Yesterday I decided to try the new Wikia Search Engine and it was a very dissappointing experience. It has no database to speak of. Very flawed and completely irrelevant.

I can’t even give it a complete review here as I was so unpleased with the website.

Jimmy Wales…please go back and do what you do well and leave the search engines to the professionals.

Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales has brought the Wikipedia ethos to his very own internet search engine. But he insists it will be far more trustworthy than search sites offered by Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft.

Today, Jimbo’s for-profit Wikia operation takes the wraps off a beta version of Wikia Search, a search engine that allows everyone and their brother to control what turns up when you type in a keyword. Users have the power to "rate" search results, and as time goes on, these ratings will be used to tweak results accordingly.

As The New York Times points out, this means that anyone on earth has the power to rig Wikia Search in much the same way they can rig Wikipedia. But – as usual – Jimbo is adamant that if anyone tries to game the system, his minions will "block them, ban them, delete their stuff."

We have no doubt that Wikia will have a field day blocking, banning, and deleting all sorts of people, places, and things. The question is whether Jimbo’s blinkered followers will crack down on their friends in the same way they crack down on those who don’t know the secret handshake.

After all, this is hardly the case at Wikipedia.

Nonetheless, Jimbo insists that his "democratic" model is somehow a better bet than what goes on over at Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. "I think it is unhealthy for the citizens of the world that so much of our information is controlled by such a small number of players, behind closed doors," he told The New York Times. "We really have no ability to understand and influence that process."

We would argue the opposite: The Wales mentality is far more dangerous simply because Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft don’t go around telling people that everything they do has a "neutral point of view."

Google is also toying with an "editable" search engine. But at least Brin, Page, and company have the good sense to keep it away from the John Q. Public – and to stop short of using edits to influence search results at large.

In any event, Jimbo is intent on making some money from his project, something he’s been unable to do with the Wikipedia, which is run by the officially not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Wikia also serves up Wikipedia-like info on all sorts of random subjects, and according to The New York Times, the company has already raked in $14m in venture capital – with $10m of that coming from Amazon.

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Sometimes I get so busy dealing with my international clients that I forget where I live. Today I was browsing a few of the Filipino sites that I read and came across Marc Macalua’s blog.  For those of you that don’t know Marc, he is a very highly respected SEO and founder of SEO Philippines.

Seems like I’ve missed another opportunity to join one of the local SEO contests, since the contest has already begun and the first checkpoint is right around the corner.

Best of luck to all the contestants! I’ll get in on the next one.

Great job, Marc!

By the way, the mispelling of Philipines (one P) was intentional…experimenting.

I am very proud to announce that my company, DCGWS Internet Solutions, is launching a brand-new service line, E-Commerce Websites & Shopping Carts to it’s already successful services, such as Web Design & Development, Search Engine Optimization, and Web Hosting Solutions.

We are offering complete turn-key solutions, including E-Commerce Hosting, Payment Gateway Integration, Shopping Cart Customizations, and even international Merchant Solutions.

Please feel free to browse around our demo sites, for functionality and look and feel of our solutions.

Coming soon…http://www.easy-shopping-carts.com 

How important is it to have original and quality content on every page of your website? In my opinion, this is the single most important aspect of Search Engine Optimization and website conversion. Let’s face it, if you own a website, then targeted traffic is what your main goal is, or should be. I am going to address this issue in two sections: Search Engine Optimization and Landing Page Conversion.

Search Engine Optimization

In case you haven’t yet noticed, Google recently removed the Supplemental Results tag from their search results for websites using the site: operator. When this was still being used, it was a useful tool used by many webmasters to identify and fix problems with their website. I’ve seen alot of complaints about this recent move by Google, so maybe they will bring it back. If not, it will be more important than ever to make sure that before you put a webpage online verify that all the text on that page is different from other pages in your website. This does not only apply to your main content area, but also your sidebars and footers. This is especially difficult with Content Management Systems such as WordPress and Joomla. You should have only one HTML navigation system on your webpage or if you like to use two, have one set of links at the top or on one of the columns (i.e. Home, Products, Services, Contact Us) and your less viewed informational links in your footer (i.e. Privacy, TOS, Sitemap). If you use Flash for your navigation, then it is acceptable to also have this in HTML in your footer.

