Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bonnie Brown was working as massage therapist at Google from 1999 to 2004. Before that, she ran a private school for 10 years. Now, Bonnie is traveling and also wrote a book called Giigle: How I Got Lucky Massaging Google. I met up with her on Google Talk (the transcript below has spellchecking and punctuation added).

Hi Bonnie!

Good morning.

I’m in Nevada entertaining family and friends for the holidays. It’s been a very busy week interviewing and setting up interviews for the coming weeks.

Did you find a publisher for the book yet?

Decided to publish it myself for now.

Ah... do you want to use some online service for that or...?

I have speaking engagements coming up, so it looks like I have a venue to sell the book through my website and at book signings.

I want to go back to the beginning of your work for Google. That was in 1999 right?

Correct.

At the time, did any of your friends actually know about the company?

No, and I had never heard of Google

Did you check out their site to prepare for the job interview? Like, try a search on google.com....?

No, frankly I was pretty computer illiterate!

Did you have a computer at the time?

Yes.

Your job started out as part-time, 10 hours a week. What did you do the other time?

I had a massage business in Silicon Valley that was just starting out. I had private clients and did massage for other businesses.

Were many of your clients from tech startups back then?

I did massage for Tibco. But mostly trade shows, parties, random small business. But a lot of my clients were in the tech business.

You mentioned before that massaging the Google employees was a bit different. They are all very geeky, I suppose. What was that like?

Well, first of all, they are socially shy for the most part. They are very involved with their work so not a lot of time for interpersonal relationships. For those reasons, they told me they lacked touch in their lives and really enjoyed massage because they felt something that was missing.

Plus, they suffered from the stressed associated with working on a computer all day (and night). They had wrist, neck and back problems.

I see. The massage you are doing is them lying face down on a bed, right?

Yes, they start face down on a massage table with a place for their face that is comfortable. Then the flip over and I work on their head neck and limbs from that angle. They are draped the whole time with sheets.

Sometimes being “socially shy” or let’s say unaware of certain social etiquette can lead to unwanted rudeness... did this ever happen to you at Google?

“One time an engineer explained to me that they see no need for small talk, so if they never look at me then they could avoid that.”

I had a hard time adjusting to some not looking me in the eyes.

One time an engineer explained to me that they see no need for small talk, so if they never look at me then they could avoid that.

That’s interesting. I’ve met many engineers/ developers who also frown on small talk. Did you talk a lot with them during massages though? Or does it depend on the client?

Yes, many of the Googlers fell asleep because their workload was so intense that when they finally stopped for a break, they just shut down.

Heh.

But at first, when they were nervous about the whole thing, they talked to get to know me and build trust.

Were they ever starting tech talk, and you had to stop them half-way through?

Actually, I learned a lot from them about the search engine, science, life from their perspective and loved talking with them. They were really intelligent and though I had a hard time understanding some of what they were expressing, I felt like I grew a lot from my experience with them.

OK. So in the beginning, there were like 40 employees with you, right? Did you massage all of them, like Sergey Brin, Larry Page...?

Yes, mostly all of them. Sergey and Larry included.

Did they sometimes seek your perspective too? Like ask for advice?

Well, considering the age difference, yes, they did consider my life experiences valuable and I think I taught them also.

When the company grew, did you swich to a full-time job with Google?

It was never a set, full time experience, because I was a contractor. I set my own hours, but the demand grew so great that I was working 5 days a week at the end.

And then someday the employees had to pay a fee for the formerly free massages for them, right? To cut down on demand...?

At first it was free, but I was booked 6 months in advance. It was hard for the new people to get an appointment. So, they instituted a co-pay and it slowed it down for a very short time, but that didn’t last long.

As a joke, people were offering their options to get a spot on the calendar.

Heh. I bet with that workload and the type of work, you were able to arm-wrestle down most male employees of the company :)

I think I was very popular. I could always cut in line in the lunch room and no one complained.

What’s the Google cafeteria like? And with whom would you usually sit down together?

Charlie [Ayers] made incredible food. Organic and extremely healthy. Great soups that we could take home after work in a Chinese take out container! I never visited the grocery store in those days.

I ate with anybody and everybody.

