Google Command Line Tool
Google announced today, and that announcement was re-broadcast via unofficial Google spokesman Matt Cutts to make sure people actually noticed, that the company had released a long-awaited command line tool for accessing Google.
Well, sort of. If by accessing Google, you mean accessing everything except for the core Google service of search.
Ready made for the “much ado about nothing” files, come the Google Command Line Tool and Google API. Unoriginally titled, GoogleCL, Google Command Line (I guess) is a Python application build using Python gdata libraries in order to make Google Data API calls from a command line. This would be so very important and a great tool for web developers and search engine researchers everywhere, if it only had any functionality at all related to search. Instead, GoogleCL allows you to play with a bunch of the toy Google products and services.
Want to upload a bunch of pictures to Picasa from the command line? Sure, no problem.
Want to create Calendar events from your command line? You can do that too!
Want to read about Southwest airlines rewards credit card? Oh, wait, that’s my thing. Oops.
What about managing contacts from the command line? You bet!
How about posting YouTube videos? Of course.
If it is a tangential side Google service developed in order to show up Microsoft or Apple, then it can be accessed using the Google command line tool.
How About Command Line Search Tool and API?
No! What are you crazy? People would use that to poke holes in the already fragile Google search index and search results rankings by being able to automate tedious processes like checking search ranking positions, whether or not a particular webpage has been indexed or not, and how many incoming links point to a webpage, and where they come from.
Google wants you to like them, and wants you to think that they are the best source of cool, free, open-source tools in the galaxy, but they aren’t dumb. Search makes money. Sure, AdWords brings in the actual dollars, but the only reason anyone bothers is because advertisers know that “everyone” uses Google search regardless of operating system, browser, and in many cases, even location.
The reason everyone uses Google’s search is because it is the best search engine on the Internet. Of course, the entire underpinnings of the company’s search rankings is coming apart at the seems as more and more content publishers seek to manipulate Google’s search rankings for their own benefit. Now that SEO is something that everyone, everywhere, does and pretty much everyone does the same way, the only thing that really matters any more is link count and how close the title tag matches the search. A command line interface might expose that reality to more people (or at least allow it to be proven beyond doubt).
So, enjoy the latest plaything from Google. Just don’t expect it to change your life.
Have a great day.
SEO When SEO Wasn’t Cool
Google has forced us to change a lot of what we do. In particular, writers and marketers were forced to dance to a different drummer, one who asked us to do things in a way that was inferior to what we used to do. Convoluted titles (plus title tags with the right keywords) and silly domain names are a couple of examples of things that Google hath wrought.
Another involves branding. Any company that hopes to be successful for the long term needs to think about branding. Branding means distinguishing yourself from others who do, or claim to do, similar things to your company. That is why it is Coke vs. Pepsi, not Great Cola Soda vs. Tasty Cola Soda. Both of the latter would be regarded as cheap generic knockoffs, not high-end brands.
Incidentally, this is one of the best ways to distinguish an ongoing concern with concern for the long-term future from one that just hopes to make a splash on the Internet. Trabach Motors (or whatever) is probably a lot more serious about their future in making cars while Best Top Motor Cars is probably a lot more serious about their website generating cash flow in any way possible.
However, in the last few days, I’ve noticed some things that are search optimized even though they were created before there was such a thing as a search engine, or at least before anyone cared what the search engines were looking for. This post, is dedicated to them.
Search Optimized Brands – Accidentally SEO Ready Brands
- Pur – The water purifier brand kills a handful of birds with one stone. First, it’s very name catches the most probably typo or spelling error. No need to register another domain for that. Also, "pur" is part of the word pure. No doubt, this counts at least a little bit when both pur and pure show up in the website text in a way that seems both natural, and like it exists thanks to "stemming." Finally, pur.com (somebody beat them to it) or even purwater.com would be great domain names, especially if they had been savvy enough to grab pure.com and purewater.com too.
Others Coming
Yes, I have others. I just have to find that notebook. It would help if I developed better organizational skills.
A Question of Greatness
Ok, the title is overstated, but I’m tired of writing boring titles to get better search results.
Today, I have questions rattling around in my brain, some of which are more important than others, some of which could change the way do things or handle my workflow, and some of which are nothing more than minor concerns that an inquiring mind wants to know about.
- Is it really worthwhile / doable / smart to use WordPress to manage a normal "static" website? The truth is that static websites generally aren’t really all that static, but they do have a more set structure, unlike a blog. Often, the changes and tweaks made to a page are relatively minor and it seems like overkill to fire up Dreamweaver CS4 just to add a link to a freelance writing samples page, for example. On the other hand, I get more flexibility and understand more of what is going on from a non-WordPress angle. (My HTML / XHTML / CSS is stronger than my PHP / mySQL.)
- Why can’t I find a non-complicated way to make lists on a website with explanation text? Take the list you are looking at. Ideally, there would be a number followed by the question. Then, underneath that there would be this explanatory text instead of having to rely on the bold to separate the question from the text. I know it can be done, but it’s just so much effort to click all the buttons to make it happen or keep all of the <ol> <ul> <li> code straight.
