It seems that the proposed relationship between two of the worlds biggest search engines, Google & Yahoo!, is all over.

Google has pulled out of the deal due to ongoing concerns from the Justice Department on the fairness of the deal and Google’s belief that it was a case not worth fighting.

This is what David Drummond; Google Chief Legal Officer had to say:

…after four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it’s clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners. That wouldn’t have been in the long-term interests of Google or our users, so we have decided to end the agreement.

Read more from David on the outcome.

Unsurprisingly, Yahoo! is not happy with the news; here is an excerpt from the press release they issued:

…Google has terminated the advertising services agreement the companies announced in June. Yahoo! continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court. Google notified Yahoo! of its refusal to move forward with implementation of the agreement following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo!’s proposed revisions to address the DOJ’s concerns.

So where does this leave Yahoo!, with the chief exec under mounting pressure from shareholders? The major loser from the decision is Yahoo! The deal promised a revenue opportunity that the search engine desperately needed. It was a glimmer of hope for Yahoo!’s shareholders who have been bitterly disappointed over the last few years. In fact, the ink was barely dry on announcements that the deal was off, when Yahoo!’s head Yang rekindles Microsoft acquisition talk with the comment “To this day the best thing for Microsoft to do is buy Yahoo.”

Talking at the Web 2.0 summit, Jerry continued with:

…I don’t think that is a bad idea at all…at the right price, whatever the price is, we are willing to sell the company…We were ready to negotiate, we wanted to negotiate a deal, and we felt that we weren’t that far apart. But at the end of the day, they withdrew and they since have been very clear about not wanting to buy the company.

Well, that was then and this is now. There’s no denying the worlds finances have changed radically from when Microsoft walked away from Yahoo! acquisition talks.

Yahoo! really has its back up against the wall, and with its share price about 25% lower than it was when the offer was made, it could be a good time for Microsoft rekindle discussions.

Neither of the other “major” search engines are making any real inroads into Google’s ascendancy on their own, so combined, they could possibly offer some serious competition.

Right now it seems for Microsoft the price is right – for Yahoo!, they’re desperate to sell!

This month, the Google Webmaster blog published an article, in which Google’s Maile Ohye officially explained what it takes to get a high ranking in Google’s search result pages.

Inbound links are important but content is even more important

Google’s Maile Ohye writes the following about inbound links in his article:

“Inbound links are links from pages on external sites linking back to your site. Inbound links can bring new users to your site, and when the links are merit-based and freely-volunteered as an editorial choice, they’re also one of the positive signals to Google about your site’s importance.”

Nothing new here! If many related websites link to your site, and if these links look natural, this will help your rankings on Google a lot.

However, links are not the most important ranking factor & he gives a concrete example:

“Let’s say I have a site, example.com, that offers users a variety of unique website templates and design tips. One of the strongest ranking factors is my site’s content. Additionally, perhaps my site is also linked from three sources — however, one inbound link is from a spammy site.

As far as Google is concerned, we want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking. “

The website’s content is mentioned as one of the strongest ranking factors. The inbound links are additional. That makes sense; it’s the content of your website that really tells Google what your website is about.

If you want to get a high ranking for the keyword “used cars in essex”, but your web pages are about microwave ovens, then you won’t get high rankings for that keyword.

For that reason, it is very important that you optimise your web pages for the keywords for which you want to get high rankings, before you try to get links from other sites. This optimisation should also be an ongoing process as keyword popularity may vary over time.

Google analyses over 200 ranking factors

According to the article in Google’s blog, Google analyses more than 200 signals (we call them ‘ranking factors’) to specify the position of a web page in the search results:

“Given the user’s query, over 200 signals (including the analysis of the site’s content and inbound links as mentioned above) are applied to return the most relevant results to the user.”

It’s a simple two-step process

Apparently, getting high rankings on Google is a simple two-step process!!

1. You must optimise your web page contents so that Google can find out what your website is about. Optimise your web pages for your keywords so that Google knows that your website is relevant to these keywords and your topic.
2. Other websites must confirm that your website is about that topic. That’s what inbound links are for.

Hmmm, we all knew that didn’t we? So why is it so hard to do then?!!!!! ;o)

If you’re selling products and services that are related to a special area, it is crucial that your website gets found by people that are looking for it. One of the easiest ways to get found by people that live in your area is to optimise your web page titles for your product & location.

What is the web page title?

The title of a web page is the text that is written between the tags in the HTML head code of a web page, is displayed in the web browser window when someone visits your website and it is usually used as the linked text when your website appears in the search results.

Why should you use optimised web page titles?

The web page title is one of the main factors that Google, Yahoo and other search engines use to rank web pages. A good, relevant, informative web page title greatly improves the chances of getting high search engine rankings for your product/service.

The web page title is used by the search engines as the bold linked text on search result pages. That means that it should be clear, relevant, concise and appealing, so that web surfers will be drawn to click on it.

How to write your web page title so that it gets better local rankings

If you optimise your web page titles correctly, they will both increase your search engine rankings and attract people from the local area & those looking for your products/services, to your website.

You’ll benefit from targeted traffic and targeted traffic leads to more conversions i.e. sales. Here are some things that you can do to improve your web page titles:

Include the name of your business, important keywords and your city in the title of your homepage:

FreshWebz – Affordable web design in London and Essex

Depending on your business size, change the order of these items. Well known businesses should list their company name first. If your business is new then it’s usually better to list the keyword first:

Affordable web design for small businesses: Freshwebz in London

People are probably looking for a solution to their problem (web design) instead of your actual company name. Instead of your town, you can also use the name of the greater area if your service is available in that area.

