The search for the perfect search engine is far from over. Even though Google is ruling the roost right now, and quickly expanding into other seemingly diverse areas- the eventual goal is not just connecting web users with information, but connecting web users to businesses to complete a sale.
AdWords and AdSense are a big part of their revenue stream. Now Google is moving into selling conventional media like radio as well with purchase of dMarc so they can serve up their targeted ads with response codes across the nation.
But no matter how good Google is, it still makes mistakes in guessing what you want. Offering ads on skydiving lessons while reading about people jumping from the World Trade towers on 9/11 wouldn’t be relevant, or helpful.
So out comes a new company offering to help you separate the %*^& from shinola- using the semantic meaning- instead of just the keyword. The company is called TextWise– and the product is called, yep: Shinola.
So, if you are looking at optimizing your search in Google either with keyword density (the old way) or by using organic search results (real content) there may soon be help available to avoid embarrassing unexpected results.
While many people have worried about click fraud in paid placement ads others have worried about being placed next to the wrong thing- soon, Shinola will make sure you don’t get placed next to the #*&!

Blogs and wikis thoughts (for Brian) at D’Arcy Norman Dot Net

A lot of people coming to this site are hoping to learn how to manage their own site easily and effectively. We focus on WordPress in the seminar- but also cover Wiki’s and Bulletin Boards- and the basics of Web 2.0. This post by the ever insightful D’Arcy Norman explains the importance of these new tools for the web.

This post is another example of using the Press-it capability in WordPress. Just remember- you don’t have to create all your content- you just need to be a good collection point.

Unless you speak Korean- probably not. But for those of you who think Google will never meet its match, pay attention. In Korea Naver has Google beat- and it’s winning by throwing a new variable into the search mix- user input.
The same way Wikipedia counts on it’s users to create content- Naver asks it’s users to answer questions- the reward – being ranked from ordinary to supernatural- and if you really know it all- you can be one of 22 “Gods.”
While Google uses some feedback from search selections to evaluate and provide page rank- it doesn’t go as far as to ask outright for the answers. Heuristic learning for search is probably the next big thing- if it isn’t already partially here now. For those of you who don’t know what heuristic is: an educational method in which learning takes place through discoveries that result from investigations made by the student.
In other words- you learn from trial and error until you get it right.
This probably isn’t applicable to how to get your site to the top of search just yet- but, the fact remains that if you provide the right answer- or the right links to the right answer- your site will be the last place the visitors stop- making you the expert for the minute- and maybe turn the visitor into a customer.