These are the questions on everyone's mind. What is BING? How will it affect my SEO strategy? What does this mean to all of the hard work I have put into my content and optimization?

Here are some of the guidelines we have seen pop up so far with regard to Bing and how it categorizes search listings. 

First of all, there is much talk that Bing, as an engine, is smarter or "more aware" than Google bots are. (Oh my God, this is it. The robots have become self-aware. This is my ultimate nightmare.)

Bing appears to not only "find" your content, but it makes intelligent decisions regarding what your content is, which are driven by a slightly different set of rules than Google uses. (Be aware that this is speculation. I have no hard facts or proof.)

Bing appears to weigh the "age" of a domain more heavily. The longer you have been around, the more street cred you carry as a website.

Bing likes content. But not just some content, loads of content. Bing appears to respond better to pages with at least 300 words of text or more.

Google has not placed as much weight on bloggers in the past. It is said that Bing is a friend of bloggers and may weigh blogs quite heavily.

Bing appears to like great titles that are directly relevant to your content. So don't phone in your titles, you lazy shlub.

Keep your URL's simple. Bing hasn't got time to read your URL manifestos. He is a busy guy with places to be.

Lastly, Bing likes outbound links, contrary to Google that has, in the past, prevented websites from posting too many outbound links out of fear of lowering their rank.

Make sure your website allows MSNbots to crawl your content. If you don't know how to do this, go find your IT guy. Those guys are magical.

It only took 1,500 years, but the English language welcomed its one-millionth word this week with the addition of “web 2.0” to its already crammed lexicon. As someone who makes a living out of words, I wholeheartedly welcome the term, and hope that someone, someday, can actually tell me what it means.

I don’t begrudge “web 2.0” for being meaningless. Having a meaning isn’t necessarily a precondition for acceptance into the English language anymore. As someone who has worked in a corporate environment, I’ve heard plenty of meaningless words. For example, can someone can tell me the definitive definition of “best practices,” “synergistic energy” and what exactly “turn-key” describes?

Before you throw the party, understand how this milestone came about. The Global Language Monitor, a Texas-based group of academics, that “documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language the world over, with a particular emphasis upon Global English” in their spare time, came up with an algorithm to scan thousands of print and online publications. Once said algorithm sees a group of jumbled letters occur 25,000 times in a search, it is designated as a word.

I’m guessing by that standard, “John and Kate Plus 8” will be word 1,000,001 based on mentions in US Weekly alone.

Image-conscious celebrities have long tried to control their personal brand. However, the rise of the internet has made that job much tougher. A few years ago, publicists were scrambling to snatch up and register celebrity domain names (for example, “britneyspears.com”), sometimes paying off industrious domain squatters who had beaten them to the punch. Now, that battle is playing out all over again on Twitter.

Exhibit A: Pop superstar Kanye West is extremely upset at the microblogging service for allowing an imposter to claim the Twitter handle “KanyeWest.” AP reported (via TwitterBacklash) that the real Kanye posted an exceptive-filled essay on his blog (in all caps!) lambasting “THE PEOPLE AT TWITTER” because they “KNOW I DON'T HAVE A (ed: bad word) TWITTER SO FOR THEM TO ALLOW SOMEONE TO POSE AS ME AND ACCUMULATE OVER A MILLION NAMES IS IRRESPONSIBLE AND DECEITFUL…”

Kanye then demanded Twitter suspend “kanyewest” and similar accounts; a request Twitter was happy to oblige.

Exhibit B: This one may not have the same happy ending. The AP also reports that St. Louis Cardinal Manager Tony La Russa is suing Twitter, “claiming an unauthorized page using his name damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress.” In this particular case, the imposter tweeted comments disrespectful to diseased ex-players. Though the account has since been deactivated, the lawsuit claims the comments damaged La Russa’s trademark rights.

For its part, Twitter is apparently attempting to implement account verification, according to co-founder Biz Stone. The question is, how can they possibly implement that system?

The bottom line is for all the publicists and would-be celebs reading this, please go register your official Twitter account before some prankster with an axe to grind does it for you.