So the co-founders sit down, and people take a seat next to them. But I suppose that was not like that anymore after a couple of years...?

“I had a guest for lunch and Sergey was at the next table. He got up right in the middle of eating and started doing push ups on the floor. He had some kind of bet going with the people at his table. My guest was pretty surprised.”

The CEO, Eric, Sergey and Larry all ate with the rest of us. I’ve had lunch with them all. It is very relaxed.

Once, I had a guest for lunch and Sergey was at the next table. He got up right in the middle of eating and started doing push ups on the floor. He had some kind of bet going with the people at his table. My guest was pretty surprised.

How were new employees introduced to others at the time? I mean, when there were just hundred or more around. Was there a formal introduction?

It’s hard for me to say. My position there was removed from the “teams.” I worked on everyone, but on a very individual basis.

They had a meeting every Friday where I believe most introductions took place. I was ALWAYS doing massage, so hardly ever could attend.

Did you have a computer at work where you could check out e.g. the intranet MOMA and the employee profile pages for everyone?

Yes. My office had a computer that showed the schedule for massage and the intranet.

Did the intranet news interest you? Or I suppose you were always busy anyway...

It was very interesting. I read when I could. Every now and then someone missed their appointment and I had a break.

Did the atmosphere and buzz change when new products or sites were about to be rolled out?

Yes. As you probably know, they go by an 80/20 rule there. 20% of their time is used for creating new ideas. There were so many interesting things going on all the time, it seemed like there was no lack of excitement.

Did you have your own 20% time? :)

Are you kidding? NO! My job needed no more creativity. It was very intuitive and I gave it my all.

I wanted to ask, what was the weirdest thing that happened during your work with Google over the years?

If you read the book, you’ll find out!

Heh, OK. Did you ever meet celebrities at Google?

Yes, I met Al Gore.

Oh yeah, and Ben Affleck.

In 2004, Google went public. You had some stock options from the beginning of your job right?

Yes, I was offered options on an ongoing basis throughout my work there.

At what point in time did you realize, I’m probably ending up a millionaire here thanks to these options?

Toward the middle of 2003, it started to look pretty promising. But I’m an optimist and I hoped for the moon right from the start.

It was you who pushed for options, I understand... in the beginning...

Yes, I asked for that in my contract.

During the build-up to the IPO, what was it like? The New York Times estimated Google produced as many as 1000 or more millionaires. Was that time in any way weird?

I talk a lot about the build up in Giigle. It was a very stressful time. The quiet period required by the SEC was painfully quiet.

Except for an interview by the co-founders with Playboy...

True, true. Everyone makes an error now and then. :)

A couple of months later, you left Google. Why?

My hands hurt.

Seriously, it was just time. The company inevitably would grow more “corporate” and the feeling of the start-up changed. I felt it was time to start something else.

Yeah, I heard today at Google there’s a bit of a distance between pre-IPO and post-IPO employees...

I can’t imagine how it could be otherwise.

Were there many people calling it quits a while after the IPO?

Yes, I believe most of the first 100 people left the company during the first year.

Did you have a party when you left?

I just took a nap.

Heh. What did you do after taking a break? You started writing the book?

I wrote a lot of the book while I still worked there. I moved to Nevada and then did some serious traveling.

In another interview, you mentioned you help people during your traveling, and that you started a foundation. What exactly do you do?

I have a private foundation that makes grants to different charible causes. It is a lot more gratifying to be able to do some hands on work rather than just writing a check.

I have visited many needy sights and helped by just loving people and showing human compassion. I am able to help financially for the basic necessities, food, water and shelter.

I am a lover of the Bible and have had the exciting opportunity to help with the discovery of Biblical Relics.
Noah’s Ark. The Ark of the Covenant. Mt. Sinai.

These days, do you still keep up with news about Google?

“When I first worked at Google, there was no stress in my life, so I took flying lessons to create some.”

Yes, I am on an X-Googler’s site and the pilots at Google site.

What’s the pilots at Google site?

There are a number of pilots at Google. Eric Schmidt is a pilot. They have a mailing list where flying adventures and info is shared. I love flying!

Wow. So you got a pilots license? Since when?

