SEO Blog

Darrin Ward over at SEO Town posted a list of 39 new Google datacenters that someone tipped him off were now live. Thanks to Darrin for sharing them!

I would point out that they all start with “GFE” Perhaps that stands for “Google’s Friendly Experiment” or “Go Figure Everyone”? Darrin suggested “Google Field Experiment” - I suppose that there are quite a few other good suggestions out there…

Here’s the list from Darrin’s forum posting.

* gfe.google.com
* gfe-va.google.com
* gfe-va2.google.com
* gfe-va3.google.com
—————
* gfe-in.google.com
* gfe-in2.google.com
—————
* gfe-dc.google.com
* gfe-dc2.google.com
—————
* gfe-cw.google.com
* gfe-cw2.google.com
* gfe-cw3.google.com
—————
* gfe-gv.google.com
* gfe-gv2.google.com
* gfe-gv3.google.com
* gfe.gv4.google.com
—————
* gfe-lm.google.com
* gfe-lm2.google.com
* gfe-lm3.google.com
—————
* gfe-kr.google.com
* gfe-kr2.google.com
—————
* gfe-od.google.com
* gfe-od2.google.com
* gfe-od3.google.com
—————
* gfe-py.google.com
* gfe-py2.google.com
* gfe-py3.google.com
—————
* gfe-rn.google.com
* gfe-rn2.google.com
* gfe-rn3.google.com
* gfe-rn4.google.com
—————
* gfe-hs.google.com
* gfe-hs2.google.com
—————
* gfe-nf.google.com
* gfe-nf2.google.com
—————
* gfe-wr.google.com
* gfe-wr2.google.com
* gfe-wr3.google.com
—————
* gfe-jc.google.com
* gfe-jc2.google.com

A good commentary by Andrew Goodman on Webpronews about The Portal Threat To Verticals and How To Beat It

Andrew makes a point about how search companies like RedToronto have managed to stay afloat by use of the traditional knock on the advertisers door approach.

After the Kelsey Group’s conference last year, I wrote a note (which I can’t recall if I ever published) about the advantage that the Superpages have over companies like Google and Yahoo. After all, they are used to sending sales reps to businesses doors to sell them advertising in the traditional yellow pages - “for just a little bit extra we’ll add your ad to our online directory.” You would think that would make for easy revenue.

Andrew’s comments are opportune; niche companies have been following that model, and carving our successful markets. They’ve started to get noticed, and some are getting funded.

If these directories do face a challenge, it’s to continue to grow their market share. One strategy some of them are turning to is search engine optimization. They are getting their directories optimized for Google. ( ! ) Makes sense really, if you want to carve off your market share, use the big guy on the street to do it.

Interesting news about HP’s Snapfish hosting Walgreen’s photo service. There’s a firm downstairs from our office - Pixpo - which makes interesting software in this space as well. I’m very poorly educated on the photo sharing space, but I’ve been fortunate enough to see where they think it’s going, and what their tool will look like in a year or two.

Having seen a little bit of where it’s going, I can easily understand its market value for families, digital media publishers and artists alike. While I don’t use any P2P software at present, I can see how I likely will in a couple of years.

A few months ago I posted a note over at my old blog about link exchange software. Some poor fool had jsut emailed me a standard link request without even bothering to fill in the blanks - stuff like [[ insert comment here ]] was everywhere in the email. After the excitement with the pipe bomb that wasn’t the last thing I needed was for my first email to be yet another junky link request. I so rarely even look at them, it was only by chance that I glanced at this one. I should look more often - great fodder for when I’m in a sarcastic or caustic mood.

Here’s the very personal email;

*****************
Dear accounting, (yes, that’s my name, do you like it?)

I have visited your site and I believe that our product [write your product name and some interesting info about your product of service to increase likelyhood of getting a response here ]
will help your customers by increasing their search engine rankings instantly.

I will give your site a prominent listing on my page at iNetPromoter Link Page plus a [insert a ’special’ discount here] off the regular price of [insert product name here], if you link back to my site.