Microsoft Blog Posts

Is Microsoft Next on the Social Network Bandwagon with Socl.com?

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Industry News, Microsoft, Social Media

All the talk over the last few weeks at Epiphany HQ (apart from NOTW, but I’ll come onto that at a later date) has been Google Plus this, +1 button that, realtime search the other. Pretty much all about Google.

Couple this with Facebook announcing that they are teaming up with Skype for a videocalling feature, and you’ve had very few people talking about Microsoft lately. So imagine my surprise when at the weekend Microsoft ‘accidentally’ posted a web page for a site that looks a lot like a social network, which will allow users to “find what you need and share what you know easier than ever” – Welcome to Tulalip! (more…)

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World Stores – Highlighting Google’s Flawed Ranking Algorithm

Friday, April 1st, 2011

E-Commerce, Google, Link Building, Microsoft, SEO, Yahoo

I read an interesting article on the BBC website yesterday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2011/03/world_stores.html

It appears that an innovative entrepreneur in Twickenham has spotted that all you need to do in order to achieve a high ranking in Google is to buy a domain with the target keyword in it.

OK, it’s a little more complicated than that. For those not in the know, here’s how it works…

Google wants to display relevant websites, and two of the key things that they look at are the number of links to a website (which shows how ‘important’ the site is), and what the anchor text says (the text on the link to the website, which tells Google what the page is talking about).

But clearly this system can be gamed – if you want to rank for a keyword, all you have to do is to buy huge numbers of links, and use the same anchor text. Google has all kinds of checks in place to make sure that this doesn’t work – if all of your links have the same anchor text, Google will ignore them and possibly penalise you. (more…)

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Should We Be Talking About Google vs. Facebook Instead of Google vs. Bing?

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

Bing, Facebook, Google

Google vs. Bing

Google and Bing are always going to be at each other’s throats; it wouldn’t make any sense for either business if they weren’t. However, are they really the two we should all be focusing our attention on? Sure Bing is picking up pace and making some headway, but is it really a threat to Google’s internet dominance?

Bing believes that they don’t need to share the search pie with Google – the world of search is big enough for both of them, and at the end of the day, they’re both increasing the size of the pie. In other words, Bing has no unrealistic expectations of becoming the world’s biggest search engine. (more…)

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Not All Web Browsers Are Created Equal

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

Apple, Google Chrome, Microsoft, Web Browsers

As a web developer, I have to be aware of the differences between browsers, so that everyone can view my websites no matter which browser they’re using. For most people, connecting to the internet still means clicking on the big blue ‘e’ on the desktop. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is still the most used web browser in the world. But does this make it the best?

In a word, no. Internet Explorer 6, a browser nearing its tenth birthday, is a relic, and IE7, 8 and now 9 are only just plugging a few of the gaping holes left by that browser. Three other browsers are biting at IE’s heels: Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Google Chrome. All three offer something extra, but just what makes a good browser? (more…)

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Boogle and Ging, is there a difference?

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

Bing, Google

I have to admit that back in my school days I would sometimes “forget” to do my maths homework.  Thankfully I used my natural charm (and the fact that I had done my geography homework) to convince a girl called Rachel to allow me to copy her work.  This worked successfully for a little while until my teacher noticed we had both made the same uncommon mistake in some tricky algebra.

I was reminded of these events recently when I read an article about what is being referred to in the media as the “Bing Sting”.

Microsoft has had to defend itself recently against claims that it has stolen search results from Google. (more…)

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