SeoAlchemist

Tips on how to move from a Blogger powered blog to a Wordpress powered blog.

China has now 253 million internet users according to the latest report of the China Internet Network Information Centre (The CNNIC is a government agency).

That’s 43 million users more than the last report released at the end of last year and it also makes it the world leader in Internet users.

253 million internet users equals an internet penetration of 19.1 percent which according to the report is still below the global average of 21.1%.

Over the last years the total number of Internet users has been rising sharply. In July 2006 for example there were “only” 123 million users.

See the chart to get an idea of the growth over the years in absolute numbers as well as growth percentage per half year period.
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Below is what happened in search today, as reported on
Search Engine Land and from other
places across the web.

• 
  Icahn Settles With Yahoo, Joins Board
  As Greg noted earlier, Ichan was seeking control of Yahoo’s board. Instead, Yahoo and Ichan came up with a compromise, giving Ichan 3 of the 11 seats on Yahoo’s board. Eight members of the board will stand for reelection, including Yang. Robert Kotick will not be up for reelection. The…
• 
  No, The Toolbar Does Not Lead Google To Index My Content
  Matt Cutts of Google has posted another one of his debunking theories post, this time on the Google Toolbar aiding Google in indexing content. Matt said, “if Ken Simpson is implying that the Google Toolbar led to these urls being crawled, then he’s mistaken.” Ken Simpson was paraphrased in an…
• 
  American Airlines And Google Settle Keyword Lawsuit
  American Airlines Drops Google Trademark Lawsuit from Bloomberg reports that the two sides have settled the search ad legal dispute. Each side has agreed to pay their own legal fees and the terms of the settlement were not disclosed. American Airlines sued Google about a year ago over trademark infringement…
• 
  As Yahoo Proxy Vote Looms, Questions About Board Composition And Management’s Future
  The neverending MicroHoo drama has provided virtual reams of blog posts and endless fodder for speculation. The latest installment involves the question of whether Carl Icahn’s proxy battle for control of Yahoo’s board will see any success. In case you joined this story late, institutional shareholders are frustrated by Yahoo’s…
• 
  Google Now The UK’s Top “Superbrand”
  Google has moved to the top of another brand survey. This one, in the UK, is based on a consumer survey that involved 1,000 UK brands. Google topped other high-profile consumer brands such as Microsoft, Mercedes Benz, Nike and BMW. Earlier this year, research firm Millward Brown (a unit of…
• 
  comScore: Yahoo & Microsoft Gain Share But Google Breaks 7 Billion Searches
  It’s search popularity statistics time again, and I’m starting off with the latest figures from comScore. Finally, a change — Google slips while Yahoo and Microsoft gain. Trouble for the Big G? Not really — because in terms of raw number of searches, June 2008 was another record breaker…
• 
  Last Call For SMX Local & Mobile in San Francisco
  There’s still time to register for Search Marketing Expo - SMX Local & Mobile in San Francisco this Thursday and Friday, July 24-25. Register today and save $200 off the on-site registration rate. For the last couple months, we’ve been telling you why you should come to SMX Local &…
• 
  Last Chance: Pitch Session Ideas For SMX East!
  Later this week, I’m diving into developing the agenda for our SMX East search marketing conference that happens in New York this October 6-8. I’m still looking for ideas, and pitching a great session topic is the very best way to end up speaking at the show. I’m closing…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google’s Services Converge in the New iGoogle, Google Operating System
• Updates and Fixes for July 18th, Blogger Buzz
• Is a Google Talk Contact Invisible?, Google Operating System
• Forms take a vacation, Official Google Docs Blog
• Google Using TinyURL Service for Shortening URLs in SMS Search?, Digital Inspiration

Business Issues

• Facebook sues German rival, News.com
• Search sector suffers as Google’s ad grow takes another hit, CNN Money
• Serious YouTube test of copyright law, San Francisco Chronicle
• Ads as a Source of Information, Google Operating System
• Google Faces Another Click Fraud Suit, MediaPost

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Reach nearby customers with Live Search Local Listing Center, Live Search Webmaster Center Blog

Link Building

• How Google Would Build Links For Mortgage Rankings, seoroi.com
• 6 Sure-Fire Tactics to Re-Ignite your Linkbait, ViperChill
• Going Beyond Paid Linking, WebProNews
• Here is an Email Template That is Helping Bloggers Get Links, Performancing.com
• Tracking your Backlinks with Free Internal Analytics Tools, Search Engine Journal

Paid Search & Contextual

• Discover Google AdWords Insertion Tags and Learn How to Use Them Today, PPC Hero
• PPC Keyword Sets: Words to the Wise , Search Engine Watch

Searching

• Add Links to Other Blog Search Engines In Techmeme, labnol.org
• New updates to Google.com for the iPhone, Official Google Mobile Blog
• New Google Search Interface Looks More Useful - See Screenshots, Digital Inspiration
• Yahoo’s "Quick Links" Looking More Like Google’s Sitelinks, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• Steven Bradley: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop
• Aaron Wall and Eric Enge talk about Viral Marketing, Stone Temple
• The Curious SEO: Internet Ethics, Self-Policing and Transparency-Who’s the Judge?, Search Marketing Sage