I recently was asked to analyze a website that has original, informative content in his main content area, yet in his left and right columns the same advertising and promotional text was used as “fillers” on every page of his site. As a result, most of those pages have dropped out of Google’s main search index and his only recourse as I see it  is to replace the duplicate content with original, relevant content, rename those pages, do a Redirect 410 to the old pages, and then wait and hope they will be indexed and become ranked.

From the search engine point of view, it is much better to have 5-10 pages of original, relevant content than 200-1000 pages of repeated content. In the case of the latter, the majority of those pages will be removed from the main index and probably will not generate much traffic.

Landing Page Conversion

A visitor to your website does not want to read the same information over and over again. With each click of the mouse, the visitor wants new and unique information about your website: what you sell, where you are located, and why he should choose you over the rest of your competetion. If he sees the same information over and over again with each click of his mouse, you are wasting his time and yours. Chances are the visitor will just move on and find what he is looking for elsewhere. You’ve just lost a lead!

If you write clear, original content on your webpage, optimize it well for the search engine, and people can find you for that information through a search engine, they might just click to other pages of your website. Maybe they will even find their way to your order or contact page. Remember the Kevin Costner movie from several years back. A very true phrase was coined “Built it and they will come.” But, you have to build it right or they may never return.

On April 30, 2007, Google made public is regular update of it’s PageRank Toolbar. Although you will probably not notice much change in the way your site is indexed, the next PR update can’t be too far off now. My best guess is that it will take place anywhere from the last week in July up to the second week in August. The snapshot that Google uses in the export is normally (estimated)  about 3-5 weeks before the actual export.

This site currently has around 800 high quality BL from authoritative websites, many of those from Pr5 & Pr6 pages. I anticipate at least 20 interor pages with a PR3 or better.

Depending on the quality of your website or blog site, Google can make or break you. If you perform less than ethical modifications to your website, you could pay penalties for those modifications. If you provide or promise to provide a service that you cannot or will not deliver, the customer will (or at least he should) complain. Often times those complaints become publicized; either by the offended party or by the person receiving the complaint.

We that engage in e-commerce activities must realize that this very same medium that generates our income, could easily become the medium that brings about our downfall.

My company will NEVER accept clients that we feel are illegal or unethical in their practices. If we are unethical in our practices, in the ways that we speak to our clients, in our internal policies, we can and should be punished for those actions.

I am a service provider. I provide my services at a charge to my client. Many times my clients pay me in advance, trusting that I will provide the promised service. If I fail to provide that service, if I refuse to refund a dissatisfied customer, I must understand that my client will voice his or her objections.

When I refuse to listen to and act upon a complaint, I make it difficult for other e-commerce services providers. The internet is full of lies and  half-truths. If I contribute to those half-truths, I am making the internet an even less-truthworthy and reliable avenue for business.

This is why I voice my concerns when I have reason to believe that an online “organization” is being abusive to their customers.

I am fair and honest in all my business transactions. My clients know me and have respect for my decisions.

I may not earn a million dollars this year, but every single dollar that I earn will have been earned honestly and transparently…

Well, it seems that I have been sponsored by someone for free advertising. If you type essaytown into Google’s search, on the right there is a sponsored result for a posting I made concerning a controversial comment I received from someone claiming to represent Essaytown.com.

Well, to whoever is paying Google to send me traffic, thanks!

Would you spend $5 million for a domain name? Obviously Dave Bascom would, and did. Read SEOBlog by Matt Siltala for his insights on this remarkable purchase.

Who is Dave Bascom? Internet Marketing Guru from Utah.