What Is This Blogging Thing Then?

Have you found that you cannot turn around without hearing about blogs and how all young people seem to have one?  Feeling left out and wondering what it is all about?  I know that in schools teachers talk about the younger generation being the “digital natives” whilst we of an older generation are referred to as the “digital immigrants”.  Schools that do not teach IT and produce students who are as IT literate as they are literate and numerate are seen to be failing society.  If we do not keep up the younger generation will remain ahead of us.  This is quite apart from the value of blogging in terms of what it can provide as a source of income.  This is a great video and article to explain what a blog is and what it can do for you.

What Is This Blogging Thing Then?

By: Martin Andrew

Everybody is raving on about blogs, it seems everyone has one, and it seems that everyone is telling you that if you want to get on in Internet Marketing you need one too!!

But what exactly is this Blogging Thing?

OK well like everything else, theres the Long answer, the short answer, and Martins Answer(often quite similar to the long answer, only, well, better:-) )

Blogging, Like MOST of the other New Trends, isnt actually new at all. Blogging has actually been around for quite some years now, I would probably say its Infancy was pre-2000 if I really wanted to push it back.

A Blog, or Weblog, is qute simply an Online Journal or diary.

BUT, thats not what people nowadays mean, when people talk to you about blog and blogging, they are really talking about using this blogging software to run your sites.

The Simplicity and design of the software enables even the most technically challenged to add updated fresh content to their webpages, basically if you can type and use Word, you can run a Blog, this in turn is why it is becoming ever so popular, and also why most people do use it for, or at least most people *Were* using Blog and Blog software to run little Personal Diary Blogs.

However, what it really is, is a way to have a regularly updated website related to your business or theme at the push of a button.

Here are the three most popular "blogs" at the time of printing this, they probably will remain like this for a long time, but although these are "Blogs" they are more along the lines of an actual real content website, rather than a personal diary type blog.

# 1

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

67,001 links from 19,265 sites.

# 2

Engadget

65,581 links from 14,884 sites.

# 3

PostSecret

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

By frank warren

21,503 links from 12,892 sites.

The MAIN Difference between a blog and a standard website, is the fact that bloggers tend to be more personal, tend to leave more of a personal stamp on their work. Thats why those first two sites above are WAY more popular than if they had just been a standard impersonal website.

DON'T let this blogging craze confuse you, its really not that complex, or infact that different to things you may already be used to, dont worry about this whole "Blog Revolution" thing, it is more of an evolution than a revolution, and the evolution involves websites and online business in general, not blogging on its own, blogging has simply become a tool to enable the following things -

Through free services such as Blogger, anyone anywhere anytime can start a website, without having any technical knowledge.

Through blogging software, it has become easier and easier to add fresh orginal content to your website on a regular basis,

Bloggers share information, ideas and thoughts with eachother through reading eachothers blogs and talking about them on their own blogs,

Those are the simple elements of what blogging is.

When you start looking at the software running the blogs, and the functions it has, you can see even more benefits, and why it is much much more than just "a Weblog" I am talking about, I want you to understand that blogging is an ESSENTIAL part of your entire marketing campaign, along with Article Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, and all the other aspects I cover, blogging is essential.

BECAUSE, Not only does your average blogging software enable push button content updates, BUT it also has the ability to do a MULTITUDE of the mundane tasks we have to undertake to build our traffic up to our websites.

Your blogging software can pretty much take care of all your on page search engine optimization AUTOMATICALLY!! All you need to do is post new content!!

Blog softwares can automatically reformat your content into different code types readable by different types of technology, with a little help, your blog could kick out pages viewable in Web Browsers, Palm Pilots, Mobile Phones, and perhaps the best one at the moment is RSS!!

Yes, your blog will easily produce a reformatted version of your webpage that can be syndicated by other sites, read by people directly on their desktops, and much more!!

I do cover a wide range of advanced blogging tactics which I won't go into here as I would be here for TOO Long!!

Quite simply, a blog, is a software to Power your websites, how you decide to use it is up to you, but one thing I WILL STRESS here at the end is that the whole idea behind the fact that blogs are easy to use is to use them well, and update them regularly, to see the full benefit. Its because of this fact, that a good blog should be updated regularly to get the most benefits, that most blogs are really quite a personal type weblog but DON'T let that start to limit your thinking about what you can do with a blog, look again at the top 3 blogs, go to Technorati.com and look at the biggest blogs.

Don't you think, actually, that most of the big blogs look more like a magazine now, rather than a journal or diary?