SEO & SEM

• Google’s Improved Flash Indexing - What It Means for SEO, Closed Loop Marketing
• Pros And Cons Of Site Registration, Performancing.com
• Using SEO to Generate Assets, Stone Temple
• A Broken & Non-Functional Web Site Remains At The Top of Google, Search Engine Roundtable
• FireFox for SEOs: Working with Several FireFox Profiles, Search Engine Journal
• Is Search Engine Optimisation Expensive?, BlogStorm
• Maybe links aren’t important anymore, David Naylor
• Robots.txt Overview, Generator, & Analyzer, SEO Book
• Seven Building Blocks of a Destination Website: #1 Expert Information, Search Engine Guide
• What Part of the SEO Process is Hardest for You?, SEOmoz
• Word of Mouth Marketing and Small Business, Small Business SEM

Social Media

• Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool, mashable.com
• Facebook Redesign To Go Live Tomorrow, Read/Write Web
• Twitter took off from simple to ‘tweet’ success, USATODAY.com
• Breaking: Facebook Releases New Design, All Facebook
• Google Rooms, the Early Lively, Google Blogoscoped
• InfoWorld adds Twitter to its mobile options, Yahoo! News
• Manage Client Expectations And Reduce Your Risk By Including A Warranty In Your Client Contracts, SEOmoz
• The Danger of Social Media and Too Much Trust = Quantum Entangement, Scams, and Betryal, Techipedia
• The Friendfeedization Of Facebook, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• YouTube, Lionsgate in Ad Pact, AdWeek

Web Analytics

• adCenter Analytics Beta Refresh This Week - Downtime Expected - adCenter Analytics, adcentercommunity.com

Other Items

• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: July 20, 2008, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Gives Long Time Advertisers The "Google Cookbook", Search Engine Roundtable

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Dear Spammers: links from the Upcoming Section are being nofollowed. Please stop spamming now. Thank you.
• Ultimate Guide to Search Marketing
• Get Google Rankings for Your Persona on 27 Social Media Websites
• Unintended Consequences
• Guy Kawasaki Gets SearchFeatured
• Matt Cutts on Spam [video]
• Improving Your Skillset: Your Path to Becoming a Better Internet Marketer
• Social Media 101: How to Get Business Involved
• SEO is About Communication
• Goodbye Page Strength, Hello Trifecta - SEOmoz's Latest Comparison & Analysis Tool

Do you work on the weekends? Do you find yourself more or less productive on weekends?

There’s still time to register for Search Marketing Expo - SMX Local & Mobile in San Francisco this Thursday and Friday, July 24-25. Register today and save $200 off the on-site registration rate.

For the last couple months, we’ve been telling you why you should come to SMX Local & Mobile. That you’ll learn the online marketing tactics influencing $500 billion in offline sales. That local and mobile search are opportunities for agencies and in-house marketers to outflank the competition. About the outstanding keynotes from Yahoo! and Microsoft. Here are the links if you’ve missed some of those:

Click to continue reading…

Google launched their Knol project. I created an SEO Knol and need your feedback on how to make it better.

Later this week, I’m diving into developing the agenda for our
SMX East search marketing
conference that happens in New York this October 6-8. I’m still looking for
ideas, and pitching a great session topic is the very best way to end up
speaking at the show. I’m closing submissions as of 5pm Pacific time
tomorrow (Tuesday, July 22), so put on your thinking caps and send them in.

You can find more about pitching session ideas in our

How To Speak At SMX East 2008 post on the SMX Blog. It also covers how
you can pitch to speak once the agenda is formalized.

As Greg noted earlier, Carl Ichan was seeking control of Yahoo’s board. Instead, Yahoo and Ichan came up with a compromise, giving Ichan 3 of the 11 seats on Yahoo’s board.

Eight members of the board will stand for reelection, including Yang. Robert Kotick will not be up for reelection. The board will expand to 11 members, with the two remaining seats chosen by the board. The possible two seats will go to the list provided by Icahn. You can see all the buzz on this news at Techmeme.

A few days ago rumors abound that Google is close to acquiring Digg for a whooping sum of $200 million. This even prompted Loren to ask why Google would buy Digg for such an amount. Well, Loren can rest easy now as TechCrunch reported that the rumored buy-out deal has been buried - cancelled! (more…)

Matt Cutts of Google has posted another one of his debunking theories post, this time on the Google Toolbar aiding Google in indexing content.

Matt said, “if Ken Simpson is implying that the Google Toolbar led to these urls being crawled, then he’s mistaken.” Ken Simpson was paraphrased in an InformationWeek article saying, the “Google Toolbar may be configured to pass URLs that one visits to Google for indexing.”

Click to continue reading…