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Social Search Engine: Houston entrepreneurs seek a sharper search engine. They say their system of letting users rank sites is superior.

07/20/07 - by Brad Hem - [web] -

Four Houston entrepreneurs are launching a search engine today that they hope will challenge the likes of Google and Yahoo.

Frustrated with the results they get from other search engines, Neal Verma, founder and CEO of iRazoo.com, and three friends with technology backgrounds have spent their evenings and weekends - and an undisclosed amount of money - over the last eight months developing iRazoo.

Now they'll have to prove it works by drawing enough users, who in turn will attract advertisers to fund the company in a business where a handful of companies dominate.

They're betting they have a better approach to search - a site designed to highlight the most useful sites by seeking input from users who can earn rewards by voting for, or against, Web sites.

Even though 97 percent of Internet searches are done on Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and Time Warner, according to comScore, there are hundreds of smaller search engines.

Newcomers keep trying because there is a lot of money to be made, said James Lamberti, senior vice president for comScore, which measures Web usage and ranks search engines by use.

In the U.S. alone, companies are spending $17 billion a year in online advertising, and 40 percent of that is spent on search engine sites, he said.

"There's still a ton of activity in this field," he said. "A lot of people think they can build a better mousetrap."

But it's very difficult to catch on. Hundreds of companies like iRazoo have started search engines. Not since Google emerged five years ago has a search engine really gotten traction, Lamberti said.

Those dominant search engines are always in a buying mood as they try to find niches that will catch on with users, he said.

In the technology world where paradigms can change faster than Google can find 63.5 million hits for "monkey," Verma pointed to that top competitor as evidence iRazoo can succeed.

Google may dominate now, but it, too, had humble beginnings, he said.

Last year, google - with a small "g" - knew it had arrived when it became an official dictionary entry. Members of the iRazoo team can dream of the day when their search engine makes the dictionary, but they could live with one of their targets taking notice and paying them a few million bucks for iRazoo.com.

"Either way is fine with us," Verma said.

For now they need to prove their site's features will appeal to users and return better search results.

• Users can recommend sites that come up in their searches. If a link had useful information, a user can vote to recommend it to others. If not, the user can vote against it. Sites that get good recommendations will show up at the top of future searches. Sites that get more "no" votes than "yes" votes eventually will be dropped.

• Users earn points every time they vote. When they earn enough points, they can redeem points for digital cameras, iPods and other gadgets. Each recommendation earns 2 points, and an iPod Shuffle costs 58,000 points.

• When users search for a term, iRazoo puts a thumbnail screen shot of the site next to the search result, allowing users to preview the page before linking to it.


Only once
To prevent users from manipulating the system - sometimes known as "Google-bombing" as in the recent example that got Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert listed as the top result when searching for "greatest living American" - iRazoo requires users to log in, and they can only recommend a particular site once, Verma said.

The iRazoo site also tracks users by the unique address on their computers, and one user can only vote for a site once per computer, Verma said.

"You'd have to have a lot of time on your hands to get around it," he said.

Doubts if it's enough
If there's anything the Internet has shown, it's that a lot of people have too much time on their hands. Todd Mintz, a Portland, Ore.-based Internet consultant, suspects iRazoo's checks and balances won't be enough to prevent efforts to move sites into the top spots mostly likely to be seen by users.

"There are very smart people out there who will figure out how to game it," he said.

Depending on recommendations can be risky because the site can't account for how smart users are, said Scott Hendison, another Portland Internet consultant specializing in search engine marketing and optimization - the practice of getting one group's site to come up higher in search results than another.

Moving up the list
Search engines rely on algorithms - mathematical formulas - to find the best search results. Basically, the engine looks for keywords on sites across the Web.

As Internet marketing has evolved, people such as Hendison have figured out ways to get their clients' sites listed higher in search results on popular search engines, in turn driving traffic to their sites.

"Commercialization has kind of taken over the algorithm a little bit," Lamberti said.

Mintz said the algorithms' recommendations are better than those of strangers.

"The Google or Yahoo algorithm may not be perfect, but I'd trust them more than someone I don't know," he said.

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Size Does Matter Don't Let Your Spouse Say Otherwise

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The elements of good website design