Remember what I said about evolution and not revolution?

You can use a blog for whatever you want, all I stress, is MAKE SURE you use it, and use it every day(or as often as you possibly can regularly)

Thats it for that, more will come soon, thanks for reading!

Author Bio

After being involved with Internet Marketing for some time, Martin has decided to share his Ideas and Experiences on Succesful Online Marketing. Read More Marketing Tactics Here Be sure to check out Martins tips and Tricks, and follow his experiences in Success @ moretrafficplease.com/notes.

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http://www.articlegeek.com/internet/blogging_articles/what-is-blogging-thing.htm

How to market online with ease

Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the leaders in his niche.  Here he is giving away his three best marketing strategies.  Let me know what you think.

How To Market Online With Ease

By: Robin Harris

You can ignite your marketing efforts and passion for the game by learning to use your personal story and expertise to get potential clients subscribing to your opt-in list.

I want to show you 10 simple steps you can implement with a low-cost investment and a little effort that you can use as a springboard for more aggressive online marketing campaigns.

By creating an interesting web site, which consist of one simple, yet, well-designed web page you can begin a relationships with qualified prospects. The "Interest Site" is designed to share content and offer a customized introductory e-product to someone who would qualify to be considered your ideal client. The focus of the site has to be a HOT TOPIC for your ideal client and it has to tie back to your product theme in some logical way.

The Interest Site will include the following components:

1. The reason why the ideal client should read the content and subscribe to your list to get the introductory product. You written communication should be compelling, not contain hype, and impress the ideal client so they know free product does not mean no-value, low-value product, but it means you are a generous person, you are a skilled business person, and you are beginning your relationship with them on good and ethical terms.

2. Weave in a soft introduction that is designed to create affinity with your ideal client so they know you are like them, understand them, and share some of the same concerns and interests as they relate to this topic. Be brief.

3. Discuss one to three key points related to the topic that the ideal client would find very interesting. Notice I said the ideal client would find them interesting, you may not, and the non-ideal client may not. You may have expertise in this area or you may have to go and do some research. Either way, make sure the information is highly relevant to your ideal client and related to your primary business offering.

4. Include a message that lets the ideal client know that this content is incomplete and they can get more advanced information by signing up for the complimentary ecourse or workbook. Don't offer just a newsletter or special report. These things are over used and are often perceived as low value until your credibility is well established.

5. Give the ideal client a teaser preview of the HOT HOT HOT TOPICS covered in the ecourse or workbook. Summarize what you have provided and remind them to subscribe.

6. Provide a Bio-box with 3 or 4 lines about you, written in third person to start imprinting the ideal client with the perception that you are a great resource, expert, etc. Be sure to include email contact. Get yourself an official domain and email address. Make sure the web address you pick for your interest site relates to the topic being discussed. Remember to represent yourself as being an established professional. Do not use an ISP email address. Bob@my-interest-site.com is much more attractive than bob1698@yahoo.com.

7. Use an autoresponder to create an online signup form for your opt-in list. Include this sign-up form directly into your web site page. I use an autoresponder which allows for attachments and can create both text and html messages. You can use the HTML software inside the autoresponder to create simple yet elegant messages without knowing HTML. I recommend you stay away form text based messages, there quick, fast and cheesy looking. Imagine getting a text-based email from Amazon, it just wouldn't look all that professional, would it?

8. Set up your autoresponder so the subscriber gets an immediate message congratulating them on their new subscription. Assure that the e-product is sent with the first message. You can either attach the product or store it on a web server and include the link. The first option is the easiest if you use the full-featured autoresponder.

9. Instead of trying to push people to your replicated site or your affiliate site, or convince them to spend money with a stranger, you want to get them to your interest site and get them into your opt-in database before sending them off to some other web site or having a serious sales conversation with them.

10. You can get more information about tools and resources for the Interest Site Project and you can also receive a complimentary template for creating your first ecourse when you subscribe to our online newsletter at www.marketing-with-a-story.com.

Author Bio
Robin Harris is a Certified Coach and the Founder of www.Marketing-With-A-Story.com. She works with entrepreneurs who want to market with ease by using their personal experiences, knowledge, and passion to attract their ideal clients. You can reach Robin via email at support@marketing-with-a-story.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com

http://www.articlegeek.com/business/marketing/market_online_with_ease.htm

Revealed: The Ultimate Lead Generation Tool

Want to know this secret marketing strategy?  So obvious when you think about it isn’t it?  Peter Lawless reveals the ultimate lead generation tool for marketing.

