Security Update: WordPress and Google Both Launch Improvements

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It’s been a busy week for security buffs as both WordPress and Google Accounts are both receiving major security improvements that their users should definitely scoop up as quickly as possible.

For WordPress users, they need to see about upgrading their installation to version 3.0.5, which fixes several security bugs that are most dangerous to those who have authors with limited permissions on their blog. Google, on the other hand, is slowly rolling out a new two-factor authentication system that may help keep your email and other information more secure.

If you use either or both of these tools, you may want to look at making the needed changes so you can get the full benefit of their security improvements. Otherwise, you’ll likely find that your blog, your email and your other personal information are at greater risk.

WordPress Launches 3.0.5

WordPress users who have a standalone installation of WordPress on their server, will likely want to upgrade to 3.0.5 as soon as possible.

The upgrade addresses several severe security issues including:

1. Two security issues that would have allowed a author or contributor-level user to gain greater access to the site.
2. Another security issue that would have allowed an author-level user to read information they weren’t supposed to access, such as drafts or private posts.
3. Two additional security issues that help secure plugins, especially those that don’t use WordPress’ built-in security API.

Obviously, if you don’t have author or contributor-level users or don’t use many plugins, there is less urgency in this upgrade but, considering it is a free update and takes only minutes to install automatically, it’s well worth going ahead and upgrading.

At the same time as WordPress 3.0.5′s release, Automattic also announced the release of the fourth release candidate for the WordPress 3.1 branch. This release deals mostly mostly small bugs that were found in the third release candidate and marks a clear sign that the 3.1 branch is very near completion and should be sent out to the masses very shortly.

Google Introduces Two Factor Authentication

For users of Blogger, or even just Gmail or other Google tools, Google is rolling out two-factor authentication to help make your Google account more secure.

The basic principle is that, instead of merely having your email address and password to log into your Google account, you also have to enter a second, numerical passcode. This code is always changing and is sent to the user every login via either text message or the “Google Authenticator” app that is available for the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry.

Since this number changes regularly, it makes it much more difficult for someone to phish your password and anyone who wishes to enter your acount without authorization has to have access to your email address, password and your phone, making the process significantly more difficult.

Two-factor authentication is hardly new, PayPal has been using a security key system for years and many corporations and government agencies have required other kinds of security tokens for even longer.

But despite their history, security tokens have not gained widespread usage due to the perceived hassle (both in setting them up and using them) and the fact many don’t wish to either use text messages or to purchase keychains or cards to keep around. This has limited the application to high-risk targets such as banks, corporations and so forth.

Fortunately, Google’s system is free for anyone with a smartphone or with an unlimited text messaging plan and, as such, may mark the beginning of widespread usage for more personal targets.

As incidents like the Gawker leak have shown us, passwords are very vulnerable to being leaked, guessed or stolen, making a second layer of authentication very important for critical data.

Right now, systems such as Google’s are the best available and will likely become more common over the next few years.

Bottom Line

If you value your data, your privacy and your site, then you need to take security seriously. Fortunately, both Google and the WordPress development team are both working to help make security easier and better.

If you use either of these products, take a moment and upgrade your sites and your password security. You’ll be glad that you did.

While these steps may not secure you completely, that’s because nothing really can. They will, however, make you a much more difficult target and motivate attackers to move on to other, easier targets.

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Google, China, Wikileaks: The Actual Cable

When the Wikileaks story broke, I wrote a short piece chastising folks for blogging the assertion that one of the cables proves the Chinese government was behind the Google hacking which preceded Google's pulling out of the country. The cable is based on single sources, who are anonymous and second-hand, and that doesn't pass the journalistic sniff test.

My colleague Matt McAlister at the Guardian has sent me the link to the entire cable, and while I stand by my original take on the story, it sure is intriguing to read. In fact, the details I find most interesting are the interactions alleged between Baidu and the Chinese goverment.

From the cable:

....

Another contact claimed a top PRC leader was actively working with Google competitor Baidu against Google.

