September
21, 2005
In This Issue:
1. Gas Prices and E-Commerce
2. In the News - Banned Google help, Myriad Search
3. More News Headlines
4. This Week's Q&A - Which SE ranks faster?
5. Wrapping It Up
_________________
Gas Prices and E-Commerce
Have you changed your behavior -- consciously
or unconsciously -- because of the high gas prices
here in the U.S.? A friend of mine went out and
bought a motorcycle for the drive to and from
work; it gets something like 80 miles per gallon!
If someone could find a way to stick a car seat
and a booster seat on a motorcycle, and keep it
safe, I'd give it some thought. I do find myself
staying at home on weekends more often, and avoiding
the casual "Let's go run an errand because
we can" practice.
Apparently, I'm not alone. Internet Retailer ran
two stories over the past week about this kind
of behavior. One article reports that 40% of us
have already started shopping online more, and
the other forecasts big increases in online shopping
during the upcoming holiday season.
So the obvious question for those of you in the
e-commerce world is: Are you ready to take advantage
of this? A good time to be thinking about how
to do that is now.
Internet Retailer: With
gas prices up, get ready for a record holiday
online, economist warns
Internet Retailer: High
gas prices are driving shoppers online, Shopzilla
survey reports
_________________
In The News
Banned from Google: Get Help
More quality information from GoogleGuy Matt Cutts
on his personal web site. In two recent posts
he discusses 1) how to request "reinclusion"
if you suspect your web site has been penalized
for poor SEO practices, and 2) a test program
where Google itself is contacting sites that have
been penalized, letting them know why and how
to fix it. Good information for all of us.
Matt Cutts: Filing
a reinclusion request
Matt Cutts: Alerting
site owners to problems
New: Myriad Search
I've said before I'm not a big fan of meta search
engines, but here's a new one that even I admit
is pretty good. It's called Myriad Search, and
it presents results from the Big 4 SEs. The hook
is that you can control the results by giving
one search engine more weight than another.
Myriad Search: http://www.myriadsearch.com/
How it works: http://www.myriadsearch.com/example/
_________________
More News Headlines
Here are a few news headlines worth your time
to read. These are just some of the headlines
we've posted to OWTweb.com in recent days.
Google
prepares to launch WiFi service
September 20, 2005 - Reuters
Online
retail sales will hit $210 billion in 2010: Forrester
September 20, 2005 - Internet Retailer
Online retail sales, excluding travel and auctions,
will grow to $210 billion in 2010 from $110 billion
this year, according to Forrester Research.
Study:
Retailers not fully leveraging power of email
September 16, 2005 - ClickZ.com
A study of e-mail marketing from retailers found
that most are not using e-mail to its fullest
potential.
More headlines: http://www.owtweb.com/news/
_________________
This Week's Q&A
Matt,
For a new web site that is starting from scratch,
which search engine can we expect to rank well
in first -- Google or Yahoo? We're trying to determine
to direct our advertising budget for PPC.
Jim
Hi Jim --
All things being equal, you can probably expect
to find your site in Yahoo sooner than you'll
find it in Google. The main reason I say that
is Google's "sandbox", which one of
their engineers recently confirmed is real --
new sites are placed on "probation",
for lack of a better term, and it's not easy for
new sites to gain quick rankings in Google. Patience
is a must. Yahoo seems to have no such sandbox.
That said, there are no guarantees your new site
will rank well quickly in Yahoo, either. "It
all depends" applies here. There are too
many factors involved to predict how any new site
will rank and how soon.
(Have a question? Email questions@owtweb.com)
_________________
Wrapping it Up
Hope the online business world is treating you
well. See you next week.
Thanks for reading,
Matt McGee
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