Hackers are renowned for jumping on the search bandwagon and targeting popular search terms to sell fake anti-virus software and to infect people with malware.

Just as scamsters have exploited public interest in the deaths of Michael Jackson, Farah Fawcett and Natasha Richardson to lead people to virus-laced websites, Swayze’s death has led to a flood of similar sham web pages

These cyber criminals use search engine optimisation techniques to get these websites to rank high in search engines such as Google.

While the websites appear legitimate, upon visiting them targets are advised their computers need anti-virus scans. When these scans are complete targets are advised their computers have been infected with Trojans, offering to sell them fake anti-virus software to remove them.

Many of the sites also infect users with viruses designed to steal personal details such as passwords and credit-card numbers.

Chrome marked its one year anniversary earlier this month, and users can now personalise their browser with themes and wallpapers, and order and change the selection of website favourites that appear when they open a new tab.

Google has also tweaked its ‘omnibox’ feature, which combines the website address and search bar and adds icons to help users differentiate between suggested sites, searches, bookmarks and sites from their browsing history.

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Product manager director Brian Rakowski says more than 30 million people worldwide use Chrome regularly. Chrome holds just under 3 percent of the global browser market, in comparison with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer which holds around 66 percent.

For developments coming up, the company plans to release beta versions of Chrome for Mac and Linux operating systems.

Plans to allow software developers to create applications for the browser are also scheduled to be in place by the end of the year.

In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.

Frederic Lardionis from ReadWriteWeb discusses that Yahoo is effectively giving up on competing in the search engine business and is focusing all its efforts on the search advertising side of the business, which it will be running for both Yahoo! and Microsoft (through Bing).

The key terms of the agreement are;

• Agreement is for 10 years
• Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;
  Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.
• Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.
  Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
  Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.
• Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.
• Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
• Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.
• Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.
• At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.
• The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.

The Microsoft and Yahoo deal is entirely focused on gaining a percentage share of the search market that can actively compete with the dominant Google share (particularly in the US) of around 70%.

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What will this mean for New Zealand? In reality, very little. It’s well known that Google has a higher than 90% market share, however with the Yahoo!Xtra relationship this will effectively join Yahoo!/MSN/Bing/Xtra into a single search engine powered by Bing in New Zealand.

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Fracture ipod The General move While it’s not a stat holiday (although some might argue it should be!) Mother’s Day is coming up in May. If you’re having a Mother’s Day sale on your website, start thinking about targeting key phrases now.

Here’s a helpful list of Mother’s Day-related keyword searches which were popular on NZS.com last year:

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• mothers day
• mothers day poems
• mothers day gifts
• mothers day quotes
• mothers day poem
• mothers day gift ideas
• mothers day ideas
• mother’s day poem
• mothers day present

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Get in quick are you’ve got the best chance of gaining a good search engine rank for your Mother’s Day-specific pages!

For NZS.com, the largest spike we’ve seen over the last year was in relation to the Olympic Keyword Searches that were being searched on. These searches were across the widest range of user demographics that we’ve seen in some time.

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Here’s a helpful list of Easter-related keyword searches which have gained popularity on NZS.com over the last week:

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• easter activities
• easter ideas
• easter baking
• easter recipes
• easter crafts
• meaning of easter
• how to make easter eggs
• easter cards
• easter symbols
• easter bun recipe

NZS.com also has a set of useful Easter related Articles: Easter Gifts, Easter Activities and Easter Baking.

Cocaine Cowboys II: Hustlin’ with the Godmother the movie If you have a statistics package attached to you website (like Google Analytics, which is freely available) it’s a good idea to look back at Easter 2008 and see if people found your site by searching for Easter related terms. Re-cycling those terms this year within your website copy may help increase your traffic on them.

You might be surprised at the extra opportunities that present themselves by following other seasonal keywords that your visitors are using through-out the year.

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Instead of investing hours of your own time figuring out how to optimise your site, let an SEO services

expert do the hard work for you. They’ll complete a comprehensive Return on Investment (ROI) analysis, assessing the anticipated revenue that will be generated from SEO efforts versus the cost of implementation.

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SEO professionals can do all of the keyword research and planning to best suit your market, and will undertake all restructuring of your content and will formulate a link building campaign.

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Furthermore, an SEO expert will report, analyze and review your website’s new SEO work to keep you informed with its success. Check out our web promotion

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category on NZS.com to get the experts on board today!

Image from Flickr.

That’s right, NZS.com breaks a million page views, keeping us up with the increasing growth that the global online world is experiencing. Throughout 2008 we averaged 850,000 page views per month but for the first month of 2009 we soared to 1,075,401 visitor page views. Reaching this milestone is a great indication of the growing importance of New Zealand search.

Despite the predicted economic downturn in 2009, online marketing commentators predict further growth of the online industry as companies increasingly look to online marketing campaigns to increase their brand awareness and create new business.

at NZS.com. It seems like every week there’s a new way of doing things, a new keyword analysis resource from you-know-who.

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We forget sometimes just how young SEO is, and how quickly optimisation fads and flutter in and out of popular use. It wasn’t too long ago when every at-home website developer was testing out every new SEO technique: from black text on black background keyword-laden pages, to irrelevant meta data keyword schemes focused on the hottest worldwide searches.

We’re a decade on from the emergence of these methods, but funnily enough they are still highly (and badly) used throughout the World Wide Web. What are the best SEO tools today? SEO companies will continually tell you that going back to the basics never goes awry. Unique content, cohesive page titling, targeted and concise keyword data, clean HTML, and of course, relevant inbound linking.

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Set yourself a simple SEO formula for your website (and stick with that formula for every new page you create), and you’ll glide into top ranks and high conversions.

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Prancer film You’ll know of course that NZS.com is a New Zealand resource for online content.

So, what does it mean when, completely out of the blue on a Friday afternoon, NZS.com receives hundreds of people from all around the United States suddenly coming to NZS.com in search for the “New Zealand National Symbol“?

Perhaps Oprah talked about New Zealand and asked her audience what the national symbol was? Or a nationwide radio competition asked listeners who were keen for a major prize? I’m sure if those happened they would probably make the national news here in NZ.

This raises an interesting question, what is our national symbol? Is it the kiwi or the silver fern?

Image from Flickr.

But is bad keyword spelling really useful or does it just make your website look unprofessional?

The answer to this question depends on your point of view. Just take a look at any keyword tool and you’ll see that intentional misspellings account for a significant proportion of searches online. So, including misspelled keywords can be useful, allowing you to:

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• Target searches that are commonly misspelled, for instance ‘accomodation’ instead of ‘accommodation’
• Get good search engine rankings for profitable popular search terms that have low levels of competition
• Capture the market for regional spelling variations, eg. both UK and US spellings of words such as ‘optimisation’ (’optimization’)
  
• Help searchers find what they’re looking for, even if they enter a word incorrectly

But along with these benefits, there are also disadvantages to including misspellings or alternate spellings in your website copy – the most obvious being that visitors and potential clients will see your website (and therefore your business) as sloppy, careless or… lacking in basic spelling skills. Even worse, you may end up losing your search engine friendly status if you, or your Web designer, try to fool search engines with invisible text or other keyword tricks.

Find some of the best SEO consultants in New Zealand in the NZS.com directory.

Image from Flickr.