When I first worked at Google, there was no stress in my life, so I took flying lessons to create some.

And now, of course, Google got their own jet....

Of course...

... and their own landing place shared over at NASA I heard!

Everyone loves Google!

Some human rights groups have criticized Google in the past though, what do you make of this?

If you knew how socially responsible the founders are, there would be no room for criticism.

What of Google’s tools do you use today, if any?

Google maps, finance, email, this, umm...calendar...

I try all the new stuff.

Did you also try your hands at Blogger.com?

Of Course. That’s where I saw that lovely picture.

Which one?

Where I was discussed in a way that stabbed my vanity.

Do you perhaps refer to a forum comment made on Google Blogoscoped by James...

Probably, it’s all becoming foggy lately...

What other websites do you check out regularly? Where’s that Ex-Googlers site, by the way?

It’s an email set up for ex-googlers that is invitation only.

I read the news on Google and keep up with my investments on Google’s terrific finance site. I read sites about my favorite topic, eschatology.

What is eschatology?

The study of end times.

On this mailing list for Ex-Googlers, is there a lot of nostalgia, or criticism of today’s Google? Or what is being talked about there?

It’s kind of like a support group. SWS was difficult to maneuver alone.

They do talk some about today’s Google and they remember the good ol’ days.

What’s SWS?

Sudden Wealth Syndrome. Don’t laugh, it’s a serious issue.

What are the symptoms?

Not fitting in. Having no one to play with. Feeling unuseful. Guilt.

Have you actually heard of Ex-Googlers re-applying for a job at Google?

I have not.

So how do you “treat” SWS?

I give. That helps. And just knowing others are experiencing the same feelings, makes you feel a little less nuts.

Did you find yourself having a lot of new “friends” after 2005? That’s when you were able to sell stock right?

Luckily, I have always been rich with friends. But sadly, some people have a hard time adjusting to you when they perceive that you are suddenly wealthy.

I have new business “opportunities” often. ;)

I see. Bonnie, anything else you’d like to share with us? Anything I should have asked you?

I appreciate your interest and it was fun typing with you.

One more question... What is Google’s best-kept secret? :)

If there is one, it is best kept.

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post | Comments]

Earlier in the month Google began its unofficial crackdown on pages which openly sell links in an effort to capitalize on their Google PageRank. Google’s crackdown; lowering the PageRank of those pages.

Danny Sullivan eluded to this in October and we published the unofficial confirmation of this via Matt Cutts a couple of days after the widespread shrinking Google PageRank across such sites. But yesterday Google made it official (thanks Philipp), adding to its Google Webmaster Help Center that selling links that pass PageRank can penalize a site not only in its Google Toolbar PageRank status, but also in Google search results. (more…)

Well, another Thanksgiving has come and gone, the Cowboys whooped the Jets, and like most Americans, I woke up this morning feeling like I’m carrying a bag of sand in my midsection, wondering how I ate so much turkey and trimmings, finishing them off with more turkey for desert and then some turkey again for a late night snack.

Unlike many other Americans, I have no plans to spend this morning lined up outside of Wal-Mart, Target, Macy’s and all of the other stores looking to find the best discounts and specials for the first official day of holiday shopping.

Black Friday, like many other traditional shopping trends, has made its way from the brick and mortar chaos to, well, online shopping chaos, with hordes of other stuffed shoppers looking to relax today, or work off the 5,000 calories of bird consumed yesterday.

Black Friday Sites

If you’re planning your Black Friday strategy today, the blog bfads.net (black friday ads) may come in useful. bfads.net is one of several sites working to index all the sales in all the Black Friday circulars, along with coupons for BestBuy, Circuit City and Sears. Other similar services include BlackFriday.info and BlackFridayAds.com.

Given that the majority of the links are via affiliate ads, I’m assuming that these sites really clean up during the last week of November.

Black Friday Traffic & Advertising Up 145%

Hitwise reports that this year, websites and online stores advertising their Black Friday sales online has grown 45% over last year and traffic to Black Friday sites is up 145 in the past week.