Revealed: The Ultimate Lead Generation Tool

By: Peter Lawless

Create a Referral Strategy
The strategy that I am referring to is a referral strategy. Most importantly, ask them for a referral!For those of you married or with partners, think back to when you met them. Were you with someone you know, was there a connection to someone you know - or were they complete strangers that you just walked up to?
Most businesses will tell you that they do really well due to word of mouth. How well do they do? Most can't quantify it. In addition very few have implemented any formal process or strategy to ensure a referral system is in place.

A Referral Strategy in Practice
Let me share with you a simple strategy, which was put in place by a service garage. You should strongly consider a variant of this strategy for your own business. The garage owner created a simple card, which outlined in 5 short bullets, why they were a great place to get your car service done.

They gave this form to all people who had just had their car serviced. There were two blank spaces on the form. The first one entitled the person whose name was filled in to a 10% discount on their next car service. The second space was for the person who had just had a service.

If the card was used, that person then got a 10% discount as well. In other words there was an incentive to pass on the referral. In addition, there was also a strong subliminal message to the person being referred. They were being told that not only had the referrer had their car serviced and that they were happy with it, they also were prepared to go back again to get their 10% discount.

Create a Referral Strategy Today:
1. List all of your existing customers and categorize them by niche.
2. Ask yourself, what incentive you can give them to send you leads.
3. Set yourself a target of how many referrals you are looking for from each customer.
4. Do it, and measure it.
5. Once you know what works, and what doesn't - modify your system accordingly.

An opportunity lost, could be an opportunity gained.
There is one other great place to get referrals. And that is from the prospects that don't become customers. Let's assume you lose the sale, for whatever reason. You must remember that there is actually good in all people! When they tell you have lost, be nice and understanding, you may do business again at a later stage. Most importantly, ask them for a referral. The chances are, human nature, will kick in and they can absolve their conscience by giving you a referral.

Author Bio
Business Owners who need more sales and better marketing advice, turn to Peter Lawless, of 3R Sales & Marketing. For previous articles and interviews like this, visit our website and subscribe to Success. We also provide free Sales & Marketing Assessments for Business Owners with an Irish Connection.

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http://www.articlegeek.com/business/marketing/ultimate_lead_generation_tool.htm

Is your blog working as hard as it could for you?  Is the marketing of your blog working to its maximum potential.  Here are ways to ensure the maximum effectiveness of the marketing of your blog that you really shouldn’t ignore.  Sent me any comments of what you think.

Marketing Optimization 101 for Blogs

By: Rok Hrastnik

Truth be told, most blogs aren't really optimized for marketing effectiveness. Even more so, some blogs are absolute marketing machines, but they at the same time fail to fully capitalize on that fact by not being really optimized marketing-wise.

Blogs may be Web 2.0, but bloggers should not ignore some of the good old internet direct marketing tactics that have been working for marketers online almost for a decade or more.

Here are the absolute 101 basics you really shouldn't ignore ...

1. DON'T FORGET E-MAIL DELIVERY

Bloggers are often abandoning or completely ignoring e-mail as a tool to deliver their content to their readers. As an RSS evangelist I certainly believe in using RSS to get your content to the world, but only as a supplement to e-mail delivery.

While RSS provides us with many unique benefits, it is yet to reach mainstream adoption. Until it does, marketers and publishers should not even consider abandoning e-mail delivery, or risk ignoring most of their potential readership.

If you're still wondering why you need e-mail, consider the potential you might be wasting without it. Someone visits your blog, likes the content and would like to be notified as new content of interest becomes available, and he does not know what RSS is or even care. If you fail to capture his e-mail address and consent at that exact moment, he might never again return to your site, either because he forgets about it or because dozens of other sites capture his interest even before the next day.

2. E-ZINE PUBLISHING IS STILL A MUST

Publishing a blog is not a replacement for an e-zine. If nothing else, publish a weekly or monthly e-zine of your top blog posts, available in a single easy-to-consume format.

Some simply do not have the time to watch your blog regularly and others will only want to receive a quick summary to get only your best and most crucial content. Publishing an e-mail e-zine will do that for you, giving you the opportunity to communicate with the widest possible long-term audience for your blog.

3. E-MAIL AND RSS SUBSCRIPTIONS

Providing e-mail (e-zine) and RSS subscriptions is important to the success of any blog. But neither of these will do you much good if your visitors don't actually see them and if you don't give them enough incentive to subscribe.

