Google Traffic Guru

Yield Software has launched a new FREE product called SEO Analyzer. To use the tool, simply go directly to YieldSoftware.com and look for SEO Analyzer. Type in the URL you wish to analyze and your email, then click Submit.

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First impression? SEO Analyzer tool works fast. Many free tools are slow and you can practically write a thesis while it loads. But this one is super-fast.

SEO Analyzer is also easy to understand. Do you remember getting started in SEO and you had to learn all about HTML tags, links (inbound/outbound/internal etc), domain age, etc? SEO Analyzer is clear as day. A clear day. Sunny skies. No clouds.

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Some of the recommendations are subject to debate. Long discussions and arguments have taken place in the SEO community over things like using hyphens to separate words in URLs. If you're new to SEO, welcome to the confusing world of best practices.

SEO Analyzer also serves up suggestions that are good for usability, even though they don't directly involve rankings, per se. For example, meta descriptions, at least in Google's case, do not directly affect rankings. But they are included in the search results and could persuade a searcher to click on a link.

While SEO Analyzer is a helpful product, Yield Software offers a more robust solution if you want to get really in-depth with your SEO. The solution is called Natural Search Optimizer. It's part of Yield's premium search marketing suite, but Yield is now offering Natural Search Optimizer as its own stand-alone product. Pricing starts at $49 per month per domain.

"Yield Software's new stand-alone version of our Natural Search Optimizer works daily to track and tune web pages to drive more qualified traffic to company websites, products and services," said Matt Malden, founder and CEO of Yield Software.

With the new offering comes new features. Upgrades include inbound link tracking, traffic monitoring and page rank trend analysis for keywords across the Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The upgrades are included in both the stand-alone version and for the module included with the Yield Software suite.

Google News Enables Starring

Tuesday, 02 February 2010 21:00

You can star an email in GMail. And you can star an item in Google Reader. Now, starring has come to Google News.

To use the feature, simply click on the star next to a news item.

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When you want to look at all of your starred items, look for the link in the left sidebar:

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A page will load with all of your starred items:

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Sohu Revenues Up 12% in Q4 2009

Monday, 01 February 2010 21:00

Sohu reported its Q4 2009 earnings this morning and the news is good for the Chinese Internet portal. (Sohu is basically China's Yahoo!) Revenues came in at $135.8 million and were up 12% compared to Q4 2008.

Specifically, brand advertising revenues were up 2%, coming in at $45.9 million. While Sohu tried to paint the picture as being on target with their guidance, Wall Street wasn't thrilled with the numbers. Stocks were down 0.7% at the time of this post. Perhaps their disappointment is due to the fact that Sohu previously has posted huge numbers, including a 600% jump in profit back in the summer of 2008.

Wall Street also may be skittish on Chinese Internet companies as Google's recent ultimatum has raised serious questions on censorship and Internet security issues as it relates to the Chinese government.

Still, Sohu is hoping for great things in 2010. With the Winter Olympics and the World Cup both being held this year, they're hoping for big ad numbers to come in. After all, that aforementioned 600% came the summer of the 2008 Olympics.