....

Google's recent move presented a major dilemma (maodun) for the Chinese government, not because of the cyber-security aspect but because of Google's direct challenge to China's legal restrictions on Internet content. The immediate strategy, XXXXXXXXXXXX said, seemed to be to appeal to Chinese nationalism by accusing Google and the U.S. government of working together to force China to accept "Western values" and undermine China's rule of law. The problem the censors were facing, however, was that Google's demand to deliver uncensored search results was very difficult to spin as an attack on China, and the entire episode had made Google more interesting and attractive to Chinese Internet users. All of a sudden, XXXXXXXXXXXX continued, Baidu looked like a boring state-owned enterprise while Google "seems very attractive, like the forbidden fruit."

....

XXXXXXXXXXXX noted the pronounced disconnect between views of U.S. parent companies and local subsidiaries. PRC-based company officials often downplayed the extent of PRC government interference in their operations for fear of consequences for their local markets. Our contact emphasized that Google and other U.S. companies in China were struggling with the stated Chinese goal of technology transfer for the purpose of excluding foreign competition. This consultant noted the Chinese were exploiting the global economic downturn to enact increasingly draconian product certification and government procurement regulations to force foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) to transfer intellectual property and to carve away the market share of foreign companies.

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Will Your Site Survive the Google Shrink Ray?

Google likes to play a little game with those of us who do business online.

The game is called “change all the rules and see who survives.” It’s often a fun and rewarding game for Google users, but it can be painful for business owners.

In the latest version, Google has rolled out a feature called Instant Previews.

When enabled, users see a cute little magnifying glass sitting next to their search results. The user can view a quick snapshot of sites simply by hovering over links.

Remember the three-second rule for websites? The one that said that your visitor will decide within the first three seconds whether or not they’ll stay on your site?

Forget that: it’s now the 0.3 second rule. Does your site have what it takes to make the cut?

Let’s find out. (And if not, let’s get it fixed.)

Snap judgments served here

With Instant Preview, potential visitors are going to make a judgment about whether or not to visit your site without even reading the content. It’s too small to see in the pop up window. They’re going to decide based purely on — (drumroll, please) — design.

Potential site visitors don’t have to leave Google to get a peek at your pages. What will they find when they see your site reduced so that it’s just large enough to read the name, the headlines, and maybe the subheads?

Don’t despair if you don’t like what you see. You can polish up your site so it holds up when viewed under Google’s magnifying glass. Just follow these few simple steps.

Clear the clutter

Some pages are cluttered with so many ads, sidebar entries, social media icons and sign up boxes the visitor won’t want to see them full size. Why magnify clutter?

To remedy this, decide what one action you want users to take on your page. You may have more than one possible path to send visitors down, but which one takes priority?

Once you know what you’d most like them to do, set up your page so that this action stands out. Put it toward the top, make it larger, use brighter colors to emphasize it.

Then don’t be afraid to strip off the ads, sidebar items and icons that are distracting from that one action. Push them down the page, and display them in colors that are subtle and low-key.

Customize, simplify, implement consistently

Here are a few ways to know if your site looks bargain basement:

• Does your header feature cheap clip art?
• Are you using lots of different colors with no discernible visual branding?
• How about typefaces? If you need more than two or three fingers to count the different typefaces used on your site, you’re in trouble.

You can create a custom header image for your site using a nice, clear typeface and a textured background you download from free or inexpensive photo sharing sites. Combine them using free image editing software, and you have a no-cost, unique header image you can use on your site and in your email marketing. You’ll stand out, even if you can’t afford to hire a designer right now.

When it comes to colors, pick two main colors, and make sure all your headlines, subheads and site graphics reinforce these choices. Black or grey text don’t count toward this total.

This doesn’t mean you can only use two colors: just give your two main colors priority, because that will reinforce your visual brand.

Stick to two typefaces as well. Your graphic style will be clearer and easier to capture in a glance if you’ve used two typefaces consistently throughout your site.

