Traffic Flow SEO

Another Monday, another bought company. This time it is Postini, a leader in on-demand communications security and compliance solutions. To learn more check out the links below:

Info and response - Search Engine Roundtable

Google Press Release

I get asked a lot about how to find free keyword research tools, so I decided to make a quick list of some of the more popular tools (Web-based and downloadable). They are not listed in any particular order:

Keyword Tracker (free edition)

Keyword Discovery (free tool)

Google's Traffic Estimator

Yahoo's Traffic Estimator (via a little outdated and slow Overture database)

SEO Book's Traffic Estimator

Digital Point's Keyword Tracker

wordpot.com

Good Keywords (download software)

Good luck on your keyword research!

Just got an email from Adrian who owns Directory Share and the upcoming dValuation.com and he shared with me that everything is hush, hush at dValuation.com and that as soon as he was ready to release this new service to directory owners we would be getting EXCLUSIVE information 24 hours prior to launch! Make sure to stayed tuned for more updates, this looks to be an exciting new addition to the Web directory community!

I was just poking my head around the Digital Point Forums and was reading some new posts by a guy who is incredible at making PHP Link Directory (PHPLD) mods and noticed a new link in his signature (by the way he also owns Directory Share - check it out). This link took me to a site that is running a pretty cool teaser track for an upcoming project that looks to help directory owners. If I can read a little into it, it may be a a new list of directories with a new twist. Check it out for yourself at dValuation.com.

P.S. I have requested more info to share and will post if and when I hear anything...:-)

I recently saw a great article on using Flickr in your SEO efforts. You can check it out at Search Engine Roundtable.

I run some Web directories and I am constantly amazed at what crappy sites people submit. Usually they are some type of AdSense templated site with little to no value or some affiliate program with a URL like www.affiliate_program_name.com/x123hh67. Sometimes they are placeholders without an actual site yet or they are someone's blog which has not been updated since 2005 and only contains one entry. I wonder if these submitters actually think that I would ever consider approving their sites? It must be like spam, if you submit to enough directories (usually free ones) some of them will probably overlook it and you will get accepted (I suspect this usually happens with the newer directory owners who have not seen thousands of these sites before - I once fell for them too, early on as I was just excited anyone wanted to submit to my little directory). I wish these sites would all go away as they are a complete waste of time for me and serve no purpose but to get a cheap, misleading buck off some unsuspecting Web surfer while clogging up search engine results.

This is just my little soapbox rant as I am reviewing the thousands of sites waiting for approval in one of my free directories and realizing that almost 95% of them are just crap!

Who could not just love a new search engine where it's namesake logo appears to have eyes that follow your mouse movements and as a bonus is also from Russia? Not me, so go check-out gogo.ru and be bedazzled....:-)

Is Business.com still for sale? How much is it worth if it is for sale? I have heard a lot as of late. It first started while reading an interview with Jessica Bowman, the director of SEO at Business.com on the Aviva Directory Blog. The story was entitled, "What Everyone Ought To Know About Business.com" where an offer of 20% a submission was offered. I thought this was nice, since I had never seen any discounts for Business.com submission previously. After that I started reading for and more about Business.com being for sale. The pricing in articles I read said that Business.com was worth somewhere between 300 and 400 million dollars. I originally thought that maybe they were offering discounts to pump up their submissions to make it look better on paper before the sale, but in the last couple of weeks I have not heard much. Maybe it has cooled down and Business.com is not actually for sale, or maybe it still is - only time will tell.

Article in paidContent.org

Article in Search Engine Journal

Article in Searchviews

Article in Reuters

It is not an easy business, but some do well buying and selling domains. I had recently found a new online expiring domain research tool that I found rather interesting. Below is a link to this tool.

Dropscout - Free expired domain name research.

You may also enjoy the wonderful domain information provided by the Seven Mile blog from world famous domain investor Frank Schilling.

If it is not acquired by Google before it goes live (no pun intended), My Live Search has a chance at being an interesting new search engine. Instead of pulling from an indexed database that may or may not be out of date, My Live Search treats your browser as very fast spider to instantly crawl for relevant results in real time. Seems like an awesome task, but Rob Gabriel the creator of this new engine seems to believe that he can produce better, more relevant results in 'real time'.

You can read more by clicking here.

Check out the My Live Search Homepage by clicking here.