Foremost, display your e-mail e-zine and RSS subscriptions information at the top of your blog, instead of somewhere far down where no one will see them.

And second, use enticing copy to get visitors to subscribe. Briefly explain the benefits of subscribing, what kind of content they can expect to receive, and also do not forget about your privacy disclaimer, calming potential subscribers that you will never abuse their personal information.

4. EXPLAIN RSS

Most internet users still do not know what RSS is or how to use it, and consequently the RSS buttons on your blog mean absolutely nothing to them.

To overcome this problem, create a special RSS presentation page and link to it next to the RSS subscribe button. On that page explain:

·         What RSS is

·         How the visitor will benefit from using RSS

·         Where they can get a free RSS aggregator (recommend one yourself!)

·         How they can install it (provide step-by-step instructions)

·         How they can subscribe to your RSS feeds

·         Why they should subscribe to your own RSS feeds

·         Then, on this same page, include the links to all of your RSS feeds.

5. TOP CONTENT

If you update your blog frequently, your less recent top content keeps being pushed down and down, where most of your blog readers will never bother to look for it.

Overcome this frequent blog problem by creating a list of your top posts, clearly displayed and available from each of your pages. Depending on the topic you cover, you might want to place these headlines as close to the top of your blog as possible, in order to quickly entice your new visitors to start reading the best of what you have to offer and then use this content to convert them to loyal readers and subscribers.

6. THE HEADLINE

The site or blog headline will tell your visitors what to expect from reading your blog and will answer their key question: "What's in it for me?"

Make sure that your blog headlines gives this reason and the story inviting enough for your readers to keep reading.

7. LEAD YOUR VISITORS TO YOUR MDA

MDA is the Most Desired Action you want your visitors to take on your site, ranging from a subscription to your e-zine to requesting more information about your services or ordering your product / getting more information about it.

Your blog will be of great help in this area, but only if you actually lead your visitors to this action. Putting this information in your menu simply is not enough.

Experiment putting some copy for your MDA directly below each blog post (on your permanent blog post archives pages) and also prominently in your left- or right-hand columns.

If you're providing multiple services or products, promote each of them next to the appropriate posts, based on post topics.

And yes, this is more important than having dozens of Google AdSense ads on your blog ... if you want to use your blog as part of your marketing mix.

8. LOOK DIFFERENT

Blogs are usually not heavily designed and most of them look exactly the same. While light design is one of the positive sides of blogs, you should invest some effort in making your blog stand-out visually. Don't cram it with design, but still make sure it's different than every other blog in the market.

9. USE YOUR OWN DOMAIN

Having a subdomain.typepad.com type sub-domain might be the easiest choice, but don't forget that your domain name is your permanent online address and part of your online brand.

Consequently, invest a couple of dollars to get your own domain name, to enforce your brand, as well as making it easier for your readers to access your blog.

10. DON'T FORGET YOUR KEYWORDS

What keywords do you want your content and blog to be found under in the search engines?

Don't forget to implement these keywords in the titles and body content of your blog posts. I'm not saying you should write your posts to please the search engines, but at least keep them in mind and use them when possible, without taking anything away from the actual content.

11. INTERACT WITH YOUR READERS

If you're blogging for business, don't forget about business oriented reader interaction.

Mainly, solicit questions from your readers, pertaining to your field of expertise, and then respond to them via your blog. Post interesting client case studies. When you get a review, post it or link to it. And so on...

12. BLOG SPECIFIC PROMOTIONAL TACTICS 101

a] Intensively market your RSS feeds

b] Ping the search engines and directories after you update your blog, using a free service such as http://www.pingomatic.com

13. DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CONTENT

And of course, none of the above won't make any difference at all if you don't provide high-quality, interesting and frequent content.

These 13 points are of course only the most basic stuff, but enough to help you get on the marketing optimization train.

Author Bio

Find out immediately how you can power your online business with RSS and use it in all of your marketing. Request the free 28-page Business Case for RSS report, with easy-to-follow instructions, examples and advice on how to get the most out of RSS in the shortest possible time. Get the free download here: 

http://rssdiary.marketingstudies.net/case/index.html?src=sa20

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http://www.articlegeek.com/internet/blogging_articles/marketing_optimization_for_blogs.htm

So you want to make money online and you are wondering how? Here are some great tips and ideas.  Personally, I am into affiliate marketing.  I always love to hear your comments and opinions.  Let me know your favourite money-making ideas.

