Netsociety is an online marketing company based in Amsterdam and Brussels. They seem to be looking for SEO & SEM professionals almost constantly.
October 9, 2010
October 4, 2010
freelancefirm.nl
An Amsterdam based intermediar between free lancers and employers which has a strong focus on creative online jobs. A job agency for self employed web professionals.
June 9, 2010
Google Maps Navigation
Today Google introduced Google Maps Navigation, this free GPS navigation app provides street, satalite and map views for mobile phones in the Netherlands, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium. The beta version is suitable for mobile phones that have an Android 1.6 or higher operating system.
Google Maps Navigation is an online GPS navigation system which provides turn-by-turn route as a free feature within Google Maps. This application uses the Internet connexion on the mobile phone and provides access to current maps and information. This always gives the useraccess to the latest information from Google Maps. Upgrades of maps or manual device updates are not necessary. Google Maps Navigation also offers several options for routes to display, for example by means of street images or aerial photos.
Google Maps Map is designed as an online GPS system and includes the following:
- Google Street View
You can visualize your route using images from Google Street View. Once your destiny approaches, the navigation automatically switches to Street View. - Satellite
You can also display the route using three-dimensional satellite images from Google in high resolution. - Just as a search in Google Maps
You do not even know the address of the company you want. You can simply name (eg “Corner Cafe”) or the type of business (eg “Thai restaurant”) enter, just as you would on Google. - Search along the way
You can search for any type of company along your route. You can also use one of thehelpful information on your route application layers, such layers, gas stations, restaurants and parking.
June 7, 2010
Does Matt Cutts really think JavaScript is PHP?
In this video Matt Cutts says ‘This is a piece of script written in PHP sort of stuff’ while pointing at something that is clearly JavaScript.
Just click the play button in the video below to hear him say PHP where it should have been JavaScript.
How can someone who joined Google in 2000 as a software engineer make such a mistake? This mistake suggests that Cutts does not know the difference between server side and client side scripting. Is he just a good actor who does geeky PR for Google or was it a slip of the tongue?
Peter Morville
Peter Morville is a writer, speaker, and consultant. He is best known as a founder of the field of information architecture. He advises such clients as AT&T, Harvard, IBM, the Library of Congress, Microsoft, the National Cancer Institute, Vodafone, and the Weather Channel. His work on experience strategy and the future of search has been covered by Business Week, The Economist, Fortune, NPR, and The Wall Street Journal.
June 4, 2010
Cross-browser testing
Websites are viewed with different browsers on different operating system. These browser/OS combinations should all deal with HTML, CSS and JavaScript in the same way. Unfortunately they do not. That is why every website owner should test if his site works and renders properly in at least the most common browser/OS combinations. In the Google Analytics screen dumps below, you can see that Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome and Opera are the most common browsers. Depending on the time and budget available you can test on all or just a few browser/OS combo’s. Do not forget that of all browsers there are several versions available. As most browsers offer a semi automatic update you will find that most people use one of the latest versions available.
For proper testing I prefer to testing machines available of which I know exactly what is and what is not installed on it. Depending on the fonts that are installed and if ClearType (Windows only) switched on or of a site can look very different. There are a number of browser plugins that are not installed by default in most browsers like Java, Flash or SilverLight. To do a proper test on a website that uses these techniques you need machines where these plugins are not installed to see what is left of your site. It can even be usefull to test a website with default functionality like JavaScript or CSS switched of. But for most test where you just want to know if your HTML, CSS and JavaScript will act and look like you intended, the browser plug-in available from spoon.net is a great solution. They offer a true cloud computing solution where you can run applications (including the most common browsers) on one of their servers and view the screen get it pushed to your pc. It is like Microsoft’s Remote Desktop or Citrix.
If you do not have the resources to get a testing room furnished with at least 10 computers http://www.spoon.net/Browsers is the best alternative!
