The New Alexa Rankings

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When Alexa began displaying rankings in 1998 it was with the goal of showing Alexa Toolbar users how popular any given site was within the Alexa community. We generated the rankings through an analysis of Internet usage by people who use the Alexa Toolbar. Since that time we’ve been delighted to see that the Alexa Rankings have become a yardstick by which website popularity is measured. We are grateful to the thousands of people who come to Alexa.com each day to check the Alexa Rankings.

In recent months we’ve heard from our Alexa users that understanding Internet usage beyond Alexa Toolbar users was increasingly of interest. Ask and you shall receive!

We listened to your suggestions, and we believe that our new rankings system is much closer to what you asked for. We now aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users.

You gave us many other suggestions as well, and we are working hard to implement them. We won’t tell any secrets just yet, but you can expect to see new features rolled out over the coming weeks and months. Below are a few common questions we anticipate from the Alexa community, along with our answers.
 

My site’s ranking has changed. Was it wrong before?
Your ranking wasn’t wrong before, but it was different. Alexa toolbar users’ interests and surfing habits could differ from those of the general population in a number of ways, and we described some of those possible differences on our website. While the vast majority of sites’ rankings were unaffected by such differences, we’ve worked hard on our new ranking system to adjust for situations in which they could matter. The new rankings should better reflect the interests and surfing habits of the broader population of Web users.
 

Why are the long range graphs gone? I can only get 9 months of historical data.
We are recalculating historic traffic data and will continue to add it over the coming weeks. We apologize for the inconvenience, but should have several years of data back on line shortly.
 

Will you change the rankings again?
We are constantly working to ensure that we provide the most useful data that we can. We will continue to fine tune our algorithms but don’t foresee any additional big changes. If you think something is amiss please let us know.
 

I liked the old rankings better. Are they still available somewhere?
We liked the old rankings as well. However, we developed the new system in response to the huge number of requests we got from users like you, and now that it’s done we like it even better. We hope you will too. We think that having more than one ranking system at a time would be confusing, so we have removed the old rankings.
 

Do you want to know what I think about this?
Definitely. We’ve been collecting suggestions and ideas for months now, and would love to hear more. If you have thoughts on what we’ve done so far, or ideas on what we should do next, please share them with us.

Alexa Ranking

What’s Your PageRank?

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There are two ways to figure out what your approximate PageRank is.  One, you can download the Google Toolbar (the PageRank feature is not turned on by default, so you’d have to enable it after installation).  

The other way is to use the Google PageRank Calculator page on this website.  It’s quick, free and requires no registration.  Check it out.  If you have a PR6 or higher, I’ll be very impressed.

Quick recap:  Organic search is like free advertising.  It’s worth the investment to try and get a high ranking by the major search engines.  To rank high you should do two things:  First, make sure your site has the right relevant content for the types of searches your potential clients are conducting.  Second, try to get the highest PageRank possible.  To do this, you need to get as many inbound links from as many high PageRank web pages as possible.

How PageRank Is Calculated

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There has been a lot written and a lot debated about Google’s PageRank, but on one point there is near unanimous agreement.  PageRank is primarily determined by how many other web pages are linking into you.  Google considers this kind of inbound a link a vote of confidence.    But, here’s the trick:  Not all inbound links are created equal.  Web pages with more credibility that link to you have more “value” to your PageRank than those with less credibility.  How is this credibility determined?  Why, by their PageRank, of course!  So, let’s take an example.  Lets say you have your Uncle Charlie link to you from his blog to your small business website.  Let’s also say that Uncle Charlie’s blog has a Page Rank of 3 (this is being a little generous because all Uncle Charlie writes about is his dog Sparky and he has limited inbound links).  This link from Uncle Charlie will certainly help you – a little bit.  It will help you more if you can find 100 such Uncle Charlie websites with a PageRank of 3 and get them to link to you.  