10 Easy Tips to Help You Profit From Your Website

By: Joshua Watson

10 Easy Tips to Help You Profit From Your Website.

Hundreds of thousands of webmasters across the world make money online with their websites. Why not you? Here are 10 easy tips that you can use on your website to make it profitable. As with any good website however, you first need quality original content!

1. Google AdSense - Make money selling advertising space. While banner ads are not worth your time for the most part, Google AdSense is. Many web site owners make a comfortable living off of AdSense profit alone. 

2. Affiliate Marketing - Make money referring your website traffic to other websites. Don't have a product? That is 100% O.K. Just add someone else product to your site by joining an affiliate program and forget about it. If you have related content (free information) you will see a slow trickle of income from your affiliate links.

3. Write an eBook - Sell your own idea or product. I know it sounds like a day dream, but people do this all the time. In fact, it is the most common method that people use to make money. Write an eBook, offer consultations, or make something people will use. In this category, you are only limited by your imagination.

4. Create an online directory - Sell text links. Add a directory area to your site and offer to place links to other web sites for a small fee.

5. Become a Paid Blogger. Offer to blog for companies. Blogging is fast becoming an important link building strategy for online companies. There are hundreds of small businesses that could benefit from a professional blog but, do not have the resources to hire a full time employee. You have a website, put it to use!

6. Open your own eBay store. Buy low, sell high. There is no easier place to sell than online with your own eBay store. You can concentrate on a particular type of product like coins and antiques or you can sell a wide variety.

7. Host an online competition. Offer prizes for the first, second and third place winners. Your competition can be on almost anything. Think of a way to offer a competition, create a small entry fee and you are set!

8. Create a member only area. You can create a members only site about anything from Fan Clubs, Online Newsletters, Courses and Training, Stock Trading Tips, Dating Sites, Personal Advice, Horoscopes, Family Trees, and so on. Again, your only limitation is your imagination. If you have a site already up and running, offer something in your paid member's area that they cannot easily get for free.

9. Begin a paid advice service. Free information is great and will draw readers to your site. Once there, help the reader out with some basic information. Save the real "meat" for those that are willing to pay a small fee.

10. Sell your site. Why drag on a project for years when you can get in, get out and turn a quick (albeit smaller) profit? Create your site, get it listed in the search engines, make sure you get a few dollars a week in online advertising and sell your site for a few thousand dollars.

Author Bio

Joshua Watson is the author and webmaster for both Making Money Online and www.urhowto.com websites. In addition to being a webmaster for over 10 years, Joshua has also worked as an Engineer for ABC and Dish Network as well as a Project Manager for AOL Broadband. He can be contacted via email at jwatsonl@yahoo.com

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http://www.articlegeek.com/business/small_business/204-10easytipstohel.htm

Richard Branson: Advice for Entrepreneurs

If you want to get ahead and gain success in business then you want to learn from the most successful.  Hear Richard Branson's advice for budding entrepreneurs here and let me know what you think:

Tips to get your Entrepreneurship off and running

By: Michael Johnson

One of the best of the small business associations is the University of Central Arkansas Small Business Advancement National Center (SBANC.) 

While the ideal way of starting a small business would be to free yourself up from every other venture, problem, time consuming effort and obligation and throw yourself into starting a small business every waking moment, this isn't an ideal world. Few of us can afford the luxury of setting everything else aside to devote all our time and efforts, as well as capital - to starting a small business. 

Some of us have the itch to become an entrepreneur but have to "keep our day jobs" while we give this starting a small business idea a go. It may well be, in fact, that starting a small business part time is the most common entrepreneurial process.

Part of succeeding at starting a small business if you have to do so part time is to know your schedule and your time limitations and choose a business concept that you enjoy, have some training or expertise in and can be accomplished around your work schedule. The other alternative is to change your work schedule either with your current employer or choose an alternative employer. Starting a small business takes effort and focus as well as time. 

It may be that your current job is not only time consuming but also the type of work that requires a great deal of energy, a great deal of concentration, a very regimented schedule and perhaps the responsibility that tends to have you taking your work home with you either actually or mentally. This sort of work style doesn't lend itself well to starting a small business part time. 

Let's look at an example of a journalist who has a successful writing and editing business from her home office. When she decided she was interested in starting a small business she had been working for many years in newspaper management. Her executive responsibilities required 70 and 80 hour workweeks and even then she took work home.

