Online search leader Google said on Friday it purchased FeedBurner, which helps bloggers and podcasters syndicate and make money from their online content, for an undisclosed sum.

Chicago-based FeedBurner “delivers feeds to millions of users around the world and offers unique and useful tools for publishers to analyze, optimize, and monetize their content,” wrote Susan Wojcicki, Google’s vice president of product management, in announcing the deal on Google’s official blog.

FeedBurner also offers a tool for pushing ads through feeds, generating advertising revenue.

According to some reports Google was to pay $US100 million for FeedBurner, which was launched in 2004.

Source: SMH

Photographers are well catered for on the internet. This is especially the case when it comes to displaying ones art. Yahoo and Google both have gallery sites for the happy-snapper, right through to the professional photographer to display their works. Yahoo’s free web gallery is Flickr, a very popular site. Google’s Picasa is also popular.

Read more about free websites for the budding photographer.

I must say, I haven’t had a great deal of success with Google AdSense. I have AdSense installed on my tramping blog which is getting steady traffic, yet no clicks.

This was until recently. Now I am getting a few clicks every few days and they are paying quite well. I really think it’s back to the drawing board for me; to find a worthwhile advertising strategy for the site.

As you can see, this site hasn’t been monetised as of yet. There is an option to advertise via text link on the right-hand sidebar but that is all. So, on that note, feel free to click away and add your text link ad: I’d appreciate it and the site is getting ever increasing traffic.

Pajago

I must say, I am a Google aficionado. These stats below show that the majority of others are too…

US Results

Google -48%
Yahoo -28.1%
Microsoft (MSN) -10.5%
Ask (Ask Jeeves) -5%
Time Warner (AOL) -4.9%

Pajago

With the birth of Web 2.0 it seems many common applications are being taken over by “open source” or “web based” varieties. Two Microsoft offerings are at the top of the pile: Internet Explorer and the Office suite. The contenders that I’d like to name are Google Docs and Firefox.

Google Docs is a broswer based “office suite” containing spreadsheet program and word-processor. To give Microsoft (MS) its due; these programs are very basic but when it comes to basic word processing (which is what I do) and simple data management, they shine. That’s what they are intended for -word-processing and general spreadsheet duties. Currently, Google Docs is a free service. Not sure how many people use Docs worldwide.

Firefox, on the other hand, has taken over big time. The market share as at April 18 2007 and according to XiTI Monitor, are: 15.1% USA, 24.1% Europe and 24% in Oceania. Firefox is different and cool because of it’s power, it’s add-ons and, because it’s “open source” you can change the programming to suit. I love the tab browsing capablities of Firefox.

Pajago

As I said in my last post, this post will be dedicated to the key terms: domain age, PR, inbound links, traffic rank, indexed pages, site value and estimated Text-Link-Ad value. These are categories featured on the dnScoop.com domain name value tool. Here goes…

Domain Age-

This is the age of the domain name you’re checking. Domain names are like good wine (especially the Australian varieties) -they get better with age. The older your domain name the more highly it is considered by search engines like Google, Yahoo and Live.

PR (PageRank)-

“PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set.”

That’s the geeky (technical) definition of PR. The way I look at PR is simple: the higher the number the more reputable the site and likely, the more backlinks.

Inbound Links-

Is another name for backlink. Either way it means link to your site from another site. These are important as they are really another entry point for visitors and search engine robots. The higher the PR of the site that links to you the better ranking you’re likely to get too.

Traffic Rank-

Is what Alexa ranks your site compared to any other site in the world based on traffic. Take Google for instance, it’s ranked as number three in the world as I type this.

Indexed Pages-

Are the pages that are indexed by the major (and minor) search engines like Google, Yahoo and Live. The more pages you have indexed, the more a search engine can mine through to supply to a search query.

Site Value-

“This value is calculated based on several factors shown above, including: Links, Traffic (Alexa), age of the domain, site category, domain keyword popularity, and overall occurrences of the domain name on the web.”

Text-Link-Ads Value-

Text-Link-Ads is a 3rd-party site that posts text link ads on participating publishers sites for a fee calculated on many of the above variables. Generally, the higher your PR, traffic, this-that-and-the-other, the more you’ll earn per month through Text-Link-Ads.

Over the past few months I have been looking at buying a few websites and/or domain names. To check backlinks, that PR’s (PageRank) are correct and the general valuation of the sites I discovered dnScoop.com.

This is one nifty tool. dnScoop allows you to check domain age, PR, inbound links, traffic rank, indexed pages, site value and estimated Text-Link-Ad value. This is all completed on a cool, Web 2.0 looking website. The site also features a great forum.

To use the the dnScoop domain name value tool you enter the URL in the space it tells you, and a few moments later it will load up all the vitals. Something I love about it is that under, say, the backlink category you can click a hyperlink that will take you to “link:yoursite.com” at Google and show you all the backlinks to your site. Very easy to use, and to get that information that’s so important.

Stay tuned as in the next post we’ll go through what the key terms: domain age, PR, inbound links, traffic rank, indexed pages, site value and estimated Text-Link-Ad value mean to us!