Hey all - been taking a vacation from the blog for a while, sorting out some personal issues. Wanted to bring up a cool meta search engine that I’ve been getting back into. It’s not new, but it’s a cool way to search when your old standby’s aren’t doing the job.
August, 2008 Archive
Surfwax - A Meta Engine You Might Like
August 15th, 2008 by Bill in SEO
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SERPs Customized for Philadelphia Metro Area? Thanks, I guess.
August 6th, 2008 by Bill in SEOMy son is creative. He’s 4 years old. He’s a wizard on the computer already. I was curious about the kind of art software that might be out there, that could be stimulating for him (he’s tired of Noggin.com - it was bound to happen). Today I Googled “art programs” and got a customized result. Ok, so maybe my query wasn’t tuned the best for my specific need - I wound up with online art schools and online education sites. Not bad results on their own, but I was surprised to see the little note Google posted in the SERP:
note: image was altered to fit the width of my blog
So this result got me thinking. It said “customized for the metro Philly area”. Interesting, except my actual location this time was outside of Philadelphia, in Reading, Pennsylvania - Berks County, not Philadelphia. I’m not exactly sure how the geo-tracking works in this case, other than the obvious IP tracking which was showing as a neighboring town when I looked. Again, not Philadelphia. SEO and IP aside, I just started to wonder about whether this was a good idea at all.
I wasn’t logged in. I wasn’t asking for personalized search. What if I didn’t want an art program in the Philadelphia area? What if I was open to any location? Granted, these results really didn’t seem that customized to Philly this time around, but how far can Google take this?
I’d prefer some parametric buttons that would let me choose customized results to my location, instead of just having it be “on”.
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Video Tour Of Google’s Social Search Interface
August 4th, 2008 by Bill in SEOA few posts ago I talked about the lucky coworker who got the Google social search beta. Well, today the Google fairies smiled upon me. I created a new Google account for a project I was working on, and a webmaster central account, and BOOM… there it was in all its glory.
I quickly downloaded some screen capture software and put together this video. Sorry, no sound, but I don’t think you’ll really need it to see what this cool Google interface is all about.
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Hey Philly - Search Camp Philly Sounds Great For Ya
August 1st, 2008 by Bill in SEM, SEOI’ve been spending my last year working in an agency in Philadelphia. I don’t get out nearly as much as I used to, and as a result, was totally oblivious to this great group of local interactive marketers. I hope to meet them soon. My new friend Chris Phillips invited me to the Internet Marketers of Delaware Valley. Affiliated with that is Search Camp Philly, a great sounding weekend for $21.00. Wow. I might have to leave Disney World early for that. Wife would kill me though…
I don’t feel so alone anymore! I know I have a couple local readers to my new blog. Definitely check this out.
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