And of course, you can always take a “shortcut” by getting a turn-key premium WordPress theme that incorporates these professional design elements without having to pay for a designer.

Headlines always matter

In a “snap judgment” environment, a great headline is one of the most valuable tools that can stack the deck in your favor.

If headlines aren’t your strong suit, be sure to check out the great resources here on Copyblogger for creating more compelling headlines.

While you’re at it, make sure your subheads also tell a compelling story. Since your readers can often read them from the preview, they’ll help entice and attract the reader to click through and learn more.

And while we’re talking subheads …

Make your content scannable

Readers can’t see individual sentences from Instant Preview.

But they can see if your content has been broken up into short paragraphs, with plenty of white space.

Long stretches of unbroken text can intimidate your searcher. They make your content look difficult and painful to digest.

Just about any piece of writing can be made more reader-friendly by breaking it into short sentences, short paragraphs, and using strong subheads to keep the reader oriented.

Time to clean up your act

I’ve said it in this space before. Sure, content is king. But if your handsome king looks like an ugly toad, who’s going to pay attention?

It’s more important now than ever to spend time polishing up the visual presentation of your site. Not only will it help you with Instant Preview, but all of these enhancements will make your site look better on small mobile device screens as well.

And — added bonus — they even improve reader experience on a full-sized screen. Come take a look at the brand new Copyblogger design for ideas you can implement on your own site.

What will you do to survive the Google shrink ray? Tell us about it in the comments.

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Awesome WordPress Plugins to Empower Your Visitors

This guest post is by Jeff Starr, co-author of the book Digging into WordPress.

Helping your visitors get the most out of your site benefits everyone. Visitors get more relevant and useful content, and you enjoy better statistics and more exposure. Unfortunately the game is set up to keep people away from your site. Think about it:

• Search engines are used to find your content
• Feed readers are used to read your content
• Social media is used to share, tag, and organize your content

These are major obstacles, certainly, but they don’t have to work against you. People use search engines, feed readers, and social media because they provide functionality missing from most websites. By integrating some of that same functionality into your site, you empower your visitors to maximize its usefulness. This may sound like a tall order, but if you’re using WordPress, improving your site couldn’t be easier. Let’s look at some awesome WordPress plugins to make it happen.

Google-power your search results

People will always use external search engines like Google to find content on your site. That’s a good thing, but you also want to empower your users with the best possible search results. WordPress’ default search is limited in several ways:

• does not do “exact-match” searching
• only searches posts and post titles
• only searches your current WordPress installation
• can be painfully slow, gobbles resources

Fortunately, we can harness the power of Google and empower your users with the most accurate, comprehensive, and speedy search possible. Integrating Google Search into your site provides the following benefits:

• exact-match searching (i.e., using quotes to match specific phrases)
• searches your entire site plus any other desired sites or directories
• usually works pretty quickly – much faster than WordPress default search
• optional additional revenue through Google’s AdSense program

Sound good? Here are some of the best plugins to make it happen:

Google Search for WordPress

This beautiful plugin works silently behind the scenes to replace WordPress’ search results with Google’s search results. You simply install the plugin and enter your Google API Key in the Google Search Settings. If you don’t have an API Key, it’s free and easy to get one. The only other requirement is to include “Powered by Google” next to your search form and on the search-results page. Once it’s installed, all search results will be replaced by those from Google. No code-wrangling required.

More information and downloads are available at the WordPress Plugin Directory.

Google Custom Search Plugin

The Google Custom Search Plugin is another excellent way to integrate Google Search into your WordPress blog. Instead of signing up for an API Key, visit Google Search and create your own custom search engine by walking through the steps. After setting up your own form, grab the generated code and paste it into the plugin’s Settings page.

More information and downloads are available at the WordPress Plugin Directory.

More from Google

The More from Google plugin works a little differently by adding to your default search results instead of completely replacing them. After installing and configuring the plugin, your search results will include matches from both WordPress and Google. If Google has yet to index your entire site, this may be the perfect way to ensure that visitors are getting the best search results.

