Archive: June, 2006

A new report by Forrester Research (published by shop.org) shows that online retail is expected to hit a massive 211 billion dollars in 2006, a 20 percent gain over last year. Of this 211 billion, 73.4 billion is allocated to the travel industry. The runners up are:

Computer hardware and software —$16.8 billion

Automobiles and parts —$15.9 billion

Apparel, accessories and footwear —$13.8 billion

Cosmetics and fragrances —$800 million

Pet supplies—$500 million

Not sure what the rest are.

What does this mean for the online retailer? Getting your site found within the top end results is more important than ever in order to reap the rewards. It’s imperative to take advantage of a well managed organic website optimization plan and supplemented PPC campaigns in order to stay a step ahead of the competition. Let’s face it; it’s only going to grow from here.

Via ClickZ.

I thought I’d pop over to blog engine Daypop to check and see if there’s anything new to report on, and was given then following disturbing message.

“Daypop down until further notice…
Sorry for the inconvenience.
After adding a bunch of submitted sites, Daypop no longer has enough memory to calculate the Top 40 and other Top pages.
If there’s no simple fix, Daypop won’t be back up until a new search/analysis engine is in place.
A new engine will take at least a month to get online.”

That’s too bad. Hope things get back in order for the people at Daypop soon.

Update: I’ve just been informed that Daypop has been down for sometime now. Where the heck have I been? Regardless, I hope they get things sorted out.

Google’s Sergey Brin was in speaking in front of a group of Congressmen in Washington D.C. yesterday. According to an AP report, he explained that Google decided to accommodate the same censorship demands from the Chinese government as its rivals had done.

Their rationale, according to Brin, was pragmatic: compromise our principles on complete access to information, but make a difference by providing more information than existed previously.

When the search engines first decided to limit their results, I understood the rationale behind the business decision. Better to make it possible to access some information, than to have all access denied. Human curiousity, and ingenuity will always ensure that people find ways to get to the information. The censorship just makes it more difficult.

I don’t believe that a foreign business / corporation should have a role in public policy decisions in a foreign country. I understood their decision, but do not agree with it – I find any form of censorship abhorrent. As Voltaire said “I may not believe in what you say, but I will die for your right to do so.”

Looking for a new job? Newly launched Eluta might be the tool you need, at least, if you live in Canada.

Eluta is a full fledged search engine, not a standard job posting site, which indexes new job listings directly from employers’ websites with its own crawling technology. It claims to monitor almost every employer in Canada, updating its database 24/7. Users can search for jobs by keyword phrases and location, and set up email notifications for new listings.

Listings are free to employers, and there’s no pay-for-placement option available. Instead, Eluta works off of pure relevancy, listing the most relevant results at the top of the SERP. It also claims to utilize special prediction algorithms that analyze current hiring trends within a region, identifying potential employers before they post new jobs.

I checked our company out and Eluta returned nothing. We have a handful of jobs currently listed on our site, and I tired using all keywords related to them. However, Eluta has a site submission feature, so if you’re not listed then that’s the ticket. There’s also an expiry date of 30 days for job postings within the index.

More features: