Websites come in many sizes, with the content as varied as the people who developed them.  Some are strictly content while some are eCommerce and heavy transactional.  It doesn’t matter the technology used to create the site, whether it be DotNet, ASP, PHP or even Java Based I have been used in all of them.

  I am probably more prevalent in transactional web sites but it is hard to imagine I have not been used in some content only sites.  I can make your programming much easier when used properly, but I can also frustrate you and make debugging a little tricky to find that I am the problem.  I am like the genie that appears when you rub the bottle, I am there by a mere mention of my name. 

I hold data for you.  You had better not need the data very long after you summon me because I don’t live very long and therefore I am better used when a response from the website user is not needed. 

One last clue: You cannot bake or eat me.

Who am I?         

Historically, one of the truest gauges of the strength of a consumer brand is whether that brand name becomes synonymous with the product category.  Two great examples of this phenomenon are Kleenex brand tissues and Jell-o brand gelatin desserts.  After all, who puts “gelatin desserts” on a shopping list?

In the online space, a marketer knows they’ve made the big time when their brand becomes a verb.  The noun “blog” was originally coined by Peter Merholz in 1999 as a short form of the term “weblog,” itself created two years earlier (also as a noun) by Jorn Barger to describe his process of “logging the web” as he surfed.  Today, of course, “blogging” is a fully accepted verb meaning “to edit or add content to a blog.”  I am “blogging” as we speak (but not “twittering”—never twittering!).

An even better example of the “verbing” of an online term is “to google.”  As everyone on the planet knows, Google is the world’s dominant online search engine, with consistently over a 70% market share in the segment.  Known for its simple interface and “Don’t be evil” corporate mission statement, Google rocketed past Yahoo! years ago by keeping its eye on the ball—namely, returning the most relevant search results possible in the shortest time and with the simplest interface.  Today, job hunters are advised to “google” themselves regularly to make sure they don’t find any incriminating information or photos at which a prospective employer might look askance.  Any “Yahoo!ing” those job hunters do will likely be on their resume.

Which brings us to Bing.com, Microsoft’s new entry in the search engine category.  Launched with much fanfare this week, Bing replaces Microsoft’s MSN Live Search  search engine, which was consistently a distant third to Google and Yahoo! in market share and was never going to gain sufficient traction with consumers (or advertisers) to change that.  Microsoft bills Bing as “an entirely new search experience,” though some of its better features are actually inherited from MSN Live Search.  These include (among others) infinite scrolling in image results, numerous ways to filter images, auto previews of video files and Instant Answers, which allows the user to type in a question directly and have the answer appear in the results.

The new features Bing brings to the table are generally focused on improving the relevancy and ease of use of search results, both for consumers and advertisers.  To this end, Bing categorizes the results of some search terms by Web Groups.

So if you search for a celebrity, the results may be sorted according to biography, movies, images, etc.  Bing also allows the user to pull up more information about many sites in the search results simply by mousing over a button which pops up on the right side of the results page.  This feature is similar but inferior to the ability in Ask.com to preview the linked page by mousing over a preview icon.  Of more value to searchers are cashback, which is essentially a rebate offered for buying merchandise from certain vendors through Bing, and Price Predictor, which aims to tells the user when to buy an airline ticket in order get the best price.

In terms of actual search results, a search of “popcorn seasoning” turned up about 568,000 results on Bing compared to about 370,000 on Google.  The initial page of results seemed to be of similar relevance, and both engines included sponsored links to the right of the search results and in a shaded box at the top.  Related search terms were displayed more prominently on Bing than on Google, while Google did a better job in this case of showing sub-links within the results.  I found the mouseover pop-ups on Bing to be more of an annoyance than a help, though others may feel differently.  Bing is also a huge improvement on Microsoft’s earlier user interface—gone is the clutter of headlines and banner ads that plagued MSN Live Search.

So will Bing make a serious dent in the online search market?  Early returns are positive.  Early results from Statcounter show Bing taking off in a big way.  As of yesterday, Bing’s U.S. market share was at 16.28%, while Yahoo! hung out at 10.22%.  Meanwhile, Google’s market share dropped about 6 points from 78.07% to 71.99%.  These early results are likely just curiosity, since Bing has only been live since June 1st.  The coming weeks will tell if Bing is going to truly catch on quickly and even become a verb of its own.  As Microsoft says in the last line of their introductory letter, they “sincerely hope that the next time you need to make an important decision, you’ll Bing and decide.”  We’ll see!

