Microsoft’s live search webmaster tools have been updated. Pretty much essential if you want to know what’s going on with your website on live search. The update basically means Microsoft now have webmaster tools comparable to Google’s.

Interesting screen shot on the article I found this on though - it’s for the microsoft.com website with a piddly 186 millions pages!

I posted a little while back about Google’s better support for Flash movies. At the time I was more worried about the potential for abuse by black hat SEOs however an article dissecting in more detail about what Google can and can’t see in Flash movies has reassured me slightly and what’s more it backs up my belief that if you want to be listing in search engines relying on Flash isn’t going to help.

The biggest thing that I noticed involved where JavaScript is used to embed a Flash movie into the page. In these cases it is unlikely Google will be able to access the Flash movie and therefore your content is again worthless. So if you’re using the fantastic standards compliant swfobject make sure you include backwards compatible object tags to ensure Google sees your movies! Or better still only use Flash where you can’t do the same thing in HTML and CSS.

Google has been under fire for stating “complete privacy doesn’t exist” but as always saying they “take privacy very seriously”.

Unfortunately they are toeing the line between providing useful services and protecting everyone’s privacy.

It seems a lot of online providers experience growing pains of user privacy including high profile reporting of websites like Facebook providing personal details that could be used by the unscrupulous.

It’s not a simple solution. I do believe that new services should expand our horizons but they must take a forward thinking attitude to privacy from the offset. In many cases providing the controls for users to be able to protect their own data as they see fit seems to be the best route to take.

There is always talk about possible replacements for Google when it comes to search and recently is no difference with the release of Cuil.

However I believe Google’s strength is simply the fact that it has been held by many as their main search engine for so long. For approximately 70% of the search market Google is king and the majority of search users use Google exclusively. People like familiarity and don’t want to have to use new products unless there is seen to be a significant advantage in changing.

Google’s own rapid growth was due to the better quality results it returned in comparison to other search engines. A significant enough advantage at the time for people to move from Yahoo! and Alta Vista.

Of course this isn’t to say that there isn’t going to be a new service that will provide the extra something to get people to switch but with Google’s ability to keep improving and expand their services is going to make toppling them from top spot so much more difficult. Google just doesn’t ignore new ideas online and if they feel they are lacking in a specific area they will come up with their own slant on it. I’m not just talking a copy here but taking the idea and trying to beat the originator at their own game.

It’s therefore difficult for a new upstart to grab too much of Google’s market.

The biggest danger for Google is actually losing the very quality of service that attracted users in the first place. Google results are reportedly deteriorating with more spam and manipulating sites floating to the top. Google run a constant battle of stopping websites employing new techniques to lift their position. In this way Google is a victim of it’s own success - a high position in Google is worth a lot of money to companies and they will certainly try all sorts of new ways to elevate their status.

So it’s all in Google’s hands. They are fighting a battle for control of their own results with increasing difficult tactics to detect such as a new take on link exchanges - the three way link exchange. They have to harden their algorithm to be more difficult to manipulate by adding variables that people just can’t imitate.

If Google keeps their eye on the ball there will be no reason for people to switch services and their future dominance is assured. People’s familiarity with Google will keep them on board.