Use a different title tag for every page. This is important! The title should reflect the content that can be found on the page, so it’s less effective just copying the homepage title to every page. For branding purposes, the titles should contain your company name and a popular keyword for which you want to be found on search engines:

FreshWebz: Search engine optimisation & SEO services in London and Essex
FreshWebz: Web design Portfolio – websites designed for recent clients
FreshWebz: Contact us for an affordable quote for your new website design

Use short web page titles. Short titles are much easier to read for web surfers. Do not try to stuff your title with keywords in the same way that you wouldn’t stuff your page content with keywords. It is much better if your web page title is highly relevant to one keyword, than somewhat relevant to many keywords. If you want to optimise your website for different keywords, optimise different pages for different keywords.

Do not use special characters in your titles. Avoid symbols and other special characters wherever possible. They might not be displayed properly on all computers and your website listing might look strange in the search results.

If you change your web page titles as described, your website will get better rankings on search engines and it will be found by people looking for your products/services & who live in the right area. By getting more visitors for one topic, you will improve the overall ranking of your site & so improve your position for other search terms.

Unfortunately, the web page title is not the only element that influences the position of your website in the search results of Google and other search engines. If you want to make sure that your site appears in the top 10 results, you should optimise all factors that are needed to get top rankings. FreshWebz can offer your website guaranteed Top 10 Google rankings for your desired keywords in the natural listings.

There is a lot of talk at the moment about a new search engine, called Cuil (pronounced “cool”, Cuil is an old Irish word for knowledge).

With Google seemingly in control of most searches & totally dominant in the UK market, what chance for a new upstart succeeding where many search engines have tried & failed. The difference between these other companies and Cuil could be the team behind the project:

• Anna Patterson: worked on Google’s search index
• Russell Power: worked on Google’s search index
• Louis Monier: founder of the AltaVista search engine
• Tom Costello: worked on IBM’s WebFountain project

The team behind Cuil have worked behind the scenes at Google and other major search providers and felt that tinkering with old systems wouldn’t work. They believed a fundamentally different approach was needed.

Cuil has four major claims with which it wants to distinguish itself from Google:

1. Cuil claims to have the biggest index

Cuil claims that its index is bigger than Google’s and that this is necessary if you want to return relevant results for topics that aren’t very popular. However, it has to be said that Cuil claims to have indexed 120 billion pages (3 times as many as Google), whereas recent reports from Google engineers claim that there are now more than one trillion unique URLs! Although they admit they don’t index every one of those trillion pages as many of them are similar to each other, or represent auto-generated content that isn’t very useful to searchers.

2. Cuil thinks that popularity is not as important as Google says

If Cuil’s concept of indexing succeeds, PageRank and linking might be a thing of the past. Cuil thinks that popularity is useful but not for very complex searches. According to their website, Cuil tries to analyse the actual content of web pages and put it into a greater context. Popularity has dominated search results so heavily that it gets harder and harder to find the page you want, especially if your search is a complex one. Cuil respects popular pages and recognises that for many simple searches, popularity is an easy answer to your question. But for a deeper search, establishing relevancy is more than a numbers game. Cuil prefers to find all the pages with your keyword or phrase and then analyse the rest of the content on those pages. During this analysis they discover that your keywords have different meanings in different contexts. Once they’ve established the context of the pages, they’re in a much better position to help you in your search.

3. Cuil uses a new results page format

Instead of a long list, Cuil returns the results in three columns and it adds images to the search results when possible. After you perform a search, you may see a panel on the right-hand side that says “Explore By Category” with a list of subjects related to your search. If you roll-over a category, it will open and show refinements related to your search. If you click on one, Cuil will direct you to this additional information. By looking at these suggestions, you may discover search data, concepts, or related areas of interest that you hadn’t expected. This is particularly useful when you are researching a subject you don’t know much about and aren’t sure how to compose the “right” query to find the information you need.

Cuil also offers roll-over definitions and offers ideas to refine your search. When you pause on a subject suggested by “Explore By Category,” a definition of that term may appear. This gives you additional information to help you decide whether or not to click on that term and so save you some time.

Cuil helps you to search by offering you other choices and suggestions. Cuil will show you “Tabs” that suggest ways to clarify your search. For example, if you search for “Jaguar,” there are a number of things you could be searching for, like Jaguar cars, Jaguar cats, a football team called the Jaguars, etc. Just click on the tab that reflects your interest and Cuil will narrow your search appropriately.

4. Cuil does not collect user data

In contrast to other search engines, Cuil does not log any personally identifiable information. IP addresses, names or cookies are not stored. That means that user data cannot be turned over to others. AOL published private user information in August 2006 and Google currently has to turn over massive amounts of user data to Viacom.

Cuil states “Privacy is a hot topic these days, and we want you to feel totally comfortable using our service. Because Cuil analyzes Web pages and not click-throughs, we don’t need to know your search history and habits. So our privacy policy is very simple: when you search with Cuil, we do not collect any personally identifiable information, period. We have no idea who sends queries: not by name, not by IP address, and not by cookie. Your search history is your business, not ours. We don’t need to keep logs of our users’ search activity, so we don’t.”

I have submitted all of my sites to Cuil; it’s interesting that you do this by e-mail (to crawlme@cuil.com), to request a visit from Twiceler, which is the name of the Cuil robot Web crawler. This was done at midday yesterday & Cashback Shopper is already featuring – a ranking check has revealed some interesting results!

The homepage is appearing for some terms, but a large number of the blog pages are appearing too (on page 1 in some cases), which don’t normally register highly on the other search engines. This would seem to back the claim that the Cuil search engine is pulling results from what it deems to be relevant keyword matching content, more so than the other search results.