As for me… I kind of hope someone poses as me on Twitter. It would make me feel important.

I have recently undergone a re-evaluation of my internet identity. Almost as important (arguably more important) as one’s real life identity, internet identity is exciting in its malleability. Two years ago, as I was ushered around the Emerson College campus, my tour guide informed us that soon we’d be able to access the Emerson’s WiFi as far into the Common as the gazebo. I was stoked. I envisioned myself lying in the grass, my computer in front of me, attaching the latest short story I’d written in an email and sending it out to all of the literary magazines eager to publish me. At that point in time, this, in addition to the occasional Facebook visit, was the extent of my internet usage. This fact, and past, dark experiences of having my time wasted, contributed to my initial resistance to Twitter. Even now, after my resistance has waned a bit meaning I have an account that I update more than once every six months), the little byline that pops up when you search “Twitter” on Google, “What are you doing right now?”  makes me uneasy. At first, I didn’t see the point. “Twitter is nothing more than Facebook updates” is a sentence that I’ve said more times than I can count. Generally annoyed by information that is useless to me and unnecessarily shared, I saw Twitter as just another way for my generation to destroy whatever respect we’ve gained.

What turned it around? Curiosity. What else? I initially signed up when my sister, on the verge of having a baby, and my brother-in-law insisted that I stay updated on the progress of her labor via Twitter. I guess you could say the miracle of birth got my foot in the door, but it was the consistent emails (“So-and-so is now following you on Twitter!”) that finally nudged me to update and follow my friends’ accounts. I also have a little to owe to the blog post by one of my fellow ideaLaunch-ers, Brindey Weber, and her blogpost, which sparked my interest even more by revealing the practical uses of the site. I tend to stubbornly boycott things that the masses support (i.e. Twilight), so realizing that Twitter can be used as a launching pad to other things rather than solely for the point of tweeting/Facebook-status-updates opened my eyes (and online heart) to new possibilities. One of my first return tweets (a term that still makes me cringe because it sounds like it’s referencing drug use) was something along the lines of “Melanie Yarbrough forgot Twitter existed.” I stick by my initial argument that the majority of tweeters (including myself, most times) are sharing less-than-necessary information. And though I haven’t quite reached the point of text messaging my tweets to the website, I couldn't go much longer resisting something even God uses. That will not be the case if he ever reads Twilight.

Faced with an online culture that promotes openness, sharing and expression, news organizations are now scrambling to restrict the online Twitter, blogging and Facebook habits of staffers. According to various industry trackers, big publishers like The New York Times, Washington Post and Bloomberg have all informed employees to watch it when it comes to Web 2.0.

For example, according to LA Observed, Washington Post reporters were told via memo to, “Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts who may need to be treated as confidential sources.”

Bloomberg employees can no longer “publish Web sites, blogs other online journals that discuss companies, people or topics covered by Bloomberg News…” according to Valleywag.

The New York Observer (via Valleywag) claimed that New York Times editor Bill Keller opened a recent newsroom address by warning attendees not to tweet the proceedings:

Before we get going, I'm going to say something I perhaps should have said Monday, when we did our digital update in this auditorium...You wouldn't Twitter something you overheard at the coffee cart without asking. You wouldn't Twitter the Page One meeting (although it would probably get you thousands of followers.) So I'd be grateful if you would lay down your Blackberries and iPhones, and treat this as a conversation among colleagues.

It will be interesting to see if this crackdown results in any high profile violations and terminations. The whole crackdown reminds me a bit of how reluctant the film and music industries were to embrace new technologies and distribution methods like Napster and bit torrent.

Of course, “news” is a less tangible product than a song or film, but if authenticity and transparency are driving force behind success in the blogosphere and social media realm, how narrow is the vision of media outlets trying to rein it in?

LifeTips is proud to announce that our LifeTips Book Series will now be featured in stores soon! Up until now, we have offered our 40+ titles on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders and LifeTips websites, however, due to increasing demand, we will now be offering our books for in-store purchase through various retailers. We are currently offering our books through Porter Square Books in Somerville, MA and Book Review in Huntington, NY. And our list of participating bookstores is growing by the day.