After many years of this she began to think more and more about her dream of starting a small writing business. It called to her more and more urgently. But how was she to even think of starting a small business when she had little time, energy or focus left in her busy work week? Besides, she had to work to keep the roof over her head. 

What she did to determine if starting a small business was even possible, was to sit down and write out a budget, deciding where she could eliminate some non-essential expenses in her life, and what she absolutely had to have to live on. She then looked for, and found, a job that not only brought in enough money to live on but freed up a lot of her daytime work week hours as well as her mental focus. She took a customer service job in a call center. 

Starting a small business was going to be possible with this job where it had not been with her newspaper career for a number of reasons. It required considerably less mental acumen, it didn't require that she take her work home with her, it was easy, the hours were flexible (she worked 3pm-midnight Thursday through Sunday) and the dress code was highly casual. She could work all day starting her small business and then don her jeans and go into the call center in the evening. Now she's quit that call center job and her dream of starting a small business has been fulfilled. Her business is thriving and she works at it full time. 

You will find links to other small business associations from the SBANC site. These small business associations include the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) offering one on one counseling in person or online, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and its Small Business Development Centers which provide a ton of small business assistance including mentoring, training, publications, tapes, workshops and financing, Allied Academies - a worldwide research and training group, the Small Business Institute which provides entrepreneurial teaching and training, and the Federation of Business Disciplines, a group of educators devoted to small business teaching conferences.

Author Bio
About the Author: M. Johnsona operates a variety of small business websites and newsletters. Visit the website for many business start up ideas. www.smallbiztipscenter.com

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http://www.articlegeek.com/business/small_business/entrepreneurship_running_tips.htm

How Search Engines Work

Ever wondered what makes search engines work so fast? Find out here in this video.  Understand this and you will understand how you can ensure your website is found as easily as possible in searches for the content of your website to attract much more traffic.

How Search Engines Work

By: David Tang

A search engine operates, in the following order: 1) Crawling; 2) Deep Crawling Depth-first search (DFS); 3) Fresh Crawling Breadth-first search (BFS); 4) Indexing; 5) Searching.

Web search engines work by storing information about a large number of web pages, which they retrieve from the WWW itself. These pages are retrieved by a web crawler (also known as a spider) - an automated web browser which follows every link it sees, exclusions can be made by the use of robots.txt. The contents of each page are then analyzed to determine how it should be indexed. Data about web pages is stored in an index database for use in later queries. Some search engines, such as Google, store all or part of the source page (referred to as a cache) as well as information about the web pages, whereas some store every word of every page it finds, such as AltaVista. This cached page always holds the actual search text since it is the one that was actually indexed, so it can be very useful when the content of the current page has been updated and the search terms are no longer in it. This problem might be considered to be a mild form of linkrot, and Google's handling of it increases usability by satisfying user expectations that the search terms will be on the returned web page. This satisfies the principle of least astonishment since the user normally expects the search terms to be on the returned pages. Increased search relevance makes these cached pages very useful, even beyond the fact that they may contain data that may no longer be available elsewhere.

When a user comes to the search engine and makes a query, typically by giving keywords, the engine looks up the index and provides a listing of best-matching web pages according to its criteria, usually with a short summary containing the document's title and sometimes parts of the text. Most search engines support the use of the boolean terms AND, OR and NOT to further specify the search query. An advanced feature is proximity search, which allows you to define the distance between keywords.

The usefulness of a search engine depends on the relevance of the results it gives back. While there may be millions of Web pages that include a particular word or phrase, some pages may be more relevant, popular, or authoritative than others. Most search engines employ methods to rank the results to provide the "best" results first. How a search engine decides which pages are the best matches, and what order the results should be shown in, varies widely from one engine to another. The methods also change over time as Internet usage changes and new techniques evolve.

Most web search engines are commercial ventures supported by advertising revenue and, as a result, some employ the controversial practice of allowing advertisers to pay money to have their listings ranked higher in search results.

The vast majority of search engines are run by private companies using proprietary algorithms and closed databases, the most popular currently being Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo! Search. However, Open source search engine technology does exist, such as Dig, Nutch, Senas, Egothor, OpenFTS, DataparkSearch and many others.

Author Bio

David is the leader of a software development team, who developed many types of automation software. One of them is www.ArticlePostRobot.com, the software which can post articles to hundreds of article sites and mail lists automatically. Demo is available upon request at help(at)articlepostrobot.com

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http://www.articlegeek.com/internet/seo_search_engine_optimization/how_search_engines_work.htm