Live Search Box - Add search to your website or blog
Microsoft is current number three in the search engine race behind Google and Yahoo, but they recently re-branded their search offering to Live Search and even more recently updated their Live Search Engine. Like Yahoo Search Builder, Live search provides a customizable search box that can be used on any web page or blog that searches within a website or the entire web using the Live Search Engine.
The Live Search Box comes in two formats the basic search box or the advanced search box. The basic search box allows for the searching of a specific website or the entire web by copying and pasting a pre formatted code unto a web page and editing the relevant section with the language code that your website is displayed in. The advanced search box offers more options and allows for the searching a specific websites and the customization of the look and feel of the search box produced.
Advanced Live Search Box Steps
- Choose get started under the advanced search box from the live search menu.
- Type in a display name for the search box being produced; enter the url of the websites or websites to be searched.
- Check or uncheck whether or not a search macro should be used or created for the search bar then click next.
- Customize the size, language and colour of the Live search bar, then click next.
- Finally copy and paste the code generated to the section of a webpage you would like the search bar displayed.
Graphical Representation of Steps
Firefox 3 Beta 2 Released
The second beta release of the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox 3 web browser is available with a slew of new features, updates and fixes. Many bugs have been worked out since the Firefox Beta 1 release but please note that release is only for testing purposes and there may be many bugs that have yet to be worked out. Download and evaluate the latest beta version of the popular open source browser in your native language at the Firefox website and be sure to read the official beta 2 release notes.
Release Notes Excerpt
These beta releases are targeted to Web developers and our testing community to gain feedback before advancing to the next stage in the release process. The final version of Firefox 3 will be released when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users. Users of the latest released version of Firefox should not expect their add-ons to work properly with this beta.
Every Webmaster should be using Stumbleupon
Stumbleupon is a very popular, award winning, web 2.0 social site that at the time of writing post had over 4 million users world wide. The free service allows web surfers to discover new and interesting websites while recommending sites they have found to be interesting and useful. All users need to do is register and download a free, easy to install toolbar and they can stumbleupon new discoveries while recommending web destinations for their contacts and friends.
The Stumbleupon Toolbar
The stumbleupon toolbar is what makes the service so accessible easy to use. The toolbar is compatible with the two most popular web browsers, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. While browsing just click the thumbs up icon for a website you like or would like to recommend or click the thumbs down button for a sites you dislike or would not like to recommend. Clicking the general stumbleupon icon would allow you to view a site that fits the interests you entered when registering for the website. An online demo available on the stumbleupon website does well to explain many of the features of the toolbar.
Stumbleupon toolbar with text labels turned off in Mozilla Firefox
Remember to Socialize
To get the best out of stumbleupon you will need to be a participating member of the stumbling community. Fortunately this is not a difficult process as just adding a free existing stumbles to your friends list while and also recommending stumbleupon to you friends does well to build up your stumbling reputation and authority. Actively stumbling or marking websites you like or dislike regularly is quick and easy and pretty soon you friend list will grow automatically.
Why is Stumbleupon Useful?
Apart from being free, easy to use and fun, stumbleupon can be a very important traffic generating tool for web developers. Unlike other social sites like Digg which may be biased to certain topics and offers dismal traffic unless you hit the frontpage, SU is a tool that fits any kind of website covering almost any topic as SU users have already decided what their interests are from their profiles. The web developer’s work should then be spent ensuring that their web pages are “sticky” when stumbled upon so that visitors who discover their pages will return. So if possible be sure to install and use stumbleupon tools and buttons on your webpage, participate the SU community and do your best to trap as much as the traffic send to your website through the Stumbleupon.
Technical Terms and Abbreviations Explained – FTP
FTP mean File Transfer Protocol and is an open standard TCP/IP protocol for transferring files from one computer to another. FTP is a popular file transfer method although users should be aware that FTP is not the safest of file transfer methods and data send may be vulnerable to interception.
Any computer system, regardless of operating system can use FTP and although not completely safe is simple method of transferring data reliably and efficiently over networks.
Firefox 3 Beta 1 Released
The first beta release of the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox 3 web browser is available with a slew of new features, updates and fixes. Please note that release is only for testing purposes and there may be many bugs that have yet to be worked out. Also note that current Firefox extensions may not function with the Firefox 3 beta release. Download and evaluate the latest beta version of the popular open source browser in your native language at the Firefox website and be sure to read the official beta release notes.
Release Notes Excerpt
Firefox 3 Beta 1 is based on the new Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 27 months and includes nearly 2 million lines of code changes, fixing more than 11,000 issues. Gecko 1.9 includes some major re-architecting for performance, stability, correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.