More information and downloads are available at the WordPress Plugin Directory.

Other Ways to Improve WordPress Default Search

If Google Search isn’t for you, don’t fret. Here are two additional plugins that will vastly improve WordPress’ default search:

• Search Everything – literally searches everything in your database, based on your preferences
• Better Search – highly customizable solution for improving WordPress’ default search

Regardless of how you do it, improving your site’s default search functionality is a great way to help your visitors use your site and find the content they crave.

Socialize and communitize your WordPress site

Bring the excitement of social-media to your WordPress-powered site! There are so many reasons to empower your readers to favorite, share, and rate your content directly on your website, and just as many awesome plugins to make it super-easy to do. Here are some of the best plugins for making your site fun, social, and more interactive.

WP Favorite Posts

WP Favorite Posts is a popular, five-star plugin that enables your visitors to add favorite posts to their own list of favorites. Installation is easy, and the plugin is straightforward and easy to modify and customize to fit any design. I use the plugin on my Angry-Birds fan site. You can see the “Add to Favorites” link in the upper-right corner of any post. There is also a link to “View Favorites”, where each user can view (and delete) their favorite links. And even cooler than all that, you can display a list of everyone’s most-popular favorites, very similar to how Delicious works.

More information and downloads are available at the WordPress Plugin Directory.

Star ratings and reviews

Post ratings are a fun and informative way to engage visitors and promote content. And there are many post-rating plugins to choose from.

In terms of functionality and customization, the GD Star Rating plugin can do just about anything, but the endless configuration options may be overkill. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got the elegant simplicity of the Vote-the-Post plugin, which is lightweight, flexible, and easy to customize code-side for tight design integration. I use this plugin to enable voting at Angry-Birds.net (see any post for example).

These plugins also enable you to display lists of top-rated posts anywhere on your site, so you can uninstall that most-popular-post plugin you no longer need.

Chat forum

Chat forums aren’t for every site, but when done right they’re great ways to build community and facilitate conversation. As with post-ratings, there are many chat plugins available in the Directory, but there are two that stand above the rest:

• WordSpew
• Pierre’s Wordspew

Both of these plugins are popular, highly rated plugins that provide flexible, customizable chat functionality. WordSpew is great because it uses Ajax to refresh everything automatically, keeping the chat window flowing in real time. Pierre’s Wordspew works without AJax, but it also uses a Flash .flv file that prevents it from working on devices like the iPad and iPhone. You can see a highly customized example of the WordSpew plugin at Dead Letter Art.

Show online users

Just like showing off counts for feed subscribers, Twitter followers, and Facebook fans, you can also show off the number of users currently online. An excellent plugin for this is WP-UserOnline, which provides several templates for easy configuration of how and where the user-online count is displayed. You can also set up a “Who’s online?” page that shows detailed statistics of where your visitors are on the site, who they are, and where they came from. This awesome plugin takes only minutes to implement using template tags and/or widgets.

Social media

Even after socializing your site, you want to make sure that visitors can easily share and bookmark your content on their favorite social-media sites. I tell you the truth, there are a gazillion plugins and widgets for adding every social-media site under the sun, but you really only need one plugin to do the job. Just install and configure WP Socializer and done. Any combination of social-media buttons, icons, links displayed virtually anywhere on your site. Tons of options yes, but they are all well-organized and easy to configure from the comfort of your WordPress Admin.

Wrapping up

No matter how awesome your website, there’s always room for improvement. With the techniques and tools described in this article, empowering your visitors to get the most from your WordPress site is as easy as installing and configuring a few choice plugins. As you go, keep an eye on site performance. Loading up with too many plugins can burden your server and slow things down for visitors. All the functionality in the world means nothing on a slow-loading website. A good strategy is to cherry-pick a few choice plugins and watch the results. Remember the goal is to help visitors get into your site and really use it for all it’s worth.

