The search engine environment is undergoing another fundamental change that may affect the ways we look for and distribute information on the Web. The last nine months have belonged to Google, which is currently the world’s dominant search engine. Google supplies search results for almost every major search tool and most minor ones. This situation has presented significant challenges to the commercial web as a Top listing on Google tends to guarantee good business while a poor showing at Google can severely damage a business' bottom line. In years past this phenomena was mitigated by a more even distribution of search engine users amongst search tools. This year however, it will change for the best of all possible reasons, strong competition from other players in the industry.

Yahoo and HotBot, have both made major moves in the past few months. Yahoo has purchased the Inktomi Search Corporation. Yahoo has been looking to buy someone for a long time now. They were in negotiations with Google back in the early summer but, Google's got a good thing going so a purchase never happened. With the purchase of Inktomi however, Yahoo is going to put itself back in the game as a credible search tool. How long the current deal with Google (Yahoo displays results from Google), will last is anyone's guess but Yahoo dropped a hint when it refused Google exclusivity in search results last spring. We expect Yahoo to continue to display results from Google for a few months but to begin integrating search results from Inktomi’s database fairly quickly. It should be noted that Inktomi’s paid-inclusion database is only about one-tenth the size of Google's.

Couple this deal with the re-vamping of the HotBot search tool and finally, we've got competition in the sector again. HotBot has radically remodeled itself with a bare-bones front-page and a feature that allows searchers to query the databases of FAST, Google, Inktomi, and Teoma in one search. Researchers and other heavy search engine users will find this feature extremely convenient. By creating a non-cluttered look, HotBot is taking a page from Google's notebook. The lesson here is that Web users don't need eye-candy as much as they need information.

Our prediction is that Google is going face real competition for dominance. By this time next year, we suspect HotBot will be the SE of choice for power users with Google coming in second. We also think Yahoo has a good chance of saving itself if it concentrates on search as opposed to offering innumerable and expensive free-services in order to capture users. We also know that Google is likely going to issue its first IPO in the spring, creating a new layer of corporate accountability that will likely hamper the flexibility and creativity that has made it great. We expect Google to decline in relevance and power by 2004.

Dean Linnell is THE online Real Estate source in Whistler British Columbia. Working with a team of experienced real estate professionals including a home inspector, a mortgage broker, a real estate lawyer and a CPA, Dean provides a comprehensive service unmatched by any other local realtor. Dean’s philosophy is to make his business as transparent as possible for both the buyer and seller, providing more information than most other realtors.

Visit Dean's Whistler Real Estate Resource web site now. :: www.whistler-realestate.com

"The ALT tag is a label describing an image on a web page. It appears when the mouse is rolled over an image on a webpage. It is most helpful for people who view pages in text-only mode or have slow connections. " WebWise Online Glossary

The ALT tag is an important marketing tool for your web site. Although it is not among the most important such as Title tags and Body Text, it is still a significant tool for proving your site's relevancy. Here is why:

When a major search engine spiders your web site it is searching for a pattern or an indication of what your site is about so that it can position the web site properly within its database. At this point it is important to show that the majority of your content reflects the position (keyword/s) in which you want to be placed. This is why so many elements of your site must be tuned with a targetted phrase or keyword kept in mind before a search engine spiders it. When a spider sees that the major elements of your web site reflect this keyword/phrase and the images also seem to have related keywords describing them, your site will likely be listed under the phrase you have chosen. In other words, by having your images properly described using ALT tags you are adding even more credibility to the theme of your web site.

Please note that ALT tags must be added carefully and they cannot be stuffed with keywords to try and achieve multiple placements on the search engine. Be simple, accurate and truthful when describing a image. As long as the image has meaning on the page, then it will have a positive impact.

The one thing that everyone can agree on is that the Web is constantly evolving and growing in leaps and bounds. With billions of web pages over the Web, it is just amazing that everything is somehow inter-connected. In fact, if you have had a large active web site for a while now, you may be wondering just how many links you have on your site pointing elsewhere. Well, wonder no longer! We came across an amazing tool today that is just plain amazing. The TouchGraph GoogleBrowser is an online sitemapping system currently in Beta testing. This Java-based program will take a submitted web site and interpret the links within it into a 3D chart. This is an excellent way for you to see exactly how your site structure is interconnected and the number of web sites that your site currently links to.

To try this system out you may need to install a Java program. A link to the simple instructions for installation is found at the beginning of the TouchGraph page. We recommend this only for users very comfortable with basic installations. Note that we cannot offer support in this matter.