However, if you get a single link from HubSpot.com (the sponsor of this blog), it’ll help you more than a 100 Uncle Charlie websites.  Why?  Because HubSpot.com has a PageRank of 6 and a link from it is much more valuable.  I divide up PageRank into these broad categories:

0-3:  New sites or sites with very minimal links
4-5:  Popular sites with a fair amount of inbound links
6:  Very popular sites that have hundreds of links, many of them quality links
7-10:  Usually media brands (NYTimes.com), big companies or A-list bloggers.

Now, it’s important to note that PageRank is believed to be calculated on a logarithmic scale.  What this roughly means is that the difference between PR4 and PR5 is likely 5-10 times than the difference between PR3 and PR4.  So, there are likely  over a 100 times as many web pages with a PageRank of 2 than there are with a PageRank of 4.   This means that if you get to a PageRank of 6 or so, you’re likely well into the top 0.1% of all websites out there.  If most of your peer group is straggling around with a PR2 or PR3, you’re way ahead of the game. 

Google’s Search Algorithm

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First, let’s establish a simple example which we can use to frame our discussion.  Let’s assume you are the partner in a boutique strategy consulting firm.  Lets further say that your specialization is advising technical founders of high-growth, venture-backed companies on how to be better at selling.  Now, you could probably identify a number of search phrases that your potential clients might use when interested in this particular topic.  Users may search for something like “technical sales consultant to founder”.  Or, they may just start by looking for content (instead of consulting) and search on “successful technical selling”.  In either case, Google has an algorithm that figures out which websites of the hundreds of millions out there should be displayed in rank order on the results page.  These are the organic (i.e. non-paid) results.  You want to rank high on these results.  [Author’s note:  If you do actually search Google on “successful technical selling”, you’ll find that my OnStartups.com blog ranks #1].

Though Google’s algorithm is extremely sophisticated, it boils down to something like this:

Search Ranking = Relevance * PageRank

Relevance is basically the measure of how your website (or more accurately one of your web pages) matches the search phrase the user has entered.  Measuring relevance is a relatively sophisticated process, but it boils down to some fundamentals like the title of the page, words on the page and how frequently they occur, etc.  So, if your home page has things like “technical selling”, it drives up the relevance for this particular search.  The reason my blog article is ranked #1 on Google for “successful technical selling” is in no small part because of the title OF ONE OF MY ARTICLES (“Successful Selling Tips For The Technically Gifted”).    Basically, Google figures out what your page is “about” by looking at it’s content (and by looking at other sites with similar content that are linking to yours).  It then uses this to figure out how relevant you are for a particular search phrase.

PageRank is an independent measure of Google’s perception of the quality/authority/credibility of an individual web page.  It does not depend on any particular search phrase.  For the public (you and me), Google conveniently reports this as a number from 0-10 (10 being the best).  So, assuming for a second that your web page and your competitors web-page has the same relevance – then whoever has the higher PageRank gets the better ranking – and shows up at the top of the results page.  This is why PageRank is so important.  Your relevance is based on your content (if you’re a consulting company specializing in technical selling, your relevance for stainless steel monkey wrench searches is going to be understandably low).  Your PageRank is what counts.

