One of the problems that I first encountered when I was learning the ropes was that a book can never tell you everything. So as I was struggling to learn the development techniques that I apply, I had to frequently rely on online resources or forums to get the job done. This was not easy, especially when you are trying to solve a problem and all you get is errors.

So, one of my goals with my blog was to help all of you out there who are struggling to get on your feet with new technologies. It's kind of like repayment for all those out there who have helped me and still continue to help me

Hey all,

I just wanted to take a break from the norm and say how wonderful my wife is. She was just published in one of the foremost authorities for professional photographers, Studio Photography and Design. You can see her article by going to this address:

 http://www.imaginginfo.com/publication/article.jsp?pubId=3&id=1596

No, I'm not talking about the bathroom cleaner, although I personally prefer Scrubbing Bubbles and some SoftScrub. But, no, I am talking about the newest web technology for a better User Interface and faster user experience.

It's full name, in case many of you don't know, is Asyncronous Javascript and XML (AJAX). It's a method of binding XML to Javascript to make one seamless experience. Instead of actually making a round trip to the server to reload an entire page, the page just makes a trip to the server to get only the items that are necessary to complete the task.

I'm currently looking into other technologies related to it such as Jibx (Javascript bound to XML) to see how they square up to Ajax, but it's becoming more and more difficult to find anything that compares. Most developers who like the technology, prefer Ajax and additions have been made toexisting technologies, such as asp.net to incorporate this technology without giving up server security. I do know there are cureently two different versions of this additive. One is called Atlas and seems to be strictly for the .net 2.0 framework, and the other is called ajax.net developed by Michael Schwartz and does include support for the .net 1.1 framework but only in c# for the time being (I'll post a link when I have the chance).

 So really, I am curious what all of you think about it? Are you looking into it? Are you programming in it? What's your take? I'm interested to see what you have to say…

Okay, so I finally received an invite for Google Page Creator. Okay, it wasn’t really an invite, they were just telling me that I can access my new account. Technically they are still locked up with so many of the new users since they announced the creation of the new service,b ut they are allowing people on one by one, so if you’ve previously requested an account with them, be patient. They’ll get to you soon!

Anyway, I got to try it all out and made a quick little page. Check it out! Overall, I thought it was a nice application if the Ajax technology they’ve been using in all of their services. It was very fast and user friendly. The only drawback is that you can’t post it to a certain hosting account or domain name. You have limited control on the code side, which I personally don’t like because I like to seperate the CSS from the actual functional or presentation side. Plus you have to post it to a googlepages domain.

I envision that this is probably just a first step for the technology. Google is just getting their feet wet and I’m sure they’ll come out with some sort of commerical version (possibly for a fee) that’ll allow you to publich to a certain domain and hosting via ftp. Keep your eyes open on this one. I give it a 3 out of 5! But, man, is it well put together.

I promise not to make this a Google promo, but I was curious as to the number of web users who have, as I like to say, Google-ized their computers. This involves adding any software to your computer that Google has had a hand in. I personally have quite a few peices of software in my repretoire that has Google’s name on it and I’m proud of it.

Take, for instance, the Google Web Accelerator. I’m on cable internet and the thing has saved me 1.2 days of browsing time and I’ve had it for only two weeks. Useful? I think so.

Okay, I absolutely had to post this one. I noticed this in email a few days ago and couldn’t have believed it slipped by me so easily. Here’s a link to the full article! It looks like there have been some confirmed reports of a possible new Googlebot in town although Google has made no new announcement of such a technology (that could just be because they are in beta testing of it, I’m sure).

It seems to be that this new bot runs off of the Mozilla engine. This is potentially huge because it is a digression from the lynx browser that search engines normally use and would explain, in part, the hiring frenzy Google has made of Mozilla engineers and developers. More importantly than that, the Mozilla engine is much faster and has the ability to see through and use JavaScript. So, many new dynamic features that many SEO’s have warned against using, might now be usable through this new technology.

And boy is it fast too. In the article referenced above, the authors clients ha seen a 3500% increase in indexed pages over an 8 week period. Another article that I found during a search mentioned that the bot was just 7 times faster than normal. This is much faster than we all are used to and could potentially mean faster updates of Google’s data (possible leading to more frequent updates of their datacenters).

So check it out in your site logs and see if it’s true, but more importantly check your rankings, you might see some changes, you might not. But until we hear from Google officially, we don’t yet know how it’ll change the face of SEO as we know it.

Welcome to the new home for my blog. I used to have this over at blogger, but never really did anything with it, so I decided to move it here. This will be an overall blog encompassing most of the things I do. My other blog, SEO Journal, was so successful, but it only covered one thing, SEO. So out of that, comes this. Hopefully, I’ll attract the same crowd here as I do at my other one! So enjoy. Feel free to post a comment when you have a chnaceand let me know what’s going on, or have any questions.

Not much time has passed since Google took it’s long-running News service out of Beta and already someone has found a way to cause questioning of it’s credibility. Oddly enough, it was a 15 year old. I’ve included a link to the full story here, but as the story goes, the 15 year old tested the theory of another website, by posting a fake press release claiming that he was Google’s youngest recruit.

I’m sure he didn’t mean for it to make it as far as it did, but sure enough, his press release made it through the sources and into Google News pages. Eventually it all came out and the young teenager confessed and apologized via his blog on Sunday. Offering him some consolation, he did receive emails from several “real” Google employees telling him he had not dashed his changes of ever working for the search engine giant. (I’m sure Google was a bit red with embarrassment, but probably appreciated the event because of the exposure of vulnerability).

Now, I bring up this story for a very good purpose. Many in the search engine community often use press releases and news stories to highlight their websites and help to attain higher rankings. The 15 year old used a free PR website called iNewswire, heavily used among small businesses for the economical factors. In fact, I myself was sending some of my clients to these types of websites to have their news published. Press releases are a very good and fast way to get information about your company or events published to a wide variety of mediums.

Google may not have enjoyed the bad PR, but it highlighted a very prominent vulnerability. Mainly, that Google does not verify the sources or content of various news sources. But the consequences of this reality could be far reaching. Many have speculated that it will most likely start with the filtering out of information passed along by many free PR websites like iNewswire, making SE competition more difficult for smaller businesses who rely on those services and don’t necessarily have it in their budget to work with paid services.

But the consequences could also be much more. I speculate that Google will require accounts for publishers who wish to have content and news published with the creation of a credibility ranking (something that allows Google to rank your credibility based upon the trustworthiness and content of your news or press releases). This might be an easier solution for publishers who still want to use Google News, but bad for Google, because of the development time and deployment of another service. And who knows, I may be wrong. But one thing is for sure, Google News is going to change their policies and it’s not going to be good for small businesses and those who use the medium for proper SEM of their websites.

Let me know your thoughts by emailing me at johnpwooton@gmail.com and I’ll be sure to place some of your comments in the next newsletter.