Facebook inches past Google for Web users' Minutes

U.S. Web surfers are spending more time socializing on Facebook than searching with Google, according to new data from researchers at comScore Inc.
In August, people spent a total of 41.1 million minutes on Facebook, comScore said Thursday, about 9.9% of their Web-surfing minutes for the month. That just barely surpassed the 39.8 million minutes, or 9.6%, people spent on all of Google Inc.'s sites combined, including YouTube, the free Gmail e-mail program, Google news and other content sites.

U.S. Web users spent 37.7 million minutes on Yahoo Inc. sites, or 9.1% of their time, putting Yahoo third in terms of time spent browsing. In July, Facebook crept past Yahoo for the first time, according to comScore.

In August of last year, Web surfers spent less than 5% of their online time on Facebook, about the same percentage of their time on Google and almost 12% on Yahoo. In August 2007, Facebook captured less than 2% of U.S. surfers' total minutes. Google accounted for less than 4%, and Yahoo for just over 12%.

To be sure, there's wiggle room in these estimates, which comScore bases on a combination of reports from a panel of two million users around the world and data from websites' servers. But the time spent posting photos, updating status messages and scrolling through news from friends has at least grown to rival just about everything else people do online.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

News from: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-09-10-facebook-google_N.htm

Here are 5 ways to improve your site's rank in Google

In April, Americans conducted a staggering 15.5 billion Web searches. Studies show that the first result receives about 40% of clicks. These days, simply creating a great website won't attract more customers to your business. Your site must also rank well in search results. Getting this to happen is called search engine optimization.
To rank well on Google and other search sites, you have to optimize your site. This requires careful work and planning, but it is an important way to attract new customers to your business.

There's a lot to SEO, and it requires patience; it can take months to see results. It is also an ongoing process, but I have some tips to help you improve your site's rank.

Choose keywords carefully

Your keyword phrase is the search term that leads visitors to your site. You should optimize each of your pages for one and only one keyword phrase. It should be relevant to your business and the page's content.

Check the popularity of keywords with a tool like Google Adwords' Keyword Estimator. You may never get a good search ranking for extremely popular keywords. If they aren't popular enough, they aren't worth your immediate effort.

Use meta tags
Meta tags provide information about a Web page. The most important meta tag is the title tag. This tells search sites and visitors what the page is about. It should include your keyword phrase near the beginning.

Some people erroneously believe that meta keywords and meta descriptions are terribly important. Search sites don't give them much — if any — weight. Still, provide keywords and a clear, accurate description. Think of the description as a marketing tool enticing visitors to your site.

Focus on content

Content is king. Without useful content, your site will never get a good ranking. So, your content should provide value to readers. Search sites prefer frequently updated content. That's why many CEOs have taken up blogging.

Of course, you also need to use your keyword phrase within your content. There is some debate over the importance of keyword density. That's how often the phrase appears on the page. It should appear several times. Use it near the opening of the first paragraph. Also make sure it appears in bold or in a heading on the page.

Pay attention to links http://www.epathchina.com/

Search engines see incoming links as votes for your site. Your rank will go up. So, it is important to have other sites link to yours. Network with other webmasters. Notify related sites when you post new content. Use a service like Ping-O-Matic to notify blog aggregators of new postings.

With links, reputation is important. Links from link farms or other shady sites can harm your search rank. Search sites also frown on link exchange programs. Likewise, be careful about linking to other sites. Linking to a bad one can also harm your rank.

Hire an expert carefully

There is much, much more to search engine optimization. You may not have time to learn it all. You may prefer to hire a professional. This can be expensive; some companies pay thousands a month for the service. Your actual cost will depend on your goals and your company's site.

Unscrupulous SEO practices can get you banned from search sites. So, check a company's references thoroughly. The company and its clients should be ranked in Google. Make sure you understand the company's practices.

Run from anyone promising you a top spot in Google. Avoid companies that claim a special relationship with Google. Don't hand over control of your site. Finally, submitting your site to search engines generally won't help. Companies that focus on search site submissions aren't worth your time.

This news from Usatoday.com

ePathChina News: Google Revise The Searching Page---The Color of The Logo Changes A Little

According to the report from the foreign media yesterday, Google would revise the display mode of the searching result in order to help users much easier to find the information or the picture what they need.

Google will introduce some new tools and make small modifications to the logo of “Google”. Its color of red, blue, green, yellow will become lighter and the shade of the backsetting will become shallow. Besides, the character of “TM” will be removed at the right side of the logo but this does not mean that Google gives up the legal ownership of the trademark.

The most noticeable change is that the web searching result on the left hand of the page adds more searching tools whose function is to redeploy the result in order to find the exact category, for example, news, picture, blog or video. The leader in charge of the product management department, Johanna Wright, said that company had started to improve the new tool since 2006.
The professional analysts said that all the change made by the Google is to guarantee the leading position in web searching market. Google also indicated that their company had made more than 550 times of modifications only in last year.
Microsoft released Bing searching engine 11 months ago, which is to compete with Google in the searching field. Since the release of the tool, its share in the US market increses from 8% to about 12%. But the survey from the market studying company shows that Google’s share of the US market reach up to 65% only in last one year.

As a reliable electronics wholesaler online ePathChina.com provides all kinds of electronics for sale. Furthermore, besides good products, ePathChina.com has relatively completed customer service. No matter what information you want to know, its professional customer service will give you a good and satisfied answer.