Your Weekly Step Forth into the World of Search Engines

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StepForth Search Engine Placement and OptimizationNews From StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.
Wednesday, May 14th, 2003

Dear valued subscribers,

Welcome to StepForth’s weekly search engine update. This update is a weekly news summary designed to bring our subscribers up to speed on the constantly evolving search engine marketplace.

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Major Players Updates: Hasta la Vista Alta Vista :: Bienvenu Google Regional News
And so it begins. The inevitable bloodletting at Overture's newly acquired AltaVista search division has started. Yesterday, Overture announced it was letting go of 100 people from AltaVista or about 1/10th of Overture's total workforce. As Overture integrates with AltaVista and AlltheWeb, expect to see more layoffs in the coming months. Google has introduced regional news searches to its Google News service for users in Canada, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand and India. The regional news features will continue to pull stories from over 4500 international sources but will give extra weight to items relating to the search-user's region. The localized services will make it easier for people to track topics of local interest, as well as those from around the world.
In the Client Spotlight this Week:  The EI Group

Are you, or anyone you know thinking about going to college or researching educational opportunities but don't know where to look for the information? The EI Group publishes career information that connects students with educational institutions and employers across North America. Students rely on our comprehensive information to identify a career path, decide on a school and learn about prospective employers. With thousands of informative articles and several widely distributed publications, The EI Groups provides valuable tools for people thinking about their educations and their careers. Our most recent work with The EI Group was a site for their magazine Graduate Source.

Weekly Quick Tip:  Using Header Tags in Website Optimization

Headlines are used in newspapers and magazines to get people to notice articles. Using headlines in your optimization effort will help your site get noticed by search engines, provided you don't abuse their use. Much like in a traditional print media, the use of headings shows that there is important information following.

According to StepForth CEO Ross Dunn, "The H1 tag or "Heading 1" tag was created so that a web designer could instantly format the title of a web page or core paragraph (the text becomes instantly larger and bolder). For this reason the search engines expect to find one of the many clues required to determine the topic of your web site."

Don't abuse the H1 or H2 tags though. Using them sparingly and only when you need to will allow spiders to add that little bit of extra weight to keyword enriched headings. If headings are used throughout the site, that extra weight can be diluted.

The Net Reality: In Memoriam - Jim Wilson one of the Original SEOs Died Last Week.

Old hands in the search engine world were shocked to read of the death of Jim Wilson last week. Wilson was the founder of JimWorld Search Engine Forums, a gathering place for SEO enthusiasts and practitioners.

Jim both practiced and preached the "Pay it Forward" philosophy. The basic tenant to the JimWorld Search Engine Forums was help your neighbor and your neighbor will help you. Aside from teaching most of us our chops, Jim Wilson made the Internet a better place in which to work, think and share ideas. Jim was one of the pioneers in this industry and he helped countless others promote their websites and learn the delicate art of search engine marketing.

A memorial website has been established at: http://memorial.jimworld.com/



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