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.

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.

Owen Thomas of Valleywag picked up on something interesting regarding Google’s new contextual ad technology. Essentially, Google is leveraging user privacy concerns as a means to acquire more information about users.

Let me explain. On Wednesday, Google announced via the Google Blog new “interest based” ads that associate users with certain categories, all to display tailored ads that are more relevant. Basically, if a user browses multiple running blogs, the next time the user goes to, say, Amazon’s sporting goods section, Google will know to display ads about running shoes instead of any run-of-the-mill sportswear.

Make sense? Google is essentially tracking users browsing habits via modified cookies stored on the browser in order to serve up the most relevant ad possible.

Of course, knowing that the privacy alarmists will cry foul, Google makes it extremely easy to opt out of the program. Google is also kind enough to let users see which categories they are aligned with based on their browsing habits and delete any the user feels are irrelevant.

This is where Owen Thomas spots shenanigans:

Google is making it easy to modify the interest information Google stores. You can opt out, but then the "ads will be less relevant to you." (The horror!) What Ghosemajumder, Wojcicki and the rest of the Googlers are really hoping you'll do is add or subtract interests to the list rather than opt out — and thereby give Google even more information about you.

The ads are still in the beta stage, meaning Google may still tweak or scrap the program. But what do you think? Are you concerned about what Google is doing here? Do you really need ads that are more relevant? Do even click on Google ads anyway?

The New York Times reported Thursday that Google has begun running relevant text ads on Google News, a practice the search giant avoided for nearly six years.

So why is this news? Because initially, newspaper publishers were weary of Google’s news aggregator (a service that collected headlines and clips of major – and minor – newspapers, linking users to the online story’s respective site), thinking that Google was essentially building a competing news site using the newspaper’s existing content. To help ease publishers’ fears that Google was stealing money from the newspapers, big G refrained from placing ads on Google News search results.

And that just changed, owing to what Google claims, via the New York Times, was an approach that delivered contextually relevant ads. I’m guessing they also thought it would turn a profit.

Google long maintained that its use of headline and snippets were in accordance with fair use copyright laws. Do they undercut that claim once they start making money through their “fair use” of the content? Will they share a piece of the profit with the ailing newspaper industry? After all, Google depends on a thriving newspaper industry to keep Google News viable.

That all leads to the confounding and circular chicken/egg logic behind the issue. To be a success, Google News needs fresh content from newspapers that in turn need pageviews via aggregators like Google News because no one is buying the print product that ultimately feeds the beast.

The fact is that both Google and the news industry is trying to make money off of something the news industry is giving away for free. Only now, Google may have figured out a way to do it.

CNET News staffer and social media commentator Caroline McCarthy had some interesting insight into “social media’s hidden bubble” this week. “As the recession rapidly sucks the momentum out of Web 2.0's heyday,” she writes, “with it may go one of the era's most defining terms: the job title ‘social media expert.’”

I certainly welcome a thinning of the social media expert herd, if not the outright extinction. Social media expert has become a meaningless title, as the only qualification one seemingly needs for the label is a Twitter account and Facebook profile.”

Judging from Caroline’s anecdote, that is enough to fool some companies.

One digital-strategies czar at a small media company told CNET News that a while back, before she was brought on board, her employer had enlisted a freelance "social media expert" to give the company a presence on Web 2.0's most buzzworthy communities. It was a disaster, she said. The consultant charged $200 an hour for what was effectively a bunch of Facebook fan pages and a Twitter account that most full-time staff wasn't particularly sure how to use. The final bill tallied almost $40,000.

Of course, the web is filled with hundreds of examples of companies using Facebook and Twitter effectively to get their message out to the masses. However, success takes an engaging product and a healthy respect for the community. After all, authenticity in the Web 2.0 world is and always will be key (see the migration of users from Friendster to MySpace to Facebook, as I commented here).”

There is also that little consideration if the product is geared toward the 2.0 world, as one astute observer opined:

Even now I read blogs on respected websites giving advise (sic) on how to make the most of social networking without any consideration for whether a company's market is even actually present on those social networks, let alone whether the effort helps achieve high level marketing goals.

I fear that social media experts are the new SEO experts, who, in turn, were the new snake oil salesmen...

Google Website Optimizer is partnering with ideaLaunch company SplitTestLab for our Website Optimizer services. Only 13 U.S. companies are Google-certified Technology Partners, so the office was pretty happy to hear the news.

SplitTestLab is our innovative way to make your website more awesome and you more money. We simultaneously test three different versions of one of your landing pages—including headlines, copy, design, offers and incentives—to see which version gets the most conversions. SplitTestLab is 100-percent focused on one solution: three variations for any single landing page tested against the original page.

Within three weeks of meeting us, the client sees both more conversions and better Google landing page ranks thanks to the ease of Google’s Optimizer platform. Read more about our testing process and email if you’re interested in having our staff of geniuses test your landing page.

I tend to agree with those who claim that Twitter is a feature, not a business (see my previous post, No Money in Web 2.0?), but you can't really put a dollar value on the adolescent-level giggles generated by a recent spate of Twitter hackings.

