It seems Microsoft have come up with an idea that they hope might help them close some ground on Google on search share.

Obviously this isn’t going to happen overnight but if they can implement a system that returns better quality or is less corrupable than Google PageRank then at least they stand a better chance at attracting new users. We do of course have to bare in mind that the lead is currently huge and Google doesn’t stand still so I’d definitely stop short of saying this was a Google killer.

So what’s this fuss about then? Well Google’s success is built on PageRank- essentially a measure of website popularity by incoming links to a website. This popularity when coupled with relevancy can give a good indication of the importance of a website and therefore help rank it accurately. Now it isn’t quite that simple anymore - Google have added much to their algorithm to avoid easy interference by people trying to manipulate the index e.g. using link farms.

Microsoft are touting a system called BrowseRank which effectively takes a user’s browsing habits into account when working out importance. In other words the websites you visit regularly, the time you send on the site etc.

This is great from the perspective of search results and a hell of a lot more difficult to manipulate than current algorithms. Perhaps search engine optimisation would be come just that “optimisation” or maybe some companies would spend money on overall online marketing rather than just spending huge amounts of their budget just on SEO.

Who knows where we will be in a few years time but it’s the first real search idea I’ve seen come out from Microsoft that I’ve thought has real potential. I’m uneasy at Google’s current dominance in the search market and hope that the market becomes more open in the future (Microsoft or any other company).

I’ve been in the opinion that if we are heading for a recession then working within the online World is going to insulate us or even might improve business. The reason I’ve thought this is doing business online is generally accepted as cheaper than traditional methods. Also the ability to track success and therefore calculate the return on investment is so easy online. This covers all sorts of areas such as advertising, eCommerce or marketing in general. As businesses will need to justify their expenditure more during hard times it seems online is the sensible option.

However details that Google’s results weren’t as high as expected got me a little more thoughtful about if my original opinion was correct.

The worrying figure initially for me was “The number of paid clicks on websites operated by Google and its partners fell 1% from the first quarter”. Not quite what I was expecting. However I then thought this through further.

The number of paid clicks is what the actual customers are clicking. You’d expect with the possibility of a recession people won’t be shopping as much so the number of clicks would drop. This would also tally with the idea that PPC is going to become increasing competitive as businesses fight for these precious clicks.

At this time we haven’t had client’s reporting any noticeable difference in cost for clicks but I think it’s coming.

As always it’s going to interesting to see how things pan out.

I’ve been a user of AVG anti-virus for a while and it’s served me well over the years. When the pop-up telling me that AVG 8.0 had been released appeared I natural though it was good news and I headed straight over to Grisoft’s website to download the latest version.

I wasn’t prepared for issues this caused however. Firstly the new link scanner really got on my nerves as it ticked over checking the links one by one (I’ll come back to this later) but also a nasty by-product that nothing printed from Internet Explorer any more. So not really the update I was wanting.

The Internet Explorer issue is still ongoing and is widely reported - I’ve not been too chuffed with AVG’s support here as I’ve only found advice from other sources. Luckily it’s more of an annoyance than anything else - I’ll sort it at some point or swap AV software.

The update however has blown up in Grisoft’s face a little more than the standard niggles of a major update roll-out. It would seem AVG’s new link scanner designed to protect you even before you access a dangerous website hadn’t been thought through as much as it could have been.

Those monitoring website traffic were noticing some interesting trends after AVG 8.0 was released. As the reported 20 million downloads Worldwide continued webmasters were seeing spikes in the amount of traffic visiting their websites.

AVG link scanner was disguising itself as various browsers (mostly Internet Explorer 6) so malicious websites couldn’t screen for it and serve alternative safe content. But this also means websites couldn’t distinguish between the automated scanner and actual web traffic throwing figures right out. In addition some users report their bandwidth usage increasing.

So did AVG think it through? Maybe so. Their business is protection not analysis so for them is it much of an issue? Probably not except for in bad press coverage. However they will loose some support in the technical community and also lose some users who won’t stand the extra bandwidth usage even if apparently a fix is on the way. I’m certainly not an unshakable fan any longer.

Google have announced that they are now able to index flash files better than before. I’m hoping Google have tightened things up before launching as otherwise this could give a short period of opportunity to abuse the Google index if loopholes have been left open.

I can’t say this with absolute certainty of course because Google keeps its cards very close to its chest at all times. However the nature of flash movies does give developers different ways of trying to manipulate the Googlebot.

Due to the non linear format of flash movies is it possible to add false frames into a movie containing keyword rich copy that the end user is not going to see? This of course is against the webmaster guidelines but people won’t be able to spot this kind of thing as easily as on a standard HTML page and therefore reporting offenders isn’t going to happen so often.

I’m sure Google have taken steps where they can to try and avoid this but people will always find a way around measures. I’ll be keeping a close eye on search results!

Also the lack of search engine indexing has always been a major reason not to have a flash only website and this might mean more flash only sites will spring up than before. I don’t have a problem with this as long as they are developed as websites with usability in mind rather than just having a splash movie that look pretty but does little else.