• Traffic to a custom category of Black Friday advertising websites increased 145 percent for the week ending Nov. 17, 2007 compared to Nov. 10, 2007, Hitwise reported today. Year-over-year traffic to the Black Friday websites increased 45 percent compared to the same week in 2006.
• Visitors to Black Friday advertising websites were predominantly females aged 25-34, according to Hitwise demographic data. 61 percent of visitors to the custom category of Black Friday websites were female, for the four weeks ending Nov. 17, 2007. Females comprised the majority of visits across all of the sites, including Black Friday Ads (64 percent), BlackFridayAds.com (64 percent), and The Black Friday (63 percent).
• Visitors between the ages of 25 and 34 were the highest represented age group to visit Black Friday websites, comprising 37 percent of visits for the four weeks ending Nov. 17, 2007.
• Black Friday websites as a whole received 61 percent of traffic from new visitors for the week ending Nov. 17, 2007. BlackFridayAds.com received the highest percentage of new visitors with 73 percent. The BlackFirday.gottadeal.com website received the highest percentage of returning visitors with 48 percent.

According to Google Trends, searches for Black Friday oriented terms online are also growing, notice the increase of searches each year (peaking today).

Black Friday Search Advertising

And to round out the post, here is a capture of the ads currently running on the big two, Google and Yahoo, for the term “black friday”

Pizza Anyone?

Last but not least, Yahoo Buzz Index has an interesting post today on the rise of searches for pizza term on Black Friday. Guess turkey leftovers are not all they are cracked up to be.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dan Ackerman Greenberg wrote a guest post on TechCrunch talking about his job at The Comotion Group to create a “viral hit” out of a given YouTube video advertising his client.

Creating popular videos has a lot less to do with the quality of the content, Dan says, and a lot with what basically comes down to deceitful, spammy tactics. Like using fake headlines for the video, or creating multiple accounts in a forum or on YouTube to then stir up a fake controversy about the video. “Every power user on YouTube has a number of different accounts,” Dan says, adding elsewhere, “You simply can’t expect to post great videos on YouTube and have them go viral on their own.”

Dan also mentions some fine-tuning tips like making sure the frame YouTube picks from the middle of the video is saucy enough to be catchy when the video is listed on YouTube’s overview pages. Also, Dan suggests that when releasing a set of videos at once, you can pick some unique tags (those not used on YouTube yet) which you then add to all videos of the group... skewing the “related videos” section on YouTube to show only videos of your group. Dan also says that his team won’t shy away from simply deleting negative comments to a video. “We can’t let one user’s negativity taint everyone else’s opinions.”

Dan believes in the success of his companies method. “Our rule of thumb is that if we don’t get a video 100,000 views, we don’t charge.” For “normal” users of YouTube, Dan has this message: “I don’t care how ’viral’ you think your video is; no one is going to find it and no one is going to watch it.”

Then again, perhaps Dan’s post in itself is deceitful in parts of its message, trying to achieve the most viral effect possible. Maybe right now, Dan’s team is creating multiple identities on TechCrunch trying to stir up same fake controversy. Dan explains, “Everyone loves a good, heated discussion in the comments section – especially if the comments are related to a brand/startup.” This time, the brand is his own.

[Thanks Search-Engines-Web!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post | Comments]

E. told me he had problems accessing his Gmail account. According to E., it all started when he received an email asking him to reset his password. E. says that email was legit, even though he didn’t click on the link in it, but rather asked Google via their phishing & abuse support address what happened. The next morning, it was Wednesday, October 24th this year, he wasn’t able to log-in to his account, as the user name and password didn’t match anymore.

Afterwards, E. used Google’s security center form, which is titled “I believe someone has broken in to my account.” E. didn’t receive a human response at first and was now wishing he had set up a better, more fail-safe system for these occasions. “Being locked out of a primary e-mail address, with important e-mail there, shouldn’t have to happen,” E. tells me, adding “Not only am I locked out of my Gmail, but my calendar, my bookmarks, Picasa, my blog, and with Google Checkout.”

E. continued to try contacting other support mails. In an email sent to support@blogger.com, he wrote:

<<Hi, I can’t access my account. (...)

I can’t access my 3 blogs: (...)

