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Came across this really good checklist for optimising a website. The Beginner’s Checklist for Small Business SEO

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimisation

Remember all the talk about the founder of Wikipedia looking to build a human-powered search engine which took place some time last year? Well, looks like an alpha version of the search engine has been released and it is called wikia search.

Although in the About page it was mentioned that ‘What you see here is our first alpha release. We are aware that the quality of the search results is low.‘, Wikia has been receiving some honest but harsh reviews since it went live. Michael Arrington from Techcrunch openly admitted that he is completely let down by the product.

Michael’s review at Techcrunch created quite a bit of buzz and there are some interesting debates going on about the whole thing. Some say the approach was to build it quick and release it often (which, by the way, is also one of the tips I learned from Web Directions South 2007), while others say given all the hype and wait that it has caused, the release should have been better.

My opinion? I did a few searches and while I can’t say I am happy with the search results that I was returned nor was I impressed with the usability, I think given time, and right amount of effort from its community, wikia search will eventually perform to its full potential.

Technorati Tags: search, search engine, wikia, reviews, web 2.0, human-powered

I have heard of Google Custom Search Engine since a few months ago, but not until recently I gave a good attention and decided to set one up for this blog. Setting up is really simple and it can be done just in a matter of seconds. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to set up a Google Custom Search Engine for your website:

1. Login to your Google account
2. Go to Google Custom Search Engine homepage
3. Click on “Create a custom search engine button” and it will take you to a form
4. Fill in all the relevant details into the form and click “Next”
5. Provided that there was no error, you will be presented with a “Preview and Congratulations” page. Click “Finish”.
6. Now, to personalise the look and feel of the search engine you just created, go to Manage your existing search engines page.
7. You will see the search engine you just created listed under “My Search Engines”. Click on “Control Panel”.
8. When you are in “Control Panel” page, click on “Look and Feel” link from the top navigation. It allows you to customise the style of your search results pages to match your site.
9. When you are happy fiddling around with the style and have saved the changes, click on “Code” link from the top navigation to get the source code to put into your site
10. Choose “Host results on a non-Google site using an: iframe – requires two pages: one for the search box and another for the results” option
11. Create a new page in your website, name it “Search” and upload it to your web server (If you are using WordPress, login to WordPress Admin, click on Write -> New Page and publish it).
13. Put the URL of the page you just created into URL field provided under “Specify search results details” section
14. You will notice that source code for “Search box code” and “Search results code” are updated on the fly with the URL you put into the URL field
15. Although Google says you need two pages for the iframe option, you can actually get away with just one page. Copy and paste both “Search box code” and “Search results code” into the search page you created earlier in Step 11.
16. Make necessary changes such as the width of the textbox in “Search box code” [input type="text" name="q" size="25"] or the width of the search result iframe in “Search results code” [var googleSearchFrameWidth = 600].
17. Once you are happy with everything, upload the page back to your web server (or republish the page if you are using WordPress).
18. And that’s it - you now have a Google Custom Search Engine perfectly integrated into your website!

The thing I love about Google Custom Search Engine is that it can be integrated with other google products such as iGoogle, Adsense and Analytics, which means you could add the search engine to your google homepage, make money from it, or keep track of what people are looking for on your site.

Google Custom Search Engine rocks! Have a look at the google custom search engine I created for this blog.

Screenshots

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Back in 2000 when I was a humble college student, Yahoo! Search was my all-time-favourite search engine, followed by Altavista. That was until I discovered google and I haven’t looked back since.

But today, after reading a post on Techcrunch titled Yahoo Search Just Got Smarter, it prompted me to check out Yahoo! Search again. The post, by the way, is well-written and it highlights the new and improved features which are recently added to Yahoo! Search.

So now I hear you asking, “what are the major differences to the previous Yahoo! Search?”. The major differences are the new version is more intelligent in that it now has a built-in search assistant (similar to Google suggest but with Explore Concepts section where you can examine related keywords/concepts) and a guided search which leads you to any other relevant sections within Yahoo! network. To quote Erick Schonfeld (the author of Yahoo Search Just Got Smarter):

Do a search for a restaurant or hotel, and results from Yahoo Local come out on top, with links to maps, ratings, and reviews. Type in “bourne ultimatum,” and the top result is a widget from Yahoo Movies with a trailer you can click on, audience reviews, and show times nearest you. Search for “Vancouver,” and the top result is a widget from Yahoo Travel, with links to a guide, hotels, restaurants, flights, and maps. Type in “digital camera,” and you get shortcut results from Yahoo Shopping.

I think Yahoo! has done a great job with the new features, and while I will still be using google as my primary search engine, I might be using Yahoo! Search a little more often now that they have these cool additions.

Technorati Tags: yahoo, yahoo search, search engine, google

While reading a 100 things we didn’t know this time last year on BBC, I learned that “Restaurant” is the most mis-spelled word in search engines. That prompted me to do a research on the subject of misspelled words in search engines, and hence, this post was born.

On Wednesday May 23, 2007, Yahoo! Buzz has published a post on the twenty most misspelled searches on Yahoo! search engine.

1. Wallmart (Wal-Mart)
2. Rachel Ray (Rachael Ray)
3. Amtrack (Amtrak)
4. Hillary Duff (Hilary Duff)
5. Katherine McPhee (Katharine McPhee)
6. Britany Spears (Britney Spears)
7. Geneology (Genealogy)
8. Jaime Pressley (Jaime Pressly)
9. Volkswagon (Volkswagen)
10. Wikepedia (Wikipedia)
11. William Sonoma (Williams-Sonoma)
12. Tatoo (Tattoo)
13. Travelosity (Travelocity)
14. Elliot Yamin (Elliott Yamin)
15. Kiera Knightley (Keira Knightley)
16. Kelly Pickler (Kellie Pickler)
17. Brittney Spears (Britney Spears)
18. Avril Lavinge (Avril Lavigne)
19. Rianna (Rihanna)
20. Jordan Sparks (Jordin Sparks)

With an exception of people and brand names, Genealogy and Tattoo seem to be often misspelled.

If you are interested in this subject, check out yourDictionary.com because they have a library of the 100 most often mispelled misspelled words in English.

Sidenotes:
I often misspell amateur, apparent, cemetery, conscience, exhilarate, jewelry, liaison, privilege, rhythm, and yes the list goes on. What about you? What are the words that you often misspell?

Technorati Tags: misspelled words, spelling, mistakes, search engine, searches, keywords