The Search Engine Update, April 2, 2003, Number 146

About The Update

The Search Engine Update is a twice-monthly update of search engine news. It is available only to Search Engine Watch members. Please note that long URLs may break into two lines in some mail readers. Cut and paste, should this occur.

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In This Issue

+ Search Engine Strategies Coming To London, San Jose
+ Loving Each Other More: Search Engines & Blogs
+ RSS: Your Gateway To News & Blog Content
+ Making An RSS Feed
+ Search Privacy At Google & Other Search Engines
+ Google And The Big Brother Nomination
+ SearchDay Articles
+ List Info (Subscribing/Unsubscribing)

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Hello Everyone–

Some time next week, Search Engine Watch will undergo its first significant redesign ever. We’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure that links to old articles and favorite pages you might have bookmarked will continue to work. However, as we hit the inevitable bumps, we’ll move quickly to smooth the ride. Hope you like the new look, once it’s unveiled!

Once again, I had to push back my promised renewed look at new “keyword navigation” providers. I do plan to come back to this, but the important articles I wanted to finish for this newsletter about search privacy and RSS feeds simply took too much time.

Let me say briefly that at the beginning of March, I did mention hearing about a company that was trying a new twist of saying it is selling “MSN 8” keywords. Microsoft has since confirmed to me that while there is a limited keywording system for those using the MSN 8 browser and internet access service, these are not sold by any third party company.

Finally, I wasn’t able to do my usual review I do of search engine related stories that have appeared across the web since the last newsletter. I’ll try recap these in the next newsletter. In the meantime, Chris Sherman has a nice recap feature of his own from SearchDay well worth reviewing:

Search Engine Milestones for March 2003
SearchDay, April 1, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/03/sd0401-mir.html

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Search Engine Strategies Coming To London, San Jose

Next stop for Search Engine Strategies will be London, on June 3-4. An agenda for our popular show about search engine marketing has now been posted. You can find more details or sign-up for the event via the URL below.

Search Engine Strategies London
http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sew/london03/

Dates for our next US show have also been announced, August 18-20, in San Jose, California. It’s also looking likely that we’ll extend the show by one day, based on how popular the Boston show was. More details and information will be posted on the conference web site in the near future. In the meantime, you can visit and leave your email address, to be notified when details have been posted.

Search Engine Strategies San Jose
http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sew/summer03/

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Loving Each Other More: Search Engines & Blogs

My recent exploration of blogging has left me with the thought that there’s a good reason for Google or someone else to create a robust, blog-specific search engine. In addition, there are certainly things it would be nice to see bloggers do to make their content more accessible to ordinary web search engines. In the story below, I explore the timely content that blogs provide, work they can do to make themselves more search engine friendly and some thoughts on what search engines might do on their end.

Loving Each Other More: Search Engines & Blogs
The Search Engine Report, April 2, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/03/04-blogs.html

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RSS: Your Gateway To News & Blog Content

RSS allows blogs, news sites and other sources an easy way to distribute their content. The article below explains how RSS can be a great way for anyone to receive customized news information from growing number of sources, plus it examines ways to search and explore RSS and blog-oriented content.

RSS: Your Gateway To News & Blog Content
The Search Engine Update, April 2, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/subscribers/articles/03/04-rss-reading.html

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Making An RSS Feed

RSS is a method of distributing links to content in your web site that you’d like others to use. In other words, it’s a mechanism to “syndicate” your content. It can be an easy way to draw attention to your material, bringing you some traffic and perhaps a little net fame, depending on how good your information is.

Making An RSS Feed
The Search Engine Report, April 2, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/03/04-rss-making.html

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Search Privacy At Google & Other Search Engines

There’s been some pretty scary statements made about Google and the privacy of search requests recently. Yes, there are privacy issues to be aware of when you do a search at Google. However, these issues are just as much as a concern for other search engines you visit, as well. More importantly, the fear that you personally could be tracked isn’t realistic, for the vast majority of users, at least by Google itself. In the article below, we’ll take a closer look at just what exactly Google knows about you, when you come to do a search — and see why you needn’t be so worried, for the moment.

Search Privacy At Google & Other Search Engines
The Search Engine Report, April 2, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/03/04-privacy.html

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Google And The Big Brother Nomination

In February, Google was nominated by the Google Watch web site for Privacy International’s 2003 US Big Brother Awards. Google was not selected as one of the Big Brother finalists, which certainly indicates that Privacy International itself did not see the company as among the largest threats to privacy. Nevertheless, the nomination has caused some to wonder about the privacy of their search requests at Google. In addition, some allegations made in the nomination have been transformed by others as proof of privacy violations, without being closely examined. In the article below, I explore each of the major allegations that Google Watch made against Google as evidence of it being a threat to privacy and of “Big Brother” behavior. At the end of each allegation, I’ll provide my own verdict about how seriously a typical person may wish to consider each claim.

Google And The Big Brother Nomination
The Search Engine Update, April 2, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/subscribers/articles/03/04-bigbro.html

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SearchDay Articles
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Here are some recent articles that may be of interest, from Search Engine Watch’s daily SearchDay newsletter:

Search Engines 101
SearchDay, April 2, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/03/sd0402-se101.html

Use these outstanding online resources to get the equivalent of an introductory semester of “search engines 101” — without having to go back to school for your education.

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Magnify Your Search Results
SearchDay, March 31, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/03/sd0331-popout.html

A software utility that grew out of visual perception research at Xerox’s famous PARC labs magnifies critical information on web pages, making it “pop out” and appear to float above the background.

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Aggressive Linking – The Only Search Engine Optimization Strategy You Need?
SearchDay, March 20, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/03/sd0320-linkmatters.html

Is an aggressive linking strategy alone sufficient to garner high search engine rankings? A search engine marketing firm in England says it is, and has built a web site to prove that the strategy really works. Search Engine Watch members should click through to the special members-edition

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Gary Price’s List of Lists
SearchDay, Mar. 27, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/03/sd0327-lol.html

Looking for a list of top-ranked companies, cities, actors, and so on? Your number one choice should be Gary Price’s newly revitalized and updated List of Lists.

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Honing Your Web Searching Skills
SearchDay, Mar. 25, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/03/sd0325-rdn.html

Want to sharpen your Internet searching skills? A series of “teach yourself” tutorials developed by a group of subject and information experts offers a first-rate learning experience for novices and experts alike.

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Free Business Research from Dun & Bradstreet
SearchDay, Mar. 24, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/03/sd0324-zapdata.html

It’s a rarity these days to find high quality business information on the web that’s free of charge, but Dun and Bradstreet’s Zapdata offers it in droves.

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Local Weather + 5 Search Engines = WeatherBug
SearchDay, March 19, 2003
https://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/03/sd0319-weatherbug.html

WeatherBug is an interesting service that brings you local weather from more than 6,000 weather stations, with a search box that lets you get results from five major search engines.

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