Jeff Starr is a web developer, graphic designer and content producer with over 10 years of experience and a passion for quality and detail. Jeff is co-author of the book Digging into WordPress and strives to help people be the best they can be on the Web. Read more from Jeff at Perishable Press or hire him at Monzilla Media.

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What To Twitter And Include For Google Searches

I came across an interesting article the other day about Twitter and seo in general and I know there’s a constant stream of information about what works and what doesn’t in seo and social media, but this information came about as a result of a seminar hosted by SEOmoz in Seattle recently.

In the ever changing world where people involved with search engine marketing are continually chasing Google’s tail to find out what the search engine is looking for, there have been several new twists including using more images and other techniques to promote localized searches. The news is Google’s new search results display a blend of images you can use to your advantage when you’re a local business.

Not All Images Though

You can’t go overboard and expect to get the best results, however. One suggestion that came out of the seminar was to take full advantage of “How to” and tutorial type content to compliment whatever images or videos you’re using.  That’s good news for content writers and bloggers. Like I’ve been saying for years now, try as they may, there’s no getting rid of good content.

Here’s a note of caution about using images. It seems that some less reputable websites can even analyze and steal some of your seo thunder by stealing some of your images. The remedy here is, as you might have guessed, more text and content on your site to give Google something concrete to latch on to.

One other great way to get good seo is to place your site in the directories that the search engines are building. It’s important to keep in mind and take a good look at Google Places in particular. The idea here is to be able to get your results in what’s called the Google 7 pack which is the preferred listing rank.

Phone Numbers For Good Rankings

If you’re going to look into this method, you need to be sure to fill out all the categories to get the maximum exposure. Some of the key information used here is the phone number and address of the business.

Tips For Tweets

Now on to what was said about Twitter at the seminar. One of the other speakers  reported that getting the most responses on Twitter is easier than you might think—all you really need to do is wait unit later in the day before you start. Another tip is to fill out the 160-character biography field. It seems people who do get six times more followers.

Don’t be shy in other areas either. Other areas of advice include adding a picture of yourself on the account and a link to your website. Finally, the conclusions drawn in the seminar noted that click-through rates were affected by the number of tweets and the lower the number of click-throughs, the higher the number of tweets. That’s good information for the marketers out there.

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Why Link Exchanges Are Like Mosquitoes

A Guest post by Akila from The Road Forks

Last week, I had a revelation when, after spending ten minutes fiddling around with a VPN in Podunkville, China, I opened my email and found four link exchange requests, including one asking to exchange links with “The Toad Forks” rather than our website, The Road Forks. As I slammed my laptop lid down, I realized that link exchanges are the mosquitoes of the blogging world.

Imagine that all of us bloggers — interesting and interested people engaged in making our blogs the Next Best Thing — sit down at a summer table with platters of thick-grilled hamburgers and corn on the cob next to an open cooler of dripping beers. The mosquitoes hover, pinching our legs and arms. We slap them away but their brothers come to replace them. They bloat with our blood, gorging and feeding on our health, and we develop unsightly rashes. That, my friends, are link exchange requests and we bloggers are helping these mosquitoes breed.

What is a link exchange request? A link exchange request is one where a site offers to link to your site in exchange for a reciprocal link. The key to this request is the requirement for a reciprocal link; in other words, if you don’t link to me, I don’t link to you.

Link exchange requests come in various forms. Some are from corporate entities seeking to promote blogs or sites by selling text links, though Google slashed PageRanks in 2007 in response to this tactic. Others are from bloggers — often, well meaning, newbie bloggers —- who send mass generic e-mails that cause me to inwardly groan, along the lines of, “Hey! Cool blog! Want to exchange links?”

Let me be clear, though: link exchanges are not e-mails from bloggers to others in the same genre inviting them to consider reading or linking to their blog because they have shared interests. If you are producing valuable content, you need to spread the word and e-mailing and networking with other bloggers is the best way to increase traffic to your site. Darren’s 11 tips to increase your chances of being linked to by another blogger boil down to two central tenets: get to know the person whose link you are asking for and produce content worthy of that link. A polite request that a person consider reading your blog is not the same thing as a request for a link in return for a link of their own.

Why do websites/bloggers want link exchanges? Link exchanges are an easy, get-rich-quick scheme to drive traffic and increase search engine results. In the short term, readers will jump to your blog, leading to more pageviews, ad revenue, and perhaps RSS subscribers.

Over the long term, links build your site’s “importance,” in the eyes of Google (and most other search engines, for that matter). A link exchange means more links for your site as well as theirs, more links leads to a higher Google PageRank, and a higher PageRank will cause a site to show up closer to the front page of Google search results, generating greater traffic for a site. Greater traffic means more ad revenue, fame, and the resulting glamour of being a hot-shot blogger.

The bad news: By participating in link exchanges, you risk injuring your reputation, the reputation of others, and angering Google. What do all successful bloggers have in common? Trust. A link might send new readers to your site but they are only going to keep reading your site if they trust that you will produce great content every week. The links on your blog are part of the content on your site; by linking to another site, you represent to your reader that the link is of good quality and will provide something valuable to the reader. If a reader clicks on a link that takes them to a site filled with ads for pills and dating programs, or to a blog that produces worse content than your own, the reader is going to question your judgment and wonder why you chose to link to that site. Nobody likes the guy who has to buy his friends. Unfortunately, by linking to one lousy site, you also devalue the other good sites on your blog. Bad for you, bad for your friends.

And, you certainly don’t want to irritate the most powerful player on the web. Google carries 71% of the search engine market and they hate link schemes. Google is in the business of providing the most accurate website hierarchy for a particular search term and falsely inflated links to a particular site lead to poor search results. In no less than three places in their Webmaster Guidelines, Google explains that participating in link schemes, including excessive link exchanges, could “negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results.”

Welcome to the new Internet where content is king.

Link exchanges are part of the old Internet, a system in which PageRank ruled and social media was a fancy word for e-mail. Today, Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon drive more traffic to my blog (and, I suspect, most blogs) than links from other bloggers. In the last week of July 2010, Facebook not only dominated the social media sites but was the most visited website in the world – even more than Google – accounting for over 9% of all web traffic in that week. Facebook’s Like button and Twitter’s instantaneous communications reward interesting or useful posts without using artificial means to game a blogger’s popularity.

Google is taking advantage of this revolution with Caffeine, its web indexing system launched in June 2010 that crawls blogs, social media sites, commercial sites, and user generated content at a 50% faster rate. Previously, Google used to crawl pages once every few days or even less, resulting in stale web search results. Now, when you hit publish on your blog post, it will appear in Google search results in less than 30 minutes. This means that fresh content – whether in the form of blog posts, tweets, or Facebook posts – may be the key to landing at the top of Google searches. In fact, Google has recommended for years that webmasters stop obsessing about PageRank because it is only one of 200 factors used to determine search results.

The bottom line is that if you want to increase your readership in today’s Internet, focus on networking with other bloggers, effectively using social media tools to produce fresh content, and, most importantly, producing link-worthy content, rather than populating the Internet with infestations of spam-filled links. Maybe soon, we will all be able to sit back and bask in the sunny glow of a better, more usable Internet.

Read more from Akila at The Road Forks

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10 Tips for Better Blog Monetization & Profit – Part Two

If you missed the first post on 10 Tips for Better Blog Monetization, click here to review the first five topics discussed. Today we will showcase the last five topics of discussion for maximizing profits through blogging.

Paid Forum / Membership Areas

One of the growing trends in the “make money online” blogger area has been to create your own membership based forums. I’ve actually joined a few of these forums and found they are well worth the dollar or so it costs per day to access them. From a blog owner point of view, if you can get enough paying members, it’s a great side income and really adds value to your site. From a forum user view, some of these forums offer quality advice and case studies for the low membership fees of around $30 a month.