Congratulations to our most recently published authors on their latest book sales!

101 English Garden Tips by Sheri Ann Richerson

101 Author Tips to Creating a Successful Book Campaign by PJ Campbell

and

101 Tips on Healthy Eating, Naturally by Emily Davidson

Stay tuned for more book updates as Holly and Amanda take the book publishing world by storm!

We also encourage you to send all book proposals to Holly@LifeTips.com and Amanda@LifeTips.com.

For any Site Gurus, authors or those interested in either of these programs, Amanda Smyth and Carolyn McKibbin hosted the Monthly Writer's Call for May. The mp3 recording of the call is available on your main guru page after you've signed in. You will see listed on the left hand side of the page "mp3 Recordings," and for anyone who missed the call, you can listen to the recording here.

We covered topics ranging from "What the Site Guru Program is" to "how the Book Department is changing for the better." We also covered many FAQ's such as "How do I track my Chitika payments" and  "how does the Site Guru Program benefit me?"

If you have any further questions about the Site Guru Program or the Book Department, you can email me at Amanda@LifeTips.com or for technical book publishing questions, you can email Holly Bauer at Holly@LifeTips.com.

And don't forget to follow us on Twitter for job posting updates!

Amanda is LifeTipsEditor

Holly is LifeTipsBooks

Carolyn is LifeTipsLady

I was just browsing the archives of the LifeTips blog and noticed a post by my predecessor, Raph, entitled, "The Rocket Science of English, Part 1: Making Words Plural and Possessive."  The inclusion of the modifier, "Part 1," suggests that this post was intended to mark the beginning of a series; however, it looks like Raph never got around to Parts 2 through howevermanyhaveyou.  So, for the sake of continuity (and because I'm a little bit obsessive [and by "a little bit," I mean suuuuper] and you can't, just can't, have a Part 1 without a Part 2 since the lack of a Part 2 makes the "Part 1" description unnecessary), I've decided to contribute the missing second installment.  

Check back next week, as I tackle the ever-vexing issue of pronoun contractions versus possessive pronouns.  

Get excited. 

GOOGLE DIED YESTERDAY! Or, at least acted really sluggish and crashed for a sampling of users early yesterday. Looking at the headlines of the incident, one would think that the Four Horsemen were gearing up for a trot.

First, the story. According to the Official Google Blog, an internal error resulted in 14% of user web traffic being rerouted through Asia. This slowed things down a bit. That’s it. The problem was identified and fixed within an hour. Urs Hoelzle, SVP of Google Operations offered his apologies, claiming, “We're very sorry that it happened, and you can be sure that we'll be working even harder to make sure that a similar problem won't happen again.”

Now, the inappropriate overreaction:

• Reuters: Google Blackout: The Fallout (ed: What, like after a world-ending atomic blast?)
• Computerworld: Google Down! (ed: RUN!)
• Hispanic Business: Google Down, World Stands Still? Google Outage Shows Site's Ubiquity, Our Overdependence (ed: To answer the question, no, the world didn’t stand still.)

And Twitter… Oh boy. It was on fire with #googlefail tweets. Or, should I say is on fire. Some people apparently still think Google is down a full 24 hours after the problem was corrected.

So to answer the question posed by the title: What does one do when Google fails? Apparently, complain about it on Twitter and write hilariously over-the-top headlines.

What should one do when Google fails? Use Yahoo.

Tips for self-editing:

1.       Proofread! Please don’t ever, ever submit a tip without reading it first. Bonus: Read it out loud to be sure it sounds right.

2.       Spell check. Those little red squiggly lines mean you misspelled a word.

3.       Did you use the required keyword? Did you buffer it with a few additional keywords?

4.       Don’t forget to fill in the question, mobile and meta description fields.

5.       Did you give your tip a title? Did you capitalize all important non-prepositional words?

6.       And finally, are you considering a tattoo? Think before you ink.