So, you want a new website but are not sure how to get started. As nicely stated in Dr. Seuss’ whimsical book Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, “Don’t get stuck in the waiting place.”Beacon Technologies is here to help.“Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing.”  Well maybe not Boom Bands necessarily, but first-time site visitors for sure.

Beacon does so many things well.One of them is consulting with our clients to help them define a website that is meaningful for their business; whether you want to capture leads or use eCommerce to sell products.Utilizing many years of experience and learning from previous mistakes, our team has a knack for asking the right questions.First, you must determine what the primary goals and purpose for your website are.Ask yourself, who is the target audience?  Maybe you have multiple audiences with different needs.What message do you want to communicate to your visitors?What should your website say about your business?Is it the same message for each audience type?What do you want your visitors to do or learn when they come to your site?These questions might seem obvious at first, but I challenge you to browse the Web and note just how many sites were designed and written from the company’s point-of-view versus the audience’s. Answer these questions “And will you succeed?Yes! You will, indeed.”

What’s next?What do you want the new site to look like?Do you have a color palette in mind?Do you have any print material that can be used for continuity on the website? Do you want your site to be interactive or more static?Look at other sites you like and select your favorite elements from each.Beacon will find a way to mesh all your ideas into a customized, unique design. “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”

This is just a starting point.Together we will succeed.Take Dr. Seuss’ advice and “get on your way!” Contact Beacon Technologies today.

Imagine that Google has a library, but inside this library is just a gigantic mountain of books. Now imagine the search engine is a librarian with a photographic memory of where every single page and knowledge of where every single word resides in this giant pile. When you type in your search keywords, the librarian runs and digs around to exactly where every book has  matches for your keywords and retrieves all the pages that match your search.

Our librarian or search engine is pretty dumb. There is no reasoning, just find and match the web page keywords with your keyword search in this Mt. Everest of books. The Google librarian is not entirely stupid since it knows which books are checked out the most and therefore knows which books are an authority on a subject.

Fortunately, librarians at our local libraries do not have to have photographic memories. They rely on a system of classification that puts the information into categories which makes it easier to find on the shelves. There is structure and an understanding of how the information is interrelated.

On May 12th, 2009, Google announced support for “Rich Snippets” which is “a new presentation of snippets that applies Google’s algorithms to highlight structured data embedded in web pages.” In other words, Google can now read some  additional information about the data on your web pages by using data to classify data. In this manner, Google can get some meaning associated with your web page and retrieve search results with better accuracy. Instead of a giant pile, Google wants separated piles and eventually nicely placed shelves in its giant library of data.

Google will now look at web content and locate tags that annotate the information on your web page. Marking up your web content will allow Google to understand the meaning of what your web pages are about.  Much of this markup can be automated and it is not necessary that you do it at all. However, Google will use this structured data to add more relevant information to the search results page which means less time spent doing searches.

Google stated, “Structured data makes the web a better place. It also helps Google better understand and present your page in search results.”

As data becomes more interrelated and understood by the search engines, a new web emerges that allows for the linking and organization of data concepts. This new web 3.0 is also called the Semantic Web.

The Semantic web is beginning to emerge. MSN announced the launch of their new search engine – Bing. Bing “organizes your results by category to help you get the answers you’re looking for without having to guess at the right way to formulate your query.”

Bing calls it Categorized Search.   Top search results are grouped into categories called Web Groups.  As an example, a search for a city will return weather, airport, restaurants and hotel groups.

The buzz on the web is that MSN is looking to spend up to 100 million dollars to market their new search engine.  No small change, MSN has a lot at stake here. Why? Because a semantic web means more targeted and effective advertising.  Advertising is what has driven Google to a market cap of 134 billion dollars.

Google is currently the market leader and will probably take steps to promote the use of Rich Snippets. For an SEO, this presents an opportunity to enhance web pages to rank in their rightful categories.

The race is on and Google will need to be snappish to get webmasters in line to maintain their inflow of pay-per-click riches.

“Librarians, dusty, possess a vast store of politeness. These are people who get asked regularly the dumbest questions on God’s green earth. These people tolerate every kind of crank and eccentric and mouth-breather there is.”

–Garrison Keillor