I have repeatedly tried to contact Google, I even sent a fax, but I haven’t received a response.
I don’t know if someone hacked my account, or what.
This has me scared, and the silence from Google isn’t helping.
If you can help me with this, I’d greatly appreciate it.>>

Mails sent to Blogger support or AdSense support received only automated replies, though. The Google Checkout team did respond to him, however, telling him he shouldn’t worry about credit card fraud as “Only the last four digits of your credit card number are visible to anyone.” According to E., Google then did get back to him on October 29th, with an email letting him know that his account had been enabled again:

<<We have completed our investigation and we are re-enabling your access to this account. The account settings have been restored to the first name, last name, and secondary email address that you provided.

We sincerely apologize for what you have experienced in this regard and appreciate your cooperation and understanding.>>

The email then continued to give tips on how to choose a good password and security question. Google didn’t tell him what happened though, E. says. But he did notice after being able to log-in successfully again that his nick name in his “My Account” settings page was set to “Tom” and the zip code “10001," values which E. says he never provided. After he sent an email telling Google he’s now concerned enough to think he is “a victim of identity theft,” pleading for their help, the Google team replied with the following on November 5th, according to E.:

<<In accordance with state and federal law, it is Google’s policy to only provide information pursuant to a valid third party subpoena or other appropriate legal process.

If you have additional questions about obtaining such information, please feel free to contact us at legal-support@google.com.>>

Today, E. has started using Fastmail as his webmail service, he says, being disappointed with Google’s support turnaround time (knowing that Gmail is a free service, he now thinks he might get better support at paid services). E. says he also realizes it was his own fault for putting all of his eggs in one basket, relying solely on Google. “What then happens if the handle breaks on that basket?”

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post | Comments]

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The subject is getting old, but I believe that the complaining about the dominance of Wikipedia articles in the Google search results will continue until something happens that will make most people happy.

Here are two posts related to this subject from this month where I actually left long comments already, before I decided to make yet another post about it here at Search Engine Journal.

The first one from beginning of this month is the post titled: “Wikipedia: The Barry Bonds of Search Results” by Eric Lander here at Search Engine Journal. The second post is only a few days old and is titled “When Will Wikipedia Rank for everything?” that was written by Aaron Wall’s wife Giovanna at SEOBook.com. (more…)

Game changer?

While the mobile Linux community has reacted positively to Google's Android, the new platform has also given it some cause for concern. The arrival of a giant player area with very clear ideas of role it wants mobile Linux to fill was bound to ruffle a few feathers and, despite public proclamations of "welcome" and "support", the Linux establishment is showing a few cracks.…

(Anyone dares to try an analysis? Are these numbers indicative of anything or just noise?)

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post | Comments]

Sergey Brin is telling employees to stop making old products and start improving new ones. "For example, said Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, Google plans to combine its spreadsheet, calendar and word-processing programs into one suite of Web-based applications."

From the Google Webmaster Help Center (my emphasis):

I don’t know when exactly this was changed. While the Google cache is indicating this change is a bit older, and I can see the new variant being quoted in older blog posts elsewhere, I still have a backup made earlier today which shows the old version. It’s also possible that this was changed, then changed again – or that different servers were showing different versions.

[Thanks to John Honeck for spotting this!]

Update: Turns out it was just the UK version of this page which had another text, while the US page apparently had the new version since quite some time. [Thanks Seth Finkelstein and Kalena Jordan!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post | Comments]

Google meets its match

The UK's Ordnance Survey (OS) creates some of the world's best maps. Going far beyond mapping just the roads, OS provides some of the most detailed mapping, good for walkers, cyclists, and runners.…

Google on their global homepage replaced the top-left link to Google Video with a link to Google Product Search, the former Froogle. These navigational links are not consistent throughout Google’s services, so the change isn’t visible everywhere. The video link now moved to the “more” menu.

In August 2006, Google actually got rid of the Froogle link on their homepage to put the video link in. Now they seem to have changed their mind again. Part of the reason may be that video results are tightly integrated into Google’s “universal search” approach anyway – e.g. you can query Google web search for 11th Hour Trailer and you will find the YouTube video on top, along with a thumbnail and a plus button to expand the video right on the page; also, a related link pointing to the Google Video search results will be shown in the blue bar right above of the results.

