Bing beat Google to Instant Search functionality by introducing it way back in 2009.

Click here to see – Bing Instant Search

Okay, well Bing (or Microsoft) did not actually produce an Instant Search function, but some kid with too much time on his hands took your browser and Bing’s AJAX APIs and created basically the same thing to some extent.

What is all the hype with Instant Search? Really nothing. The idea is to shave time off your search queries, but to date it has only made my ADD more advanced and actually take me longer to get to what I was actually trying to find (sidetracked by too many interesting, not relevant results that kept popping-up along the way).

So, what I do find interesting is what I am coining Bing’s upcoming Seamless Search. This interface is a work of art that is functional, while Google’s Instant Search is just an annoyance. Check out the video below to seem a glimpse of Bing’s Seamless Search functionality in action:

I think the interface war is going to heat up and make for an interesting 2011, now Bing just needs to make sure that it’s results are equal or better than Google’s otherwise all this eye candy means nothing.

Just another example of the hilarious Google Suggest, suggestions, because you know Google can read your mind…:-)

Image from – Black Hat SEO

Wandering around my favorite search marketing websites I stumbled on 2 great, new and free SEO/SEM tools that I thought I might share…..

1. KeywordEye

- An absolutely incredible visual representation of Google data for use in online marketing efforts. This is the tool Google should have provided, but does not currently (until they buy them).

Check it out now at – KeywordEye

2. Übersuggest

- A great tool to expand your keyword lists and remove hours and hours of tedious manual work. It uses a combination of keywords from ‘Google Suggest’ and it expands your keyword options by searching for your keyword + every letter of the alphabet, one by one allowing you to create an incredible and comprehensive keyword list.

Once again, this is a tool that Google should have provided, but does not currently.

Check it out now at – Übersuggest

What is your favorite tool? Please comment and list your favorites to share!

So, it may not be often (or as bad as a bad tattoo), but Google sometimes does not provide the results that are needed or wanted. So, where do people turn to get their answers? A great new study by Chitika entitled, “Googlers’ Backup Plan – Ask.com?” gives us some insights. Look at the chart below:

Amazingly enough, when Google is not the answer over 30% of people go to Ask.com. While that is not as much as Yahoo with almost 50%, it does blow away Bing with around 17% (and since AOL is basically just Google repackaged in AOL even 4% is pretty incredible).

So, what does this tell us? Is there more opportunity or value in getting the initial search or is it more valuable to get secondary searches? Maybe Ask.com is more valuable then we previously thought. This research (and others from Chitika on Ask.com) open up data sets that have been ignored or missed before and we look forward to more of this type of information to better plan our search marketing campaigns.

Many people ask me which posts have been the most popular or which posts bring in the most traffic to the site. So, I decided to outline the top 5 for you in order of overall traffic to the site:

#1 from March of 2008
Add URL – Free Search Engine Submission Links
- Hands down the most visited web page on the blog as people love to submit to the search engines and they love to do it for FREE…:-)

#2 from July of 2009
Seeing Redz – The Story of Click Fraud and RedZee
- RedZ or RedZee, whatever they are calling themselves today are the scam that just keeps giving (and taking from customers). This and its follow-up blog post – The Continuing Scam That is RedZ (formerly known as RedZee) from November of 2009, continue to be the forum for communications about the scam and those that have fought back.

#3 from January 2009
FREE Article Rewriter and Spinning Tool Roundup
- Free SEO tools are always great and article spinning is popular within some of the SEO communities. Spin away my friends with these free resources.

#4 from December 2009
The 10 Best FREE Keyword Research Tools on the Internet!
- Come on, who does not love a top 10 list and who within the search marketing community does not use keyword research tools on a daily basis? This post was a match made in heaven, at least some people’s heaven.

#5 from January 2009
To Ping or Not to Ping, That is Not the Question
- With our fun play on words how could you not love this post? Come on, really. When it comes to pinging there are those that love to ping and those that could care less, but those of you that care, made this one of the top posts on the blog and rounded out our top 5 posts ever!

Now that we have shown your our top 5 based on website traffic, we would love to hear what you liked and/or disliked over the last 2+ years. Please leave us feedback by leaving a comment even if you do so anonymously as all are appreciated. Thanks in advance and stay tuned for more fun, helpful and interesting posts to come!

I am always looking for a great and clean (and accurate) way to show website SEO/Social media analytics and Rank Checker just happens to do that in a very aesthetically pleasing format.

Currently, what it shows is this:
- Domain Age
- Domain Name
- Alexa Ranking
- Alexa Backlinks
- AlltheWeb Backlinks
- AltaVista Backlinks
- Google PageRank (PR)
- Google Backlinks
- Google Bot Last Visit
- Google Indexed Pages
- Yahoo Indexed Pages
- Yahoo Backlinks
- Yahoo Directory Listing(s)
- DMOZ (The Open Directory) Listing(s)
- Bing Indexed Pages
- Ask.com Indexed Pages
- Digg Links
- Delicious Links

Check it out for FREE at – Rank Checker

I love good, free SEO tools that actually work as they should. So, while surfing around I found a great new set from Easy SEO Tracking. The tools include:

- Google SEO Recommendations Tool
Description from website – This tool provides you with an information on what operations you need to perform in order to beat your SERPs competitor.

- Google SERP Checker
Description from website – SEO Tool that allows you to check your SERP in Google (SERPs).

- Niche Analysis Tool
No Description from website – Basically you type in a keyword and the tool will provide details on the top 10 search results (SERPS) including; PageRank (PR), number of backlinks, keywords in URL, keywords in title tag, estimated unique visitors per month (pulling COMPETE data). You can also analyze all the backlinks to any of the websites listed.

- Crawler Simulation
Description for website – Find out how Google ‘sees’ your site when it is indexed.

It is fun and its free, so check it out today at – Easy SEO Tracking

I was sad to see it go, but now you can get your Google Pac-Man game on AGAIN – Google Pac-Man

This is probably the funniest Google video I have every seen – you also have to wait until the end for the jab at Yahoo. Enjoy…:-)

New Google Phone Service Whispers Targeted Ads Directly Into Users’ Ears

Just in case you care – Entireweb is launching it’s new (updated) search engine tomorrow (countdown timer available on their website at www.entireweb.com).

Entireweb at a glance (from the website):

Entireweb’s goal is to be a leading supplier of search technology solutions. The international Web search engine www.entireweb.com is not only a highly popular general purpose search engine used by millions of people around the world – it is also a showcase of our search technology and our expertise in the field of ultra-high-performance information retrieval from huge unstructured data sources.

Entireweb currently handles over 100 million searches every month, and is a trusted partner of internationally acclaimed meta search engines such as Mamma and IxQuick, who rely on Entireweb to provide world-class search results.

The new search engine promises to be much more robust with a deeper index in order to better compete against Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com. Recent announcements from their blog highlight that the new engine will pull real-time data from OneRiot and image data from picsearch. Ads will be pulled from their SpeedyAds program and their is a new mobile interface available.

You can check it all out at the links below:
Entireweb Search Engine homepage
Entireweb Search Engine updates (via blog)
Add URL for FREE to Entireweb