Google Adsense

Yes, the dreaded and hated Google Adsense made the list! As much as Google Adsense is hated among the “smart” marketers, it is still a great starting point for a new blogger. For a new blogger or site, Google Adsense can quickly show your page stats while giving you a taste if people are clicking on your site, and just visit your blog to see what ads are showing, and you will have an idea on what they are clicking. Whether you stick with Google Adsense and make a few pennies per click, or decide to monetize and sell your own advertising or find relevant affiliate programs… that’s up to you.

Self Promotion & Consultations

Why are most of us blogging in the first place? For many of us, we want to grow our name recognition and our brand. Blogging is one of the cheapest, easiest and fasted ways to get noticed. Once you blog is established, so is your name. With everything now in place, you are in a position where you can start to sell yourself and your expertise. Throw up a “hire me” like page on your site and offer services like public speaking, attend your event and consultation services… see if anyone bites, you may have a whole knew source of income your never thought existed!

Paid Blog Post Reviews

Everyone wants more exposure for their blogs and business, whether it be through text links, banner ads or even review posts. Not all blogs offer review posts, but many do. There are also many “paid post” services available, such as SocialSpark, ReviewMe and many smaller independent companies. You also always have the option to handle review requests yourself. It’s best to only review services and sites on your blog that are relevant to your audience.

Established Blog Flipping

Now that you have a great list of ways to monetize your blog, your last option can be your most profitable. There is a whole industry of single person businesses building up small niche blogs, then flipping them for a quick profit on sites like Flippa.com. Small sites will only bring in so much money, but at the same time I’ve seen blogs sell for over six figures on these sites. Continually build up your blog with quality content, grow your RSS and subscribers, and creating legitimate revenue sources almost always results in a high interest blog sales auction.

There you have it. Ten tips for better monetizing your blog and bring in profits. If you’d like to add anything to the list, feel free to leave a comment. You can also download my free 130 page guide on Six Figure Affiliate Blogging and how 25 other well known six figure affiliates and bloggers are making their money online.

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Search for Current Trends on NowRelevant

When it comes to search engines, you have no shortage of options. Even so, most people that I know turn to Google to find just about anything on the Internet. However, even Google is flawed, depending on what exactly you want to find.

As an alternative or supplemental search engine, you might want to consider giving NowRelevant a try. This is an off-shoot from the Internet Time Machine project that you may have already read about. Well, the NowRelevant search engine is now open to public beta.

What Is NowRelevant?

When you use a conventional search engine like Bing or Google, you get fairly universal results for your search term across the entirety of the world wide web. With NowRelevant, you are searching for relevant content within the last two weeks.

That’s easily the most critical difference that separates NowRelevant from just about every other search engine. It doesn’t concern itself with postings from a year ago; it only looks at what’s being said about your subject in the last fourteen days.

For people researching news and trending topics, these kinds of search results are much more useful. Further still, the types of results that come up with NowRelevant can be remarkably different from Google in another way.

Skip the Corporate Hoopla?

You can watch the demo video for some real world examples, but the crux of it is that Google search results can be very formulaic. You get hit by sponsored ads in the top and side, official corporate sites and Wikipedia in the first few slots, high-profile news sites like CNN and NYT, and then the “SEO bloodbath” to capture your sales lead.

With NowRelevant, according to the developers, you can skip all of that and get straight to the news and happenings that are most relevant to your subject. You can also adjust the slider between one and fourteen days to define how far back you want to go.

Even in searching for my own name, the first result in Google is my website. That makes sense, but what if you want to know what I’ve been doing lately? NowRelevant brings up a recent Dot Com Pho gathering and something about the Rihanna concert that I attended. That’s more current.

An Affiliate Program Too?

There is some advertising on NowRelevant and you can read more about the PPC campaigns on the appropriate page. Related to this is the affiliate program.

That’s the good news. The other good news is that they are quick to provide you with all sorts of banners and text ads that you can use to promote NowRelevant. The bad news is that there isn’t much information about the affiliate program laid out in a clear manner.

What is the revenue share? Is it ongoing? What is the payment schedule? What is the minimum payment threshold? What payment methods are available? It would have really helped if NowRelevant set up a simple FAQ page to address these kinds of questions.

