Eight years with Pandia
(January 14 2007) Welcome to a new year with the Pandia Search World newsletter!
Those of you who are not subscribing to our bimonthly Pandia Post newsletter as well, may want to take a look at our new year issue, which includes articles on having a career in search engine marketing, the Search Wikia, the Aviva web directory and much more.
Belive it or not, Pandia is now eight years old. In Internet terms that means that we are ancient! Nevertheless, 2006 was our strongest year ever. We registered more than 3 million sessions (visits) last year, and more than 9 million page views.
We believe there are several reasons for this growth.
1. We switched to Wordpress in the summer of 2005, making it possible for us to serve RSS web feeds to Internet savvy readers. Many of our readers are what we can call "progressive" or advanced Internet users, exactly the kind of people that will subscribe to RSS feeds, using a news reader.
2. We are harvesting the benefits from having an old site with a large number of inbound links. More and more Google and other search engines take domain age into consideration when determining the authority of a web site.
3. Due to our Goalgetter web search tutorial we have gained a large number of links from universities and colleges. Some of them have even made the tutorial part of their curriculum. Google loves .edu links.
4. We have managed to keep up the pressure, publishing two to four articles every week. Not only does this make our readers come back regularly. We also generate a lot of content that bring in search engine users.
What we haven't managed to do, is to follow up on the search engine conference scene in the way we wanted to. Taking part in conferences not only gives you academic input, it also helps you build friendships and develop contacts, making your product or site more visible among bloggers and influential experts. We have both full-time jobs besides Pandia, but we will do our best to attend at least one of the big venues this year. Maybe we will meet you there!
We have also a large number of great ideas for new articles, features and tools. So stay with us!
Per and Susanne
Here are the latest news headlines and articles from Pandia Search World. Go to www.pandia.com/searchworld for the online version of this news service.
Are there search engines for image, sound or movie content?
Lars Iselid of Internetbrus takes a look at search engines for finding pictures and for searching the content of sound and video files.
Magnus Höij, editor-in-chief of the Swedish Internet magazine Internetworld writes in the first 2007 issue that “So far we have no tools for finding relevant information in pictures, sound or films. So far we cannot search for information by entering one of our own pictures in order to find similar information in other images.”
I would say that we do have tools of this kind.
Apple includes Google Maps in new iPhone
Apple includes Google and Yahoo! web search in the new iPhone, as well as full support for Google Maps.
Yesterday Apple presented their new and amazing iPhone, adding beauty and style to the portable Internet.
The iPhone is the first cellular phone without buttons. Instead all operations are performed by touching the screen.
This phone is more like a Mac computer with a phone built in than a phone with software. The included Safari web browser is set up for Yahoo! and Google search.
What’s more interesting, though, is the fact that Apple has included Google Maps, making it easy to find store, restaurants, movies, and any kind of destination using your phone. With the iPhone’s large screen (320 by 480 at 160 ppi - 3.5 inches), Apple can deliver large and easy to read maps and satellite photos.
Search engine industry time machine
Are you interested in ancient search engine history like which search engines were competing for web dominance back in 2001? Well, I am, anyway 
And I was totally fascinated by a little tool I found the other day, which works like a search engine industry time machine.
more…
2007 The year of search engines and social media
We are certain that social media marketing — the use of Web 2.0 sites and services — will become an important part of search as well as search engine marketing in 2007.
Some of the most popular articles on Pandia last year did not focus on search engines at all, but on social media – sites categorized under that vague label “Web 2.0“.
What we are reading
The holiday season is always a quite time. Still, we have identified a few interesting and useful articles.
IceRocket and Some New (?) Popularity Features
The Popular YouTube Videos, which measure the most popular YouTube videos by link count in the last 36 hours (Researchbuzz Jan 8 2007)
Move Over Yellow Pages, Here Comes Centiare
Centiare is based on the same platform as Wikipedia. It has potential to compete with Hoover's, and even peel away a subset of MySpace users (Media Orchard December 28 2006)
SEO: Art, Science, Bollocks Or What?
Search engine optimization is not rocket science, Mike Grehan argues (Jan 8 2007)
What Wikiasari Can Teach AT&T About Mobile Ads
Consumer-generated search, even more than a consumer-generated encyclopedia, marks a shift towards consumers' looking to a community for answers about their questions and needs, rather than looking to an all-knowing, ready-made information source. (Searc
The #1 SEO and Marketing Tactic for 2007
The main point is to gain the trust of the search engines (Small Business SEM Jan 1 2007)
GoogleBot Crawling CSS Files
Ramblings about SEO on Google analyzing CSS files (Jan 5 2007)
Disney Joins Social Media Fray
Disney to launch MySpace for kids (SearchRank Jan 4 2007)
New Google Reader Trends page
A look into the mind of Matt Cutts of Google - or, rather, his Google feed Reader (M Cutts Jan 3 2007)
Google Stops Providing Tips To Its Products In Its Search Results
Since mid-December, "tips" directing people to Google products began appearing alongside certain Google search results. (Dow Jones Jan 2007)
FeedBurner launches initial release of site statistics
FeedBurner's (a service tracking RSS feeds) site statistics are now live. (SE Watch Jan 5 2007)
2007 - the year of the Google Bash
A slew of articles all casting doubts on Google and discussing its downfall. (P Bradley Jan 3 2007)
Google’s Blogger With Custom Domains
An alternative to the blogspot.com domain (Blogoscoped Jan 5 2007)
Google Reader Inching Toward Digg?
Google Reader just added a Reader Trends feature that highlights blog posts users have read, starred, and shared in the past 30 days. (Battelle Jan 3 2007)
Google Confirms Gmail Glitch
Gmail users have their email accounts wiped out ( The Street Dec 29 2006)
14 "Is Google Evil?" Tipping Points Since 2001
Google has been in trouble before, Danny Sullivan argues, and has survived (Jan 1 2007)
Interview: John Markus Lervik
Part 2 of the Fast Forward Blog's interview with the Norwegian search engine CEO (Dec 28 2006)
Google Breaks The Ten Commandments
Google has long claimed to follow its own set of commandments, or what it calls "Ten Things". (Internet Marketing Monitor Dec 29 2006)
Search engines stall on specifics according to survey
Twenty-one percent of professionals feel search engines understand their queries, and only one in 10 find exactly what they want on the first attempt. (The Enquirer Dec 27 2006)
New Patent Application - Spam Detection Based on Phrase Indexing
Webmaster World discussion on new Google patent (Dec 29 2006)
Google Ranks Second In Merriam-Webster's Word Of 2006 List
Google is beaten by "truthiness" (SE Land Dec 28 2006)
Google buys Endoxon
Company to give Google Earth a European mapping boost (Infoworld Dec 18 2006)
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