April 10 marked the launch of AffiliateExchange.org, a mutual ad exchange program serving websites in all niches.

The network delivers targeted advertisements similar to those of Google AdSense or Yahoo! Publisher, but without the standard advertiser/publisher delineation. Each participating website helps bring traffic into the network, and receives approximately the same amount in return.

The project hopes to attract webmasters with its not-for-profit orientation. Unlike most exchange services, AffiliateExchange.org operates without claiming service commissions. Participants are also awarded credits, which can be cashed in for things like MRR products and design services at the online shop.

The infrastructure of the network is designed to be search engine-friendly. Dynamic affiliate links are embedded with iframe tags, which are crawled by major search helper robots like Yahoo! Slurp and Googlebot. The links pass through a central server which keeps track of click-through stats, but the server returns 301 redirects so that page ranking algorithms treat it like direct linking. Read more of this news »

Shortcuts to useful pages called “Sitelinks” in Google search results have been so popular that they have now been expanded. Users get twice the links. Google recently added Sitelinks control to their Google Webmaster Tools.

Google software engineer, Jeremy Silber began with this post on the official Google blog:

During your searches you’ve most likely noticed Sitelinks, the set of links below some search results that lets you jump directly to useful pages deeper in the site. They’ve been so popular that we’ve decided to give you more: our algorithms have been working overtime and we’ve recently started showing up to eight Sitelinks per site instead of just four. These extra links let you quickly access even more areas of the top site, and all eight sitelinks together give a good overview of a site’s content.

Example from a Google search for BlueHost:

News posted at Digg.com

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, speaking at the NewTeeVee Live conference today, confirmed that high-quality YouTube video streams are coming soon. Although YouTube’s goal, he said, is to make the site’s vast library of content available to everyone, and that requires a fairly low-bitrate stream, the service is testing a player that detects the speed of the viewer’s Net connection and serves up higher-quality video if viewers want it. News Via Digg.com

Scottsdale, Arizona - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) - November 13, 2007 - Web hosting domain registrar, GoDaddy, has formed an alliance with search engine firm, Google, to offer its customers new webmaster management tools, integrated to facilitate better rankings with the search engine.

GoDaddy.com CEO and Founder Bob Parsons explained, ”When Google approached us about incorporating their product into our hosting accounts, it was an easy decision. Our customers are always looking for simple ways to make their sites easier to find and attract new visitors. Thanks to these easy-to-use tools, customers can quickly tap this valuable Webmaster resource without having to be technical wizards.”

GoDaddy.com is working with Google Inc. as the pilot partner for a new effort to seamlessly integrate the Google Webmaster Tools into customers’ web hosting accounts. With Google Webmaster Tools, Go Daddy users are now able to see how Google views their site, diagnose problems and share information with Google in order to improve their site’s visibility in search results. This service, combined with Go Daddy’s Sitemap Editor, provides a free and easy way for web site owners to manage and improve traffic to their site. Read more of this news »

Barry Schwartz reports that Google has informed Search Engine Land that they are releasing a new update to Google Webmaster Central’s tools. The new features include a way for webmasters to manage their Google Sitelinks, more historical query statistics, an extension of sitemaps to support code search, an improved message center and a warning that may help notify you of possible duplicate content.

Attaining Sitelinks is another story. Though Google does not say specifically what goes into the algorithm that automatically generates Sintelinks, some webmasters have attempted to determine the secret and make observations. News via Digg

If you were wondering why Google was so eager to by YouTube, Google AdSense Video Units may be one reason. The following announcement was published on the Inside AdSense Blog:

We’re excited about the launch of video units — a new way to enrich your site with quality, relevant video content in an embedded, customizable player. Simply embed a snippet of code and have relevant YouTube partner content streamed to your site. You can choose categories of video to target to your site, select content from individual YouTube partners, or have video automatically targeted to your site content. Companion and text overlay ads are relevant and non-intrusive. To further blend the YouTube player into your site, you can also customize the color scheme and layout as well as choose from three different player sizes.

If you are already an AdSense publisher, you will see the new ads under the setup tab.

WebProNews editor and writer, Jason Lee Miller reports on the likelihood that Google is penalizing some web directories.

