Google improves the way it reads Flash content

In the past, search engines such as Google and Yahoo! have not been able to extract content such as links and text from Flash (SWF) files, leading to alot of the Flash-based content found on the web being unavailable in search engine results.

However, Both Google and Yahoo can both now crawl the textual elements contained within SWF files, including the crawling links within those Flash files.

• Google and Yahoo! will crawl SWF files
• Only the textual components can be crawled
• FLV filetype is not crawlable
• Google can read Flash files that are generated by JavaScript such as SWFObject
• Google may index the external files your Flash file calls and won't associate them to the Flash files

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Improving your websites performance using Bounce Rate as a metric

Have you ever tried to measure the performance of your website, but been scared off by all the different statistics, metrics and reports thrown at you? Then you obviously haven't looked hard enough at your bounce rate.

So what's this Bounce Rate all about?

Put simply a Bounce Rate is the percentage of single page visits. To be more precise, the percentage of web site visitors who left the site from the entry pages without clicking on any other links

What makes the Bounce Rate such an important performance metric of a website page is that it reveals the quality of incoming traffic and the effectiveness of the site template including page content.

How to track Bounce Rate

You can track a websites Bounce Rate using just about any analytical tools, the by far the most popular is Google Analytics

What is a good Bounce Rate?

Anything between 25% to 50% is diserable for most sties and anything over 60% should be cause for some concern. However, to be fair there are some situations where you would expect a high bounce rate, such as:

• Conversions from the landing page itself
• The user has bookmarked the page
• The user is specifically looking for information contained on that page
• The user clicks on your advertising

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Meet the Realtors of the Web - Andrew Miller and Mike Zapolin

Globes Magazine recently featured an acticle on domainers Andrew Miller and Mike “Zappy” Zapolin titled “Realtors of the Web”. The article focuses on the duos transformation from being suit-and-tie Wall Street brokers to becoming a couple of cool and creative guys that buy and sell domain names for a living.

Highlights of the article inlcude how Miller and Zapolin created a “Super Bowl test” to determine the top selling products and their related most valuable domain names, how they put together a deal to buy Beer.com for $80,000 before reselling it for $7 million, how they managed to survived the dot-com bubble burst and what their views are for the future of domaining.

“Even though it sometimes seems as if the internet has reached saturation, Miller (43) and Zapolin (41), are convinced that these are still early days and that there are big opportunities of the Web with a lot virgin territory still left to conquer. Domain names, they assert, are likely to become a huge opportunity for anyone, even if they lack a financial background and have little cash in hand.”

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How to check your search box for XSS exploit vunerability

Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of website vulnerability which allows code to be injection by malicious web users into the web pages viewed by other users.

According to Google:

Cross-site scripting (aka XSS) is the term used to describe a class of security vulnerabilities in web applications. An attacker can inject malicious scripts to perform unauthorized actions in the context of the victim's web session. Any web application that serves documents that include data from untrusted sources could be vulnerable to XSS if the untrusted data is not appropriately sanitized.

Webmasters should always play it safe and check for XSS holes on their site, especially when using freeform text input, which are commonly used as search boxes. Even big sites can have these issues with XSS and escaping user input.

If you noticed your Google rankings dropping, you might consider doing a few searches on your site using Google to see if anyone has injected spammy or adult content on your site.

For example, if your website is example.com.au, run a few search queries such as:

• [site:example.com.au porn]
• [site:example.com.au viagra]

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Google users spend the most amounts of money online

Not all search engine users are created equal - or atleast when it comes to spending online, according to a recently updated report by Hitwise.

The Hitwise report indicates that Google users are far more likely to spend $500 or more online as compared to long time rival Yahoo!

The report also compares each search engine's user base in socio-graphic terms. The results make it fairly obvious why Google users are more likely to spend online when you consider its strength in segments such as Affluent Suburbia and Upscale America.

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