What constitutes a good website design? Does it showcase your design prowess? Does it prove what a brilliant graphic designer you are? Does your web design fetch you designing awards? Or does your website design exist to establish a platform for you and your visitors to interact with each other unhindered by usability glitches? I think the last point is the most important factor that establishes the basic difference between a successful and an unsuccessful website. Although the perception of good website design changes from person to person, there are some established conventions that you can follow and these conventions can make sure that your website reaches out to all possible people. When you are designing your website, especially these days, you have to be constantly conscious of the fact that there are numerous browsers and numerous devices that people may use to access your website. No longer do people browse the Internet just through their PCs and laptops; there are many handheld devices that can directly connect to the Internet and enable people to browse your website; people can even browse your website using their mobile phones. And gone are the days when people used just the Internet Explorer as their primary Internet browser. Your website design also depends on what you are planning to showcase through your website: will it be just text or images or videos or a mixture of all these? You have to design your website accordingly. If it is merely text that you plan to publish then try to make it as less graphical as possible as people coming to your website will be interested in your text and not your images and videos. Similarly a website showcasing your Flash animation expertise will expect lots of Flash work so you needn't worry about making your website textually accessible. So when you are designing your website you have to take all these parameters into consideration. But does it mean that you're always accommodating browsers and devises and do not focus on your own business, whatever that is? No, I'm not suggesting that. Just take care of the following website design guidelines and you will make sure that 95% people (well, there will always be those odd 5% who can never browse the web easily no matter what they try) surfing the Internet can access your website: 1) Create a lighter design. If possible don't use too many graphics and JavaScripts that affect a major function of your website. For instance if there is some crucial information on your website and people need to access that information before doing business with you then don't make that information accessible only through a JavaScript on an image file or a Flash animation. All your important text should be available only in text and even if you have to resort to using images and other stuff than make sure the textual alternative is always available. 2) Don't use colors that cause strain to the eyes. If you want people to come to your website again and again and consume your content or do business with you then you must make their stay over your website as pleasant as possible. No matter how awesome your design looks if the color combinations are strain-full, after a while they will tire of your website and stop coming. Always take care that your background behind the text is far lighter than the text, and vice versa. 3) Create a well defined navigation. If you have multiple pages on your website then there should be a prominently defined navigation system that is easily accessible to everybody. As mentioned above don't let your navigation depend on images, JavaScripts, or Flash animation. If possible create just a text-based navigation bar. With CSS designing you can create great looking navigation bars. 4) Design your website using CSS because then you can make your content and your navigation bar appear in a linear fashion. Since all the layout-related placements take place through CSS definitions no matter how your text appears texturally, graphically it will appear as a pleasant layout. The CSS designing techniques also enable you to dabble with intricate layouts without making your website inaccessible. CSS designing will always help you arrange your main content before the navigation link despite making it visually appear beneath the navigation bar or to the right of it. Follow these basic web design principles and you will have a good website design to boast of. Remember that your website design is created for the sake of your visitors and not to cater to your designing whims and fancies.
Gary Mattoc is employed by Peterborough web design Company Doublespark Limited. Contact Gary for all your Peterborough graphic design requirements.
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- Keep Your Website Search Friendly
Search Friendly By Sharon Housley
So you have a fantastic website but no one ever visits. You may ask? Why? Your website should be designed with search engines in mind. Too many web designers are graphic artists that excel at image manipulation, but lack a basic understanding of search engine optimization. Web design and search engine optimization (SEO) should not be mutually exclusive. Webmasters should have a clear understanding of both design techniques and how the search engines work.
Incredible graphics on a website without any traffic, will do little to fill the coffers. Follow these basic guidelines to ensure that your website will be visited and attractive.
1. Navigation Both humans and crawlers (search engines) need to be able to navigate your website. Avoid using technology that prohibits the search engine's ability to spider web pages. The majority of search engines have the ability to follow the links on a website if you use standard HTML. Observe normal convention and make the links obvious and available to all website visitors.
2. Easy to Read Fonts should be legible and webmasters should utilize white space judiciously. Text on the web page should be easy to read.
3. Speed Avoid using overly large graphics that are slow to load. Remember you only have mere seconds to capture the visitors attention, do not waste precious seconds with web pages that are slow to load. Search engines too will become impatient and give up on your website if it takes too long to view the content. As a result you should avoid using free hosting services that might be unreliable or slow to respond if you receive any web traffic surges.
4. Consistency Your website should maintain a consistent look and feel. In other words, all the pages on the website should have a similar look, color scheme and navigation.
5. Above the Fold The most important information on the your web page should appear above the "fold". This means that the website visitor should be able to view the most important content without having to use the scroll bar.
6. Contact Information Include corporate contact information on the website. This lends your company credibility, anyone can pretend to be anyone or anything. Including contact information on a website shows that you are a serious and legitimate business entity.
7. Avoid Javascript /AjaxJavascript and Ajax are cool, but they are not search friendly. It is best to stick with good old HTML. Search engines at this point are unable to spider the website contents that are displayed using Javascript. This is also true of websites that are dynamically updated with Ajax. Chances are the body of your website will help your website rank well; do not waste the search engine opportunity by using Javascript or Ajax.
8. Meta Data Matters Each and every web page on the website should contain a unique title and description. Many search engines extract meta data from the website header and use it to classify and categorize the web pages listing. The web page title and description should relate to the webpage contents.
9. Keywords Naturally Use website keywords and keyword phrases in the web copy in a natural way. Search engines are starting to discern unnatural text, machine generated content and content that is cobbled together by a bot. Write your website's content for humans not search engines.
10. Web Page Focus Each web page on a website should focus on one or two keywords or keyword phrases, no more no less. The keywords should be incorporated into the meta tags, and web copy.
An optimized website can bring search traffic and visitors who have a natural interest in your product or service. Optimization should be part of the design process. Before hiring a web designer make sure they understand both your design needs and search engine optimization.
About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.
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