Source: seoresearcher.com

The recent Toolbar RageRank update once again has generated a lot of discussion in the SEO community. Webmasters report their websites receiving not much more traffic despite the increased visible PageRank. In numerous forum threads people question the reliability of toolbar values. By unveiling the following five myths I hope to answer to some of the uncertainties caused by this update.

1. PageRank values range from 0 to 10.

While some people believe that PageRank is an integer number or at least converge to an integer after intensive recursive calculations, actually it is a floating point number. Google rounds up the real value to the closest integer and puts it on the 0-10 scale which is displayed in your browser toolbar.

2. PageRank value displayed in the toolbar is the one used to rank the results.

As you might have noticed, the toolbar value is updated every few months with no regular intervals. In the present time Google continuously calculates and updates PageRank so that sometimes actual PageRank and its toolbar values can differ. The toolbar value should be considered not as a current rank but as a level your page has reached by the time of the latest toolbar update.

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By: S. Housley | Source: site-reference.com

There are a number of "wishes" that I have for Google’s future. While I would like number one ranking for all of my important keywords and phrases, but I would be willing to settle for Google acknowledging at least a few of my wishes that will benefit the search community as a whole.

Google started out as the beloved child, a fledgling start up that was all heart, and today they are a "hated" brand. Why the fall from grace? In some ways Google is a victim of the too big, too powerful, and too successful affliction that attacks companies that achieve a level of success that few companies dream of. Now that does not mean that I am giving them a pass, they have room to improve and I really do not hate them. I just think there is a lot of areas they could improve.

I sat down and wrote an open letter to Google about my wishes and dreams for their future:

Dear Google,
Please consider the following for areas of improvement.

1. Usenet and RSS.
Please, I’m begging, (groveling if it will help) create RSS feeds for Google Groups keyword searches. Think of the value, you could monitor Usenet for company or product names using RSS feeds. This would be an extremely easy way for businesses (and Google users) to stay in tune with what is being said on Usenet and in forums about specific topics.

2. Privacy Policy.
Clarify Google’s privacy policy, and tell me EXACTLY how you are going to use the aggregate data you collect. While most of us realize that the personal information collected is of little value, the aggregate data is extremely valuable. Google is an extremely powerful company, and this collective data gives them a huge advantage in negotiating acquisitions or determining trends. Many of us respect Google, its size and power, but do not necessarily want to contribute to Google’s additional growth. Implement a way for customers wishing to pay a fee, to opt not to have their data aggregated or tracked.

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By: Stoney deGeyter | Source: isedb.com

RSS feeds have made it easy to monitor and track news stories, blog posts and certain websites for important updates. But not every site has an RSS feed that you can track, nor does every change made constitute an RSS update.

In the world of online marketing, tracking changes to competitor, client and industry related websites can not only help you stay current on important issues, but can also help you gather additional competitive intelligence data simply and easily. RSS is great, but it’s not everywhere. For tracking what you can’t with RSS, we have developed the CodeMonitor Page Tracking tool.

While your reasons for wanting to track pages may vary, here are a few common reasons that don’t always lend themselves to RSS.

Competitor Tracking

Tracking even minor changes to your competitor websites. You want to know whenever a competitor adds a new product, reduces prices, or even makes changes that are designed to improve their search engine rankings. Changes in their title and meta description tags as well as on-page content can all provide you important business intelligence.

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