Added to that people searching for videos may well just start at YouTube.com right away. The Google Video homepage itself, which changed from a video upload location to more of a meta video search engine over time, is rather unattractive; for instance, they’re suggesting the same “Recommendations” to me for what seems to be months now... almost as if the place is deserted. Indeed, the Google Video product manager Jennifer Feikin left the company in May this year.

Whether a link to product search is the right choice for a replacement though is another question. Product search results too are sometimes integrated right into web results – like for a search for Buy Sony Vaio – so it’s also not a must-have choice for a navigation link. “Maybe they’re trying to push people to Google Product search for the holiday season,” John in the forum writes. And Google watcher Ionut Alex. Chitu in the comments argues Froogle aka Google Product Search might be “more like a promo for Checkout than a real service.” Google Checkout is Google’s PayPal-style competitor (well, you can’t treat it as your virtual bank account yet, but it has the “safe shopping” angle). Product search results – like Google AdWords in web results – are biased to its advantage. For instance, searching for iPhone will produce a highly visible button in the top left reading “Show Google Checkout Items only.”

[Thanks John, Ionut and Milivella!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Original post | Comments]

Sites with a lot of static information -- Wikipedia, any API documentation, web-based email -- would be great to be able to use when no internet connection is available. But what if you're a user that always has an internet connection? Then adding Gears to a site doesn't do much, right? Wrong. Imagine your favorite website is now stored on your computer, and it syncs whenever there's altered content. Whenever you look at the site, your browser is grabbing everything straight from your hard drive. Did you just make a search for your best friend on Facebook? Don't wait 5 seconds the next time that search runs, have the results immediately! Meanwhile, save the webmasters' precious bandwidth/server power!

Bid management for PPC campaigns has become more complicated with the introduction of "quality scores" by the major ad platforms, including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. BidHero, a new bid management tool from Lyris, addresses the changes through its integration with Lyris' ClickTracks Web Analytics product. In today's SearchDay, "Lyris Intros BidHero Campaign Management Tool," we look at BidHero, along with the larger Lyris HQ portfolio it is a part of.

We have all heard of, and commonly utilize, Yahoo Search Marketing, Google AdWords, Ask.com Sponsored Listings, and MSN adCenter and most search marketers are generally happy with their proven results. Although these powerful search marketing solutions are robust and drive millions of searches and clicks per day, there are many other paid search engines that try to compete in this marketplace.

The benefits to listing your website on other paid search engines are rather significant and are worthy of your consideration. Sure, some will not produce the traffic you are looking for while others may not convert, but running limited testing on these sites can sometimes unearth some diamonds in the rough, and increase your overall search business or improve your bottom line.

• The first benefit to consider is that other search engines will charge considerably less per click, yet often feed the same quality of traffic to your web site. This will result in a much high ROI and will expand the impact of your advertising budget immensely.
• In addition, you will reach an audience which may be untapped, or whom would not have found you through the bigger search engines. A broader reach and more profit per click - need I say more?
• You may also be getting a jump on your competition if they’re not covering every search angle.

Here is a list of eight great paid search engines that could help you grow your business and reach a broader clientele.

1. MIVA is a growing and often underrated search engine. They distribute their ads over two networks: the MIVA Precision Network, which concentrates on specific business categories, and the MIVA Core Network which is predominantly content sites. Their minimum CPC is .10 cents, and they have a $25.00 new account minimum. Miva also owns SearchFeed, so they also may be able to set you up with a similar account there. Miva has an Alexa ranking under 10,000, thus they are heavily trafficked and offer a solid reach.
2. FaceBook Ads, previously known as FaceBook Flyers, is an exciting opportunity to reach a large demographic. The PPC marketplace is a fairly new endeavour for FaceBook. However, they are coming out of the gates with a powerful reach and affordable rates. FaceBook ads is offering CPC or CPM pricing structures, and it offers highly customizable targeting by age, gender, location, interests, and more.
3. Looksmart is another solid choice for your PPC dollars. They proclaim a 70% reach to all Internet users via their distribution partners, such as Lycos.com, Excite.com, CNET, Cox Interactive and more. Yes, they’ve sold off their article publication arm, but perhaps in a moe to focus on paid search. Looksmart is also known to have great customer service and an easy to use account management system.