Apparently, some prank prone near-do-well attained access to multiple celebrity and news agency Twitter accounts and sent out (warning, PG13-rated content ahead!) charmingly immature tweets. For example, The Fox News feed "broke" the news that "Bill O Riley is gay." CNN's Rick Sanchez called in sick claiming, "I am high on crack right now and might not be coming into w ork today." And Britney Spears warned us of her unique anatomical features (see link above). In the end, Barack Obama, The Huffington Post, and, according to Twitter, more than 30 other high profile accounts were all penetrated.

The joker behind these misdeeds? An 18-year old hacker going by the handle GMZ. The method? An elaborate phishing scheme, perhaps? No, the kid attained access to Twitter's administrative controls by hacking into the account of a support staff member. It wasn't difficult, considering the member's password was "happiness," according to the Wired Blog network.

So the question now is, if Twitter really is a business, shouldn't its employees create better passwords?  

CNET’s News.com is reporting that New York City high-society rumormongers Cityfile today announced the gradual acquisition of domain names matching some of the movers and shakers it covers. Cityfile distinguishes itself from other gossip rags by exposing NYC’s powerful, behind-the-scenes business and media elite, making their run on domains a minimal investment.

Here is where it gets interesting: Instead of squatting on the site, preying on the insecurities of image conscious billionaires, and awaiting a selling opportunity, Cityfile is redirecting the URLs to Cityfile profile pages of the subject, presumably has a part of their SEO strategy.

And just to be jerks, in their announcement, Cityfile rubbed everyone’s noses in it:

Given the lengths to which prominent New Yorkers go to control their public profiles, you'd think they would have purchased their domain names by now. It's a $4 investment, which we're pretty sure billionaires like Jonathan Tisch, Steve Feinberg or Edgar Bronfman, Jr. can afford, even if this is the greatest depression ever.

"We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives." - The Amazing Criswell

By far, my favorite example of "go-to" journalism is the prediction piece (narrowly edging out the Thanksgiving-themed "Turkeys of the Year" and its cousin, the Yuletide "Naughty/Nice" list). At the end of every calendar year, journalists and commentators of various industries bang out 500 words of both bold and vague prophecies, all to inform the reader of the things to come in the new year.

BusinessWeek's Media Predictions for 2009 was the first such piece to catch my eye this year, and I'd like to share some of media critic Jon Fine's feckless forecasts.

Regarding media ad spending: It gets much worse before it gets better.
Regarding media ownership: Media ownership consolidates.
Regarding online advertising: Online advertising demonstrates it isn't immune to gravity.

And some of his gutsy guesses:

Radio rolls out a sort of hipster-lite format aimed at urban thirty- and forty-somethings consumed by jobs and parenting. It draws surprisingly good ratings in a few markets. (JC- Huh?)
New York Times Co. sells About.com to buy time for its flagship paper. (JC- Gawker spread that rumor around last month.)

Of course, Mr. Fine has probably forgotten more about media than I have ever known, so I am in no position to criticize. But, he was the man who claimed in his 2008 prediction column that "Amazon's Kindle e-book reader is stillborn."

Allow me debunk with a quote directly from Amazon's Kindle order page:

Due to heavy customer demand, Kindle is sold out. Please ORDER KINDLE NOW to reserve your place in line. We prioritize orders on a first come, first served basis. This item will arrive after December 24. Note that Kindles cannot currently be sold or shipped to customers living outside of the U.S.

Not to be outdone, another BusinessWeek writer opined two years ago in Seven Internet Prediction for 2007, "Facebook's efforts to expand beyond students and recent graduates will be largely unsuccessful. Moreover, the company won't sell itself to a large Internet company, especially if its asking price is $8 billion or more."

Just for the record, Facebook has more than 100 million active users, and as I stated in a previous blog post: judging by Microsoft's $240 million Facebook investment, Facebook is valued at about $15 billion.

All of this is to suggest that BusinessWeek an Criswell are in the same business. In Tim Burton's Ed Wood, Criswell claims, "If you look good, and you talk well, people will swallow anything."

Hey everyone - long time no see. It's been awhile since my last post, but something so monumental occurred in the search world yesterday that I had to come out of hiding and share this news with those who may or may not be aware. Yesterday, Google officially launched its new SearchWiki feaure available to those who have a Google account. In a nutshell, Google's SearchWiki allows users like you and me to edit search results. You can re-order, remove, or add web pages to the search results for any query and even more interesting, you can also add notes to specific listings. I could go on and explain more about how it works exactly but for that, take a look at this article; they've already done it.

Now I know this has nothing to do with writing or keywords or anything that we normally discuss really on this blog, but for anyone who uses Google when searching for stuff (everyone), or for those SEO's out there, this is really, really big news. I was playing around with this new user interface today and I must say, it's pretty cool. I'm curious as to what everyone else out there thinks about it, or if you have even noticed it. I personally think it has huge implications for SEO, not so much in terms of rankings at the moment, but users will be able to see all of the notes other searchers have made about a page or a site, and they will also be able to see what results other users have re-ordered, removed, or added. Google's product manager, Cedric Dupont, added that he "wouldn't completely rule out the possibility that user data from SearchWiki may someday impact regular search rankings." This too, would have huge implications on the SEO world because, as of now, rankings are more objective, decided upon by the many factors in the search engine's algorithms. This would bring a much more subjective element to it. Very interesting stuff..........

Remember, you have to have a Google account and you also must be signed in to be able to use SearchWiki. Try it out and let me know what you think!