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Google’s New Search Engine

Google has recently announced that for the last several months, a large team of their staff have been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search.

“It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits under the hood of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences.”

For those of you who are interested you can check out the developer preview of Google’s new infrastructure at: http://www2.sandbox.google.com and try searches there.

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R.E. Ferguson August 12, 2009 Google, Industry News Google, Google's New Search Engine

XML Sitemaps

To be as specific as possible, I’m listing Google’s explanation of what sitemaps are below. If you are looking for one of the best xml sitemap generators available, I suggest the following: http://www.auditmypc.com/xml-sitemap.asp (be sure to use this tool in Internet Explorer because Firefox will not export the sitemap files when the tool is finished).

Google’s “About Sitemaps”: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=40318

In general, there are two types of sitemaps. The first type of sitemap is a HTML page listing the pages of your site—often by section—and is meant to help users find the information they need.

XML Sitemaps—usually called Sitemaps, with a capital S—are a way for you to give Google information about your site. This is the type of Sitemap we’ll be discussing in this article.

In its simplest terms, a Sitemap is a list of the pages on your website. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google’s normal crawling process.

Sitemaps are particularly helpful if:

* Your site has dynamic content.
* Your site has pages that aren’t easily discovered by Googlebot during the crawl process – for example, pages featuring rich AJAX or Flash.
* Your site is new and has few links to it. (Googlebot crawls the web by following links from one page to another, so if your site isn’t well linked, it may be hard for us to discover it.)
* Your site has a large archive of content pages that are not well linked to each other, or are not linked at all.

You can also use a Sitemap to provide Google with additional information about your pages, including:

* How often the pages on your site change. For example, you might update your product page daily, but update your About Me page only once every few months.
* The date each page was last modified.
* The relative importance of pages on your site. For example, your home page might have a relative importance of 1.0, category pages have an importance of 0.8, and individual blog entries or product pages have an importance of 0.5. This priority only indicates the importance of a particular URL relative to other URLs on your site, and doesn’t impact the ranking of your pages in search results.

Sitemaps provide additional information about your site to Google, complementing our normal methods of crawling the web. We expect they will help us crawl more of your site and in a more timely fashion, but we can’t guarantee that URLs from your Sitemap will be added to the Google index. Sites are never penalized for submitting Sitemaps.

Google adheres to Sitemap Protocol 0.9 as defined by sitemaps.org. The Sitemap Protocol is a dialect of XML for summarizing Sitemap information that is relevant to web crawlers. Sitemaps created for Google using Sitemap Protocol 0.9 are therefore compatible with other search engines that adopt the standards of sitemaps.org.

While a standard Sitemap works for most sites, you can also create and submit specialized Sitemaps for certain types of content. These Sitemap formats are specific to Google and are not used by other search engines. Sitemap formats include:

Video Sitemaps
Mobile Sitemaps
News Sitemaps
Code Search Sitemaps
Geo Sitemaps

OK, so here’s the low-down, if you aren’t using an xml sitemap, you need to start doing so. Additionally, you need to make sure you sign-up for Google Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap via this channel as well.

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R.E. Ferguson August 11, 2009 Sitemaps, Website Design Sitemaps, xml sitemaps

Finding Products To Sell Online

Looking for the perfect products to sell online? Sometimes they can be hard to find. So, to help you start your research, here are ten top places to look.

If You Are Just Starting Out

Garage sales and flea markets: If you’re starting out small and want to experiment with eBay, garage sales are a good place to start. Do some research into categories that interest you, and then start scouring sales for good prices.
eBay: eBay itself can be a source for products. Look for wholesale lots that can be broken down for individual sale.
Drop Shipper Directories: Drop shippers are wholesalers that will ship direct to your customers so that you don’t have to invest in or store inventory. Directories of drop shippers are for sale online, but make sure you’re buying a reputable one. I’ve previewed the Worldwide Brands directory and can recommend it.
Local Businesses: You may find businesses in your backyard that offer just the right products, but are not yet into e-commerce. Offer to sell their product online in exchange for a percentage of any profits you make.
Crafters: Local crafters are a good source of unique products, and may be willing to reduce their prices for you if you purchase in quantity. Either buy the item outright, or set up a consignment arrangement with them.

For The More Ambitious

Trade Shows: Trade shows are my favorite way to source products. Lots of merchants gather in one place to look for resellers. To find trade shows in a particular industry, contact trade associations and industry publications
Permanent Marts: Many industries have a location that houses permanent wholesale showrooms. For example, there is a “Gift Building” in New York, and a Furniture Mart in High Point, North Carolina. Once you have established yourself as a retailer, you can visit the marts and have face-to-face meetings with product suppliers.
Wholesaler Directories: Your local library will probably have directories of manufacturers, wholesalers, and/or distributors. Most directories are organized by SIC code so that you can zero in on the product categories that interested you.
Importers/Exporters: If you are thinking big, you might want to consider contacting companies that import goods from overseas. If you’re thinking even bigger, it’s possible to source directly from overseas. This requires a lot of expertise, but many companies do it successfully.
Foreign trade offices: Most countries maintain trade offices in major US cities to help their nationals expand trade with the US. They may be able to let you know about companies interested in exporting to the US that you can contact.

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R.E. Ferguson August 5, 2009 Ecommerce, General Business online products

Top 10 Social Networks for Business

Social Networking for business can be extremely valuable for growing your career opportunities. Unlike general networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, there are a number of smaller networks that focus on professionals and businesses. These sites can be an excellent place to gain some exposure and to communicate with other entrepreneurs. Here is a quick look at 10 networking sites that should be considered by entrepreneurs.

LinkedIn has quickly become the leading social network that specializes in professionals. Many users have their resume posted on their profile and a growing number of employers are using LinkedIn as a recruiting tool. Entrepreneurs who are not looking for jobs can still use LinkedIn as a great resource for meeting other professionals and gaining some exposure for their own work.

PartnerUp

PartnerUp is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs find joint venture partners, co-founders, executives, and board members. You can either post your opportunity or search the listings placed by other entrepreneurs. There are networking capabilities through forums and an Ask a Question feature.