eGram

Posted: 26 Jul 2010 at 15:06

Google's Algorithm changes...

Not an overly inspiring start to this eGram, but important for those with half an eye, or a full 2 eyes, on how their site is being referenced by Google and found by searchers. Google's spokesman for page rankings has confirmed that, at the end of May, the company made TWO major, permanent changes seeking to return "higher quality" search results.

First, they have a new infrastructure, called 'Caffeine', which offers them a far far greater processing power. They have always crawled the web to discover new content constantly, but the impact of new content could take 2 weeks to 1 month to take effect. 'Caffeine' gives them the overhead to factor in new content and new links (PageRank) constantly.

This has been driven by the huge takeup of Social Media and the 'real time' element of search. They have for some time included Tweets in their results pages; this is the next step. They want the latest on everything, so having a blog and an effective presence on sites like Twitter is very important now.

The second change is how they deal with what are called 'long tail' (more specific) queries. This is still ongoing and subject to revision, but it looks like the importance of natural, varied text on the page (using synonyms around the keywords rather than just repeating the keywords), and making sure that internal pages link to each other wherever appropriate — again with a natural variation in the terms used — has received a boost. The consensus seems to be that this has been taken a step too far and needs to be scaled back a little. What is being seen at the moment is that more relevant pages from less well-linked sites are being outranked by less relevant pages from better-linked sites.

My view is that small/medium companies should, as a minimum, maintain a presence on Twitter and a regular blog. Google is looking for fresh and regularly updated content, and both these elements are an easy means to generate feed for the Google monster.

Everyone of working age online by 2015

The 'Digital Tsar', Martha Lane Fox, has announced plans to get everyone of working age in the UK using the web within five years. Lane Fox said that she found that more than 90 per cent of all new jobs need basic internet skills and seven million jobs were advertised online last year, but that 'Ten million of us in the UK have never used the internet - the equivalent of the entire populations of our five biggest cities combined - London, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow and Sheffield - all being left without the tool that we now heavily rely on every day.'

Worldwide, we send 55m tweets via Twitter a day. In the UK alone, 25m of us are on Facebook. 16m people watch TV or listen to the radio via the web. Millions of us now use sites like Meetup.com to get together offline in our local communities.

- 3.1m over-65s go more than a week without seeing a friend, family or neighbour and half of all internet users say the web increases contact with friends who live further away. Yet 6.4m over-65s have never used the internet, with 63% of them saying they 'see no reason' to get online.

- 90% of new jobs require computer skills. Seven million job adverts were placed online in the UK last year. Without web skills you're increasingly cut off from the labour market. Yet 270,000 of the 1.5m people claiming Jobseekers Allowance of £0.8bn a year are without these basic skills.

- 58% of us buy goods and services online in the UK and the average household saves £560 a year by shopping and paying bills online. To give over-65s the same amount that the average household saves from shopping and paying bills online via the State Pension would cost Government £6bn a year."

 

iPad

I bought an iPad. I know why I bought one, but that's a long way from being able to justify the purchase. Rory Sutherland seems to get it about right;

"In the end I ignored my own advice and bought an Apple iPad, purely, as I explained to my wife, 'for the purposes of research'. The very same 'research' that has by now filled two or three desk drawers with a ridiculous assortment of electrical chargers, the devices they once charged mostly lost, burnt out or forgotten.

Weeks later, my verdict on the thing is curiously complicated. What I mean by this is that the Apple iPad is a magnificent, life-enhancing device, which in many ways lights a future path for technology... and I really do like it: but I'm just not quite sure that you should buy one."

I'm pleased I have one, it's better than the iPhone for watching media, and web surfing - but how much better than a macbook air or notebook computer is it? I don't know that, but I do know this: It's new, shiney, and mine.