For people who just want to see screenshots of their site in different browsers for a cross-browser test, there are several multi-browser screenshot services available. Smashingmagazine.com tested most multi-browser screenshot services and wrote a in depth report about it. The table below is the outcome of their test.
| Browsers supported | Price (1 year) | |
| BrowserShots | IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Dilo, SeaMonkey, Minefield, Epiphany, Flock, Galeon, Konqueror, K-Meleon, Avant, Netscape, Shireteko, Kazehakase, Iceweasel | Free |
| BrowserCam | IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, Camino, Netscape, AOL | $999.95 |
| BrowserLab | IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari | Free (till end of 2010) |
| SuperPreview | IE, Firefox and Safari | $149 |
| BrowserSeal | IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari | $49 |
| Litmus | IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Flock, Camino, SeaMonkey, Netscape | $588 |
| Multi Browser Viewer | IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Flock, SeaMonkey, Netscape, K-Meleon, Camino, Konqueror, Epiphany, Kazehakase | $129.95 |
| Browsera | IE, Firefox, Safari | $588 |
Search API’s: Yahoo, Goolge & Bing
The 3 major search engines all offer the possibility to use their search technology in your on-line application. You can offer Google, Bing and/or Yahoo search results to your visitors on your site in your own layout and filters. The most common use is probably of Search APIs is probably website owners offering site search to their visitors. Joomla, WordPress, Drupal and most other CMSs come with build in site search, but for larger websites this produces irrelevant results. The top search companies are just better in sorting by relevance. If you have a relatively large website and relevance in site search is important to you the Yahoo, Goolge or Bing Search API can help you greatly. For all three you need to register for a API key. It is free to get a key, but there are restrictions on the amount of searches you may preform.
These are the URLs you can use to register for an API key.
Documentation can be found here
Google & Microsoft also offers paid services under the names Search Solutions for business & SharePoint 2010 Search.
Next to that Google also offer Custom Search which allows only very minor adjustments in layout, but a lot af filter options. The fact that you can not remove the ads from the SERPs is compensated by the fact that you can make some money from them with your AdSense account.
June 2, 2010
How to make an ‘advanced segment’ in Google Analytics for long tail organic traffic?
How to find out if “Google MayDay” affected your rankings?
There have been some algorithmic changes to Google Search the around the 1st of May, hence the name ‘Google MayDay’. These changes could have effected your long tail positions in Google. Matt Cutts reacts to questions about Google MayDay in the video below. If you run Google analytics on your website the easiest way to find out if the changes affected the ranking of your site is to create a ‘advanced segment’. With advanced segments you could make analytics display only data for traffic generated by long tail search phrases (ie. search phrases containing 4 or more words).
How to make an ‘advanced segment’ for long tail organic results?
- Log in to your google analytics account
- If you have multiple websites configured select the website profile you want to work with
- In the left menu choose ‘Advanced segments’ under ‘My customizations’
- Click ‘+ Create new custom segment’ in the top right corner of the content area
- Add the ‘dimension’ ‘Medium’ from ‘Traffic Sources’ by dragging it from the left menu. (see: figure 1)
- Set the condition to: ‘matches exactly’ ‘organic’ to make sure only organic search results will show up
- Add “and” statement
- In the and statement add the ‘dimension’ ‘Keyword’ from ‘Traffic Sources’ by dragging it from the left menu.
- Set the ‘condition’ to ‘matches regular expression’
- Set the ‘value’ to: ^([a-z]+)([\s+]+)([a-z]+)([\s+]+)([a-z]+)([\s+]+)([a-z]+) This regular expression will match strings that start with 4 words (containing only chatracters a to z) which are seperated by one or more spaces (which can also be a + sign).
- Give the segment a name in the field indicated with ‘name segment’ and save it. (Your screen should now look like figure 2)
- To start using the segment go to the dashboard and click ‘Advanced Segments: All Visits’ in the top right corner of the content area. Check the new segment and uncheck ‘all visits’ and apply the changes. (see: figure 3)
- You are now ready to view your stats with only long tail data.
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- figure 1
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- figure 2
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- figure 3
further reading:
June 1, 2010
Blogvertising
There are many ways in which advertising is offered on blogs. Buying a Pay per Click (PPC) or Pay per View (PPV) campaign is something that can be done on any website including blogs. Paying a blogger to write post about your brand or product can only be done on a blog. The paid review or advertorial which is paid per post is the only form of advertising that truly is blogvertising. There are many platforms that help advertisers to find bloggers.
Some of the most popular of these pay per post platforms according to Google trends: