffic”, the other “Converting Visitors.”

At the end of the day, the process by which your site gets ranked in Google search engine results is a computation of a complex algorithm, which means Google – the search engine – really isn’t capable of being your best friend or your worst enemy.

Meanwhile, Google – the company – also provides access to resources that will help give your site a fighting chance.

Is it possible to build a site that withstands the search engine updates? Join the speculation at http://www.freetraffictip.com/algorithm-proof.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tinu_Abayomi-Paul