(more…)

Interesting thread on DigitalPoint this morning about the influx in traffic from images indexed in Google Images and other image search engines, and how they can attract a decent amount of traffic.

In some circumstances, a well optimized image file with a keyword rich filename, alt tag and title (if it is hyperlinked) can show up fairly high in image search results with little effort.

I’ve got some animal pictures that get thousands of visitors every day (make no money though, just kids looking) from being number 1-3 in google images.

I just checked and the pictures don’t even have alt text or title, although the filename is the name of the animal, so I guess that might be pretty important.
The other common factor is that the pictures are quite large - more than 350*350, which I think helps. I believe the surrounding text is as important as the picture itself.

The members do however, debate on the quality of such traffic, stating that the image search traffic does not convert quite well. (more…)

I won’t be doing many (any?) posts over Thanksgiving — my grandfather’s birthday is this weekend, and I’m spending the time visiting with family. On the bright side, I wrapped up my logistical project today, and I’m looking forward to blogging a little more after Thanksgiving. I also taped three videos when I visited the webmaster console team in Kirkland a few weeks ago, so we might be able to get those up too.

If you’re looking for fun things over the holiday weekend, here are some things I’ve enjoyed recently:

DVD:
- Ratatouille is excellent. It’s family-friendly, but it’s also very clever.

- I played soccer in high school, so I’m a sucker for fun soccer movies (Shaolin Soccer and Bend it Like Beckham come to mind). I really liked Gracie. It’s fascinating to read how the movie is grounded in real life. Gracie is one of the few movies where I’ve watched the movie again with commentary later (provided by Elisabeth Shue and Andrew Shue).

Books:
- Non-fiction, I really enjoyed Rule the Web. I’ll talk about this book more when I do my Christmas gift suggestions, but the short summary is that anyone that touches a computer can find some fun things in this book.

- Also for non-fiction, Founders at Work is interesting. If you have an entrepreneurial bent or have ever thought of doing a start-up, I think you’d like this book.

- Fiction? I genuinely haven’t been reading much straight fiction for the last month or two. If you like comic books graphic novels, I’ve enjoyed Powers recently. The Powers series examines what would happen if lots of regular people had superpowers. I also checked out Shooting War. It’s frigging bleak, but you might like it if you liked Transmetropolitan.

Podcasts:
- The Daily SearchCast has gotten a little sporadic as Danny has been on vacation and doing search conferences. It’s still one of the most enjoyable ways to get your fix of search news though, and it’s much safer to listen to the SearchCast in the car instead of trying to surf web sites on an iPhone as you drive. I’ve got a batch of these to listen to while I’m traveling this weekend. But Daron and Danny: you tweaked the MP3 filenames to include some keywords, but you dropped the date. Bring the date back so it’s easy to listen to them in order!

Web. Some stuff that’s in my browser or otherwise interesting:
- Eric Enge interviews Eric Engleman, from Bloglines. It’s a fun interview, and I’m glad that Bloglines keeps the Google Reader engineers on their toes.

- Sure, you saw Scoble blow off Android. But though I love Robert, he’s not a hard-core developer. He’s a smart guy who talks to techies and developers and neat people. So I’d trust Scoble’s opinion on how compelling the Android videos and demos were, but you really want a developer who digs into the system to give an in-depth write-up. A better view on Android was this article by Reto Meier. I love that Android supports all sorts of inputs, from GPS to compass to accelerometer to cameras.

- This Linux device driver project needs more unsupported devices so that they can write drivers for them. My three requested devices would be 1) full support for *all* of the keys on the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, 2) the Omron HJ-720ITC pedometer, and 3) the Fretlight guitar.

- Gmail has always been pretty open (e.g. letting you download your email for free via POP or easy exporting of your contacts). It’s nice that Gmail added IMAP support, but I’m just as excited that Google has introduced a Greasemonkey API for Gmail to make hacking on Gmail even easier. I was a little surprised that this didn’t get much coverage in search blogs, other than Google OS covering the API.

That’s it for now — enjoy your Thanksgiving, and I’ll see you in a few days.