IZEA’s “RealRank” to be Alternative to Google’s “PageRank”
It’s only been a few weeks since the big pagerank branded stick of Google slapped around thousands of websites who were known to or suspected of selling text links on their webpages without using No Follow. A few days however some of the ranks went back to their regular numbers while others stayed hit and this left many website owners puzzled. Over the past few days however the pagerank issue is once again in the air as it seems that many websites are finding not reduced ranks like a few weeks ago but the loss of their pagerank all together. It’s been pointed out that link selling is again the major culprit with special emphasis on blogs who offer sponsored posts or reviews.
Graphical Representation of PageRank
These bloggers are crying foul as many believe that they are fee to do whatever they want with their own websites as long as these paid posts are disclosed and made clear to be what they are.
In comes RealRank
The parent company, IZEA, of one of the biggest paid post firms, PayPerPost, is busy highlighting the flaws in Google’s PageRank rankings while busy developing their own ranking system called RealRank.
The problem with Google PageRank is that it is both self serving and irrelevant to actual traffic and influence. The arbitrary and unpredictable nature of this ranking system has left both bloggers and advertisers longing for accurate statistical data since long before PayPerPost.
Instead the some what monopolistic nature of Google’s ranking and algorithm RealRank proposes a ranking system more up to date and more useful to websites, primarily blogs. This system ranks websites by traffic and inbound links and is expected to be rolled out in a matter of days.
Live Search Webmaster Tools Beta Invitation
We at Caribwebdev.com have been invited to take part in the Live Search Webmaster Tools Beta. So far their have been a few hiccups with the service, but we are now able to access it and will be looking at it’s features over the next few days using caribwebdev.com and other websites in the Heat Ray Media group of websites.
So look out for our first impressions review in a few days.
Yahoo Search Builder - customizable search engine
Google may be the leader in the search engine market, but Yahoo Search is still a important search industry player and internet powerhouse. Yahoo Search Builder is a powerful, easy to use tool provided by Yahoo which enables anyone (primarily web professionals) to create customizable search engine experience for any website. All that is needed is a yahoo email address and in literally minutes anyone start using Yahoo’s search technology on their own website to search the entire web, within a specified website and much more.
Simple Steps
- Navigate the Yahoo Search Builder homepage
- Log in with your Yahoo id
- Define your search engine by choosing a name and search type
- Design search box by choosing the width, colours and encoding
- Customize and brand your search box with your logo, fix it to match the colours of your website among other options
- Test created search box and add the generated code to your web page.
Graphical Representation of Steps
Create multiple engines for multiple websites and view statistics independently with this very useful tool provided by Yahoo. Please read through the Yahoo Search Builder help files if you have any problems with these steps or ask your questions in a comment.
Technical Terms and Abbreviations Explained – IP Address
The “IP” in IP address stands for Internet Protocol. An Internet Protocol Address is a unique address assigned to computers and other electronic devices connected to a network. The network can vary in size, from a simple home set-up of a computer connected to a printer, a corporate set-up with an internal network connecting various devices or a massive network such as the internet which connects billions of devices to the global network which is known as the World Wide Web.
An IP Address acts a unique identifier or “address” for a device and this allows the various devices connected to a network to communicate by helping them to tell one device different from another. Devices that can be connected to a network and all having their own unique IP Address include, telephones, printers, routers, scanners, computers and various other electronic devices.
Microsoft’s Live Search Engine Updated
Microsoft Corp has updated their Live Search engine and has focused mainly on improving searches related to entertainment, shopping, local and health.
“With this update to Live Search, our engineering focus is on the areas that matter most to our 185 million consumers who use our service every month. We have made dramatic progress in delivering a better search experience to our customers,” said Satya Nadella, corporate vice president of the Search and Advertising Platform Group at Microsoft. “We know what kinds of things consumers are searching for, and we have invested in those key high-interest verticals, including entertainment, shopping, health and local search. With the core platform in place we intend to win customers and earn their loyalty one query at a time.”
[ Read full Press Release from Microsoft ]
Live Search Homepage
What does this mean for Caribbean Web Developers?
Google is the undisputed king of search right now with Yahoo a distant second and Microsoft third. Microsoft is focusing on improving it’s search engine to prevent further slippage in it’s already small market share as well as to keep up with improvements being made by Yahoo and Google to their search products. This is good news for Caribbean Web Developers, especially those who follow proper web standards and understand the importance of proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Google is on top and more than like many of us receive the highest percentage of our search engine traffic from Google, but improvements in other search engines allows us to receive good traffic from all major search engines, not only Google.
