Google Chrome is finally upon us (released today). Google has finally joined Mozilla and other Open source browsers in the browser wars. We also know that IE 8 will be out soon, so Microsoft and Google will be at it again. So why is Chrome significant. For one Google gets to attract more eyeballs to its web services. If you think about it, Google has been methodically working towards its plan to dominate the WWW, and Google Chrome is another piece of the puzzle. Also, IE 8 is going to threaten Google’s ability to watch our every activity, so Google is going to muddy the waters by introducing its own browser (god know how much information Google has gathered from its poor users with or without them knowing).

I am interested to see if Chrome will give us SEO built-in options such as Google SEO ranking toolbar and other features beyond what is offered with plugins for Firefox. I personally don’t mind sharing my information with Google (unless I want to keep them a secret which then I will use another service). For me personally, it will take a lot to switch everything from Flock to Chrome. It should not only be SEO friendly but also SMO friendly, and I just can’t see that happeneing when the program is still in early beta.

The most scary thing about openning up a private Web 2.0 service such as Yahoo! Buzz? Simple! Aggressive marketers. We have seen it with MySpace, LinkedIn, and FaceBook. Now you can add Yahoo! Buzz to the list of online venues that will be targeted to generate millions of free visitors (or that’s what marketers will try to do). I personally like the fact that I get to try this good looking service as I don’t really have a site that can go against SI or ESPN, so having the chance to really test it out would be great. Don’t forget to get your codes here. Remember, this is not a marathon but a sprint. Whoever figures out how to effectively utilize Yahoo! Buzz will get the traffic advantage.

You have probably heard already that Cuil by ex-Google engineers is finally out and open to public. They claim that they have indexed over 100 billion pages and are the largest search engine on the planet. That is al fine and dandy. But let’s see how Cuil stacks up in design and algorithm:

Design: Simple all black design for Cuil make it look like Black beauty (not the horse). But my experience with black pages shows that they all fail. Does that mean Cuil will fail? Not for this reason but I would’ve preferred a better background color. I guess that’s one way to differentiate yourself.

When you search for a term, the results pages are shown in three columns. The first two columns are basically are your normal results pages while the third column allows you to search by category, which is very neat. Overall, I like the design though it could be too distracting. Reading items one by one is easier for most folks than looking at 3 columns at once.

Algorithm: I picked the term “Federer” to see what I can find on the Swiss genius. To my surprise, Cuil not only shows results for Federer, but also shows a few tabs at the top predicting what I may be looking for (e.g. Federer vs. Sampras, Federer Nike, Nadal vs. Federer). But the same search for UFC showed “ultimated fighting championship and United Fruit Company). Does anyone actually use UFC for united fruit company?

Over all, I don’t see anything that makes me want to drop Google and start using Cuil. It’s nice and cool. It’s different, but no thanks. I’ll stick with Google.

It’s true. Matt Cutts mentioned it a few days back, and now I understand why one of my blogs went from PR of 3 to PR of 0! PageRank is not really as important as it used to be but going from 3 to 0 in a couple of days is depressing. Having said that, some sites have seen improvements. Check yours today!

Well, if you haven’t heard the news yet, then you should know that Google is pretty much close to buying Digg for about $200m (Kevin, can you spare a bother a mil?). So what does it all mean for people who have used Digg to drive traffic to their sites?

It’s tough to say. I don’t think Google with follow no follow links on Digg. Having said that, I still expect sites to get indexed quickly using Diggoogle. But Digg will be in good hands. Google will take care of Digg for now, and I am sure the algorithms will get better and the whole gaming thing that is going on with Digg will diminish. The interesting thing to watch is whether Google finally get the YouTube - Digg integration right.

I am truly glad that the Digg guys are getting paid for all the effort they put in. Not quite Facebooish money but $200 mil isn’t that bad either.

Now that Google is trying very hard to make Flash readable to its bots, should you invest in a flash website in hope that it will be readable to Google in the future? My answer is a quick no at this point. Google’s announcement was great for our industry. Flash sites do look better in general than heavy text sites. I think it would work brilliantly for landing pages that are right now not quite readable to Google.

Google, however, has just started working on this whole project. There is a long way to go before Google can claim this project as a 100% success (read the piece on SitePoint about potential problems). Google will get it right finally, but the time is not now. Here are the reasons you shouldn’t invest money in Flash website right now:

• Flash looks good but is not completely indexable yet.
• Technologies such as SiFR can help but text always works better.
• Text sites are in general more search engine friendly and have less load.
• AJAXification can compete with Flashification.
• Flex is still not where it needs to be (lots of unresolved issues).
• Flash sites won’t have any advantage over text sites as far as search engines are concerned.
• It’s all about content!!

Need I say more?

Here is an update on the post that we made about Worio tag-based search engine. At the time, Worio was under construction, but now Worio Beta is live. I’ll write a full review of this service in the upcoming days. However, Worio’s tag based approach is very interesting. When you search for a keyword, you basically get two tabs:

1. Search Results

2. Tag Recommendations

You can also vote sites up and down which I think could work well for search engines but also backfire (due to the fact that we have a lot of marketers who are good at gaming these features). Worio takes a little bit of time getting used to, but it’s a very approach.

The thing about Google is that they constantly test so many features that sometimes it’s difficult to find them all. The one that I just noticed today was the search box that you get when you search for a few plural terms such as Banks or Restaurants. You all probably know that Google showed search boxes for terms such as Amazon a few weeks back, but I wasn’t aware that they did that for plural terms. It sort of shows that Google is thinking more about consumer behavior to enrich the user experience for its audience. Someone who is searching for banks is most likely searching for a bank (location, information), so it does make sense a lot to have the search box ready and handy for these searchers. Here is a screen shot if you have missed it:

The last time Google did this, other companies claimed that Google was getting greedy and the search box was taking something away from their listing on the SERPs. This time, I don’t think anyone can complain.

So much for not going a dime above the original offer, as Microsoft claimed when Yahoo! rejected its initial offer. Major news sources are now claiming that Microsoft has upped its offer by “several dollars” in an attempt to finish the deal with Yahoo! as soon as possible. Yahoo! turned down the first offer, considering it to have undervalued Yahoo!. However, it will be hard for Yahoo!’s board of directors to turn down the second offer as Yahoo! has not exactly been setting the world ablaze with their performance in the past few quarters.

For Microsoft, this shows a high degree of desperation to compete with the almighty Google in the search market. Google has singlehandedly dominated both Yahoo! and Microsoft over the past years, and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that will change, regardless of Microsoft-Yahoo deal. At the same time, Microsoft can not lose this opportunity to mount a meaningful challenge against Google. Steve Ballmer has claimed numerous times that he could do without Yahoo! if Microsoft’s offer for Yahoo is rejected, but deep down he knows that without Yahoo! Microsoft will have a very small chance of challenging Google. But here is the catch. Even with Yahoo!, Microsoft will not be able to kill off Google. Besides, one has to think about the challenges that this acquisition will cause for Microsoft (e.g. integration, employee retention, clash of cultures).

For what it’s worth, it’s more intriguing to see Yahoo and Microsoft combine forces against Google. It will probably push Google to be even better than they are today. But with only two major entities going at each other, we are left with almost a duopoly. More competition always help, so it’s a shame to see the likes of Ask! throw in the towel.

I was just checking the latest tennis news on Google, and I decided to search for the news on Mr. Roger Federer. To my surprise, I saw a quote from him on the top of the results page.

This is very interesting as you can get a short overview of what has been happening without really going and reading the body of the news. It’s another one of those little things that Google does to keep you on Google for a second longer.