Aside from that, NowRelevant looks like it could be a useful research tool, particularly for SEO and PPC experts, who want to know what is “now relevant” in their current areas of interest. It won’t replace Google, I don’t think, but it’s a good supplementary tool.

Link: NowRelevant

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8 Google Products I use Daily

As privacy is becoming an even bigger concern, the centralization of our information is an issue almost no one can afford to ignore. As such, there is a lot of talk and debate about whether we are giving up too much of our information to Google and, if so, can we trust them with that information.

This spurred a conversation with a friend of mine some time ago on the topic and we both began to think about the Google services we use on a daily basis. We put aside all of the services we use without any action on your part, such as viewing Adsense ads or YouTube clips, or even the services that we use almost every day, such as Google Docs, and focused in stead on services we know we will use at least once every working day.

After I got done with my calculation, I was stunned. I use eight Google services every day and many others very regularly. This put into perspective how much information Google probably has about me and has made me start to wonder if I have put in too much faith in the “Big G”, despite its privacy policy.

So what are the services? Here they are in no particular order.

Search

This one is fairly obvious, it is Google’s core service and still their most popular. Like the majority of the Web Google remains my default search engine and I use it at least a few times daily. Experiments with other search engines have left me less than satisfied. Google simply seems to do this best though the competition is finally getting a bit stronger.

Gmail

Another obvious one. I use Gmail (technically Google Apps) to manage my email and handle almost all correspondence. Though I don’t use Google Talk, nearly every piece of correspondence, including Twitter and Facebook messages, pass through my Gmail account at some point.

Google Reader

Google’s RSS reader, Google Reader, is still the best tool of its kind for what I do with RSS. Though I’ve experimented with other feed readers and use them for certain functions, such as Fever, Google is still my primary RSS reader and one of the first things I open up each morning. Though the volume of RSS reading I do through it isn’t very high, it’s very crucial to my work.

Google Calendar

I use Google Calendar to keep track of my appointments, deadlines and other important dates. The fact that it is free, integrates with other services, such as Toodledo, and syncs with both my desktop and my iPhone has made it an invaluable part of my daily life.

Google Analytics

I may not log into Google’s Web traffic tool every day, but I get the information emailed to me (in my Gmail account no less) as it is paired with my data from PostRank for my morning reports. I also do log in on at least a weekly basis for additional analysis.

Of the services on this list, this is probably the one I am least committed to. I use Clicky primarily but I have a great deal of archived data in Google Analytics and, since it is free, I continue to use it alongside with Postrank.

Google Chrome

At the risk of starting a browser war, I use Google Chrome as my primary browser at home on my Windows comp and switch between it and Firefox at work on my Mac. By in large it has proved to be the fastest and most stable browser for my day-to-day needs though I keep other browsers around for Web development.

Google Voice

Very recently, I started using Google Voice both as my voicemail on my personal phone but also my business line. All calls to my business are routed through the service and I make all outgoing calls through it as well. This way, I can receive important calls no matter where I am, get transcriptions of voicemails and generally offer a better experience to clients.

FeedBurner

On this list, FeedBurner is the only Google product I started using while it was part of another company. Google bought out FeedBurner and has integrated it (somewhat) into their other offerings. FeedBurner is a service I don’t actively recommend anymore, though I still remain committed to it, largely due to the fact the benefits of leaving do not outweigh the problems I would likely incur.

As with Google Analytics, it may not be a service I log into every day, but I have integrated it in with other services and get daily FeedBurner reports, which, sadly, are often useless.

Bottom Line

When I put all of this together, it is a pretty massive amount of information Google has about me and that should has given reason to pause. I’ve gone through and looked at Google’s privacy policy for all of the above products and haven’t found anything outrageous, but with so much information centralized in one company, concern is understandable.

So what do you think? Do we give Google too much of our information and, if so, what alternate service should we be looking at?

I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this so leave a comment below.

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