As many as 60 directories, according to this report, suddenly dropped in rank, leading to suspicion that Google has begun aggressively (and likely, manually) targeting paid link directories deemed to be in violation of the search engine’s quality guidelines. Some have suggested competitor sabotage via the recently initiated paid link reporting form.

read more about directory penalties | Comments at Digg

SearchEngineLand.com reports via Jill Whalen’s HighRankings.com that Google will create a new meta tag which will allow people to inform Google when a particular page will no longer be available for crawling. The “unavailable_after” meta tag will allow webmasters to create expirations for pages with time-sensitive data. Some expect this tag to be welcomed by companies that deploy seasonal offers. This could potentially eliminate “breaking news” from 5 years ago from appearing in Google’s search engine results pages. It is not known if other search engines will support the new meta tag.

Source: Digg.com

Mountain View, California - (The Hosting News) - July 12, 2007 - Google Mapplets, a new tool developed for customizing Google Maps, has been developed, to enable users to layer valuable third-party information directly on Google Maps, in order to save customized maps to individual personal libraries.

The mini-application Mapplets make it possible for users to view and layer maps containing information such as real estate listings, jogging trails, events and photos. For example, users planning vacations may view and layer maps of hotel availability, regional weather forecasts, gas prices and other useful information directly in Google Maps. Once they have created their custom map, they can create their own personalized itinerary by saving the results, adding notes, and putting it on a map to share with family and friends. Users looking for a new home can not only search real estate listings, but they can also layer findings over transit maps and crime statistics to further refine searches.

The new tools can be found in the Google Maps Directory. The directory is accessed by clicking on the ”Add content” link in the ”My Maps” tab in Google Maps. Users simply click on the ”Add it to Maps” buttons within the directory to bookmark relevant content.

Over 100 Mapplets are currently featured in the Google Maps Directory:

• Hotel pricing and availability from Orbitz and Booking.com
• Live, local weather conditions and traffic cameras from WeatherBug
• Worldwide webcams from Webcams.travel
• Things to do and local events from Zvents
• Gas prices from GasBuddy.com

Google has also developed several Mapplets:

• Google Real Estate Search — Find rentals and homes for sale in the US; this Mapplet draws from listings in Google Base
• YouTube Videos — Watch recently uploaded YouTube videos from around the globe
• Photos from Panoramio — See photos of locations from Panoramio.com while you browse Google Maps

Read more of this news »

Mountain View, California - (The Hosting News) - July 9, 2007 - Google Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire on-demand communications security and compliance solutions firm, Postini, which serves over 35,000 businesses and 10 million users worldwide. Postini’s services include message security, archiving, encryption, and policy enforcement.

Postini’s offerings may be used to protect a company’s email, instant messaging, and other web-based communications. Under the terms of the agreement, Google will acquire Postini for $625 million in cash, subject to working capital and other adjustments, and Postini will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Google. The agreement is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close by the end of the third quarter 2007. Google will continue to support Postini customers and invest in Postini products.

Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Google remarked, ”With this transaction, we’re reinforcing our commitment to delivering compelling hosted applications to businesses of all sizes. With the addition of Postini, our apps are not just simple and appealing to users — they can also streamline the complex information security mandates within these organizations.”

The company will host two conference calls and webcasts today to discuss the acquisition. The first conference call will be held at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time (9:30 a.m. Eastern Time). The second conference call will be held at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (12:00 p.m. Eastern Time). To access either conference call, please dial 800-289-0544 domestic and 913-981-5533 internationally. Replays of both calls will be available until midnight, July 16, 2007 at 888-203-1112 domestically and 719-457-0820 internationally. The confirmation code for the replay of the first call is 3432256. The confirmation code for the replay of the second call is 9167451.

Hosted services, such as Google Apps and Postini solutions, are designed to provide organizations with high quality communications tools without the expense and hassle of traditional on-premise solutions. Google Apps, which includes Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs and Spreadsheets, and Personal Start Page, has been adopted by more than 100,000 businesses already. Postini solutions include Email Security, IM Security, Web Security, Message Archiving, Message Encryption, and Policy-enforced TLS.

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