Web Promotion – Search Engine Optimization

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With over 300 million searches made on search engines everyday, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can bring thousands of new customers to your website. Art Dimension, one of the leading SEO companies in North America, provides search engine optimization services tailored to your budget and marketing objectives. We provide a reliable and cost effective way of making your website highly visible to maximize its traffic potential.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines such as Google, Yahoo and AOL via search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.
As a marketing strategy for increasing a site’s relevance, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site’s coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully utilizing a site. Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, ensuring that content is easily indexed by search engine robots, and making the site more appealing to users.
The acronym “SEO” can also refer to “search engine optimizers” or “Search Engine Optimizician”, terms adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term “search engine friendly” may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems, URLs, and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.
If you want your website to be successful in its intended purpose, search engine optimization should be taken into account when your website is initially developed. Art Dimension has extensive expertise in SEO and therefore develops each website with SEO in mind. All our past projects are “search engine friendly” and are indexed very well by all the major search engines on the web such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL.
Eye tracking studies have shown that searchers scan a search results page from top to bottom and left to right (for left to right languages), looking for a relevant result. Placement at or near the top of the rankings therefore increases the number of searchers who will visit a site. SEO is not necessarily an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be much more effective, depending on the site operator’s goals. A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive traffic to web pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and improving a site’s conversion rate.
In Internet Marketing, conversion rate refers to the number or percentage of visitors who convert casual content views or website visits into desired actions based on subtle or direct requests from marketers, advertisers, and content creators.
Successful conversions are interpreted differently by individual marketers, advertisers, and content creators. To online retailers, for example, a successful conversion may constitute the sale of a product to a consumer whose interest in the item was initially sparked by clicking a banner advertisement. To content creators, however, a successful conversion may refer to a membership registration, newsletter subscription, software download, or other activity that occurs due to a subtle or direct request from the content creator for the visitor to take the action.
Art Dimension performs all the necessary Internet marketing activities to maximize the conversion rate of your website. Based on your needs as a website operator we will develop an appropriate marketing strategy that will be effective in driving traffic to your website and converting that traffic into revenue for your business.
Our Search Engine Optimization techniques and submission process is GUARANTEED to get your website quickly positioned in the top 10 on the leading search engines.
Periodically, the search engines and directories change their algorithms, sometimes minor changes, sometimes more profound – to maintain a high degree of relevance in the results. We work very hard to keep up to date on which techniques work best.
We combine reliable, dependable Search Engine Optimization techniques with correct submissions to the major search engines in order to help our clients achieve their Search Engine placement goals.
Good cost-effective search engine optimization offers a far higher return on investment, than pay per click advertising. Effective search engine optimization combines link building and on page optimizing techniques, when implemented correctly search engine optimization will help your site rise to the top of the search engines using various search engine optimization research techniques.
So let Art Dimension take your website to the top of the page and your business to the top of its industry.

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What is Branding?

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Branding is not only your logo but also your business name. Great names evoke intrigue, savvy and class, and tell customers a lot about who you are. When you begin the branding process, think first about your name. Next, envision an image that works with that name. Finally, create a byline, which is a short sentence that describes who you are or what you stand for. Here’s an example. I named of one of my first coffee bars “Caffe Primavera.” In Italian, “Primavera” means springtime. For my logo design I used a Corinthian column with a floral theme at its base, surrounded by two renaissance angels. The byline I chose was “Coffee delivered from heaven.”

There are many examples of expired branding in the coffee world. Let’s look at Seattle’s Caffé D’arte (Italian for “coffee of art”). Its simple logo incorporates the company name and a cup in a design that uses traditional Italian colors. Its byline, “Taste the Difference,” tells you a lot. It indicates this company has traditional Italian coffee and suggests it is a high quality product.

Another Seattle coffee company with impressive branding is Caffé Vita. Its logo design features an Italian clown holding a cup. The image is classy, whimsical and reminds me of Carnival in Venice, reinforcing the link to Italy, the Mecca of espresso. The company uses its name and branding in fun and unique ways, probably more so than any other company in the industry.

Recently the company gave away black hats with an embroidered logo design that simply said “Caffé Vita.” But for the younger crowd, as a very creative and unique promotion, the company created cheap black and white foam baseball hats that from a distance read “VITA SUCKS.” Upon closer inspection, you could read small print that said, “VITA is great! What SUCKS is when you can’t find any!

Written by: Bruce Milletto
Source: http://www.expresso101.com/

History of graphic design and its audience

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To insist that, or to prescribe how, the history of graphic design need be taught in any particular way is to unnecessarily limit the field in both methodology and pedagogy. Since there is no consensus amongst historians of graphic design on what the history of graphic design is or what it should be, no scholar studying the subject should commit to any one way of researching, writing, and teaching.