Gator Undercuts Yahoo and Google - Overture Advertisers Beware
Many of you may find that your computer is spitting out banner ad after banner ad for seemingly no reason whatsoever. This is likely because you have unknowingly agreed at some point to have a small software program called Gator installed on your system. This program is usually installed along with free software programs that can be found online. This type of software is reasonably called SpyWare because it actually records your web site viewing habits and endeavors to provide targeted banner advertising according to these habits. (to remove SpyWare click here - Free Utility)

Gator has now released a new service which has truly caused an uproar. The service is called Search Scout and it is designed to open a new window whenever a search is done on Yahoo or Google. The new window shows paid placement results taken from competing search services such as Overture, Lycos and FindWhat.com. Much like the annoying pop-up or pop-under banner services that Gator already offers, Search Scout allows advertisers to reach "members" (you) of the Gator network when they are visiting competitors' sites. The result, Gator can now offer advertising that actually takes away revenue from a requested web site.

At first appearance it seems that Overture, Lycos and FindWhat advertisers are winning out here, however, this is completely deceiving. For one, how does it look to a surfer when they see that your advertisement pops-up un requested next to a competitor's web site? Secondly, what is to say that this will not happen to your site when a prospective customer views it. Currently this is not a concern since this is only happening when a user searches on Yahoo or Google, however, it definitely seems to be a logical evolution of this frightening product.

Kick the King
SearchKing and Google are still dueling (Yale Law School article) it out over the apparent malicious removal of SearchKing from Google's search engine back in 2002. Google is now admitting in court that they did penalize SearchKing in reaction to a new service that SearchKing was offering which was meant to manipulate Google's results. This brings up a serious issue for everyone; does such a huge and popular resource such as Google have the right to drop sites at will simply because they don't like content or services provided within the site? Certainly arguments can be made for either side, and currently this is a hot topic amongst many of the search engine chat forums. Google appears to be the likely winner in this court case due to First Amendment rights, however, this case does effectively raise the question of regulation for large online resources.

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Flash can be an astounding tool for impressing visitors to your web site, however, in an ideal world it should be utilized in unison with html. The reason for this is simple, Flash can be read by only one search engine (AlltheWeb.com) which translates into a serious problem for many web sites that are entirely created within Flash. Especially sites that are eager for strong placements within Google.

From StepForth's perspective there are a few work-around's to make a Flash site search-engine friendly, however, they are less than ideal and fraught with uncertainty. At a minimum you would want to make sure that you have at least one or two paragraphs of text on every page that utilizes a Flash presentation. This text is what StepForth can use to optimize and promote the overall theme of your web site. If you currently have a Flash web site and you would like some input on obtaining higher placements please contact us, we would be more than happy to offer some suggestions: 1-877-385-5526

Back in the early 90's the Internet was in its infancy and was only just being considered 'the Web'. At that time you could probably have plotted every one of the servers on the planet and created a illustration that looked much like a spider web. Nowadays, well, it is has gotten a bit tough to plot. The Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) has decided to take on this massive endeavor. The result can be found at http://www.caida.org/. To see an actual map of the Internet (and this is pretty messy) just click here.

Popular Science this month describes how to read the map: "Each square represents an Internet Service Provider (ISP), such as AOL or Earthlink. The lines show the connections between them. The graph is round to represent the globe. Any straight line drawn from the center to the edge would denote a single longitude. The most connected ISPs are placed close to the center and shaded. ISPs with just a few connections are located at the edge."