- Is Technorati (or any others) really that important? Unfortunately, the worlds of web design, search engines, SEO, and social networking are all dominated by techie types. That means that when it comes to things like Technorati, Digg, Twitter, or whatever, the volume tends to be disproportionately loud. Is getting indexed, listed, or whatever on these sites worth the time and effort? Or, more specifically…
- Is It Better To Add Technorati Specific Tags to Posts, or Will WordPress’ Ping Take Care of It? Considering that I have no real interest in trying to force my way to the top of Technorati or any other site by any means other than writing good stuff, do I get any benefit from taking the extra time to "tag" my posts with Technorati tags?
- Do All Those Incoming Yahoo Glue Links Count for Anything? My incoming links for some of my sites are filled with links that come from Yahoo Glue. Do I get anything out of those?
- What If Google Knows What It Is Doing? Pretty much all SEO techniques both on-page SEO tactics, and off-site SEO linking, assume that Google needs a lot of help getting its index and search rankings results right. In other words, that Google isn’t a very good search engine. That doesn’t seem right does it? I mean, it’s the #1 Search Engine in the world for a reason. Microsoft has tried 3 times to create something that even comes close and couldn’t. Does it really make sense then that Google’s search results are so delicate that they can be heavily influenced by something as simple as changing a few HTML tags?
- If Google Knows What It Is Doing, Then Why Do So Many Search Results Suck? As a corollary to the above, why are some search results so terrible? Is it that Google’s famed reliance on incoming links, or links pointing to a webpage or website, makes it too vulnerable to being conned into ranking lesser sites above better ones? This seems especially true when it comes to authoritative websites. Consider this search for california school rankings
The obvious authoritative source is the actual rankings published by California. In fact, both of the sites that rank higher are nothing more than interfaces tacked onto the data provided by the third link. A search for california school ratings produces a similar result except that the #4 result becomes the #2 result.
There are much worse examples, this is just the one I came up with off the top of my head for a quick blog post. Fortunately, the other sites listed above the official one aren’t scam sites or obvious web spam. They are both trying to milk free publicly available information to show advertising and get people to sign up (get email addresses) and perhaps even pay for "premium" information.
The fact that the official California API results ranks so high, however, is a testament to Question #3. Look at the Academic Performance Index (API) page from the California Department of Education, and you will see a website that has no redeemable SEO qualities whatsoever – in the traditional sense, at least. And, yet, there it is at #3.
Like most "official" websites, they have better things to do than keyword research, emailing other websites to beg for links, and so on. On more competitive keywords, this is often much worse, with scam sites or obvious web spam ranking above the official resources.
The worst examples are often those where the higher ranking sites offer biased or otherwise slanted information, while the official, unbiased, sites rank much lower. This is because of a combination of using every SEO trick in the book, and then the fact that like minded supporters will link to the websites that promote their point of view, rather than the straight factual websites which might include information that they don’t like.
Search your favorite, financial, political, governmental, or judicial topic to find examples.
Back to Work
Ok, I’ve spent too much time writing this today already. Off to make money freelance writing. Don’t worry, I’ll be back later.
Why Google Search Is Still Better Than Microsoft Bing
Microsoft Bing was recently released. Early reviews suggested that it was an enormous improvement over the original MSN based search, as well as an improvement over Microsoft’s Live Search.
Although many reviewers reserved judgment about whether Bing was better than Google, a few search engine reviews were so bold as to claim that Bing was equal to Google Search. No major reviewer would make the claim that Bing was better than Google Search. All of which begs the question, "Why should anyone bother to switch?"
One possible motivator is privacy. Google keeps user’s search data for 90 days. But, that isn’t all that Google collects. Google Ads have been installed an countless websites around the web, each of which potentially collects another data point about you and your Internet habits. Google Analytics has been installed on even more websites resulting in yet another potential collection. In short, Google can already see you coming and going, maybe it would be best to perform your searches somewhere else, if another search engine was just as good as Google searches.
Unfortunately, Bing is not as good as Google Search. I haven’t performed any tests, and I haven’t bothered reading anyone else’s tests or searching reviews, or search engine results. I don’t have to. I can tell you that Microsoft Bing is not as good as Google Search without performing a single search query.
How?
Microsoft’s Bing search service offers no method to restrict your searches by date. The lack of a time restricted search is just one reason I never took Live Search seriously either.
Nothing knocks quite as much web spam off the first page of search results like restricting a search to the past month, or past year. Sites looking to snooker you into clicking to see their ad-filled pages built up high-ranking sites and then move on. Revisiting those pages risks unintentionally making edits which lowers the search engine ranking.
More importantly, there are numerous topics for which information that is two years old is no longer accurate. Things like taxes, computer programs, electronics, media, real estate, investing, jobs and careers, and even fields like medicine can have important changes that take what was once true and make it inaccurate, at best, and completely false at worst.
Without a way to limit your searches by time, there is no way to know if the information you find is out of date, unless you already know something about what you are searching for. Doesn’t that defeat the whole point of a search engine?
After all, if you know something about what you are searching for, you might already have a good idea where to find some good information.
In "News" searches only, you can choose to sort by most recent instead of by best match. Of course, that trades one issue for another. Instead of having to wade through the search engine results of a regular web search to find links that a recent, you get to comb through the results by date looking for ones that are relevant. Neither choice is worth doing.
Think I’m exaggerating? Maybe you’re curious about Microsoft’s current search efforts, but you aren’t a huge techie and you don’t know what this year’s search engine is named.
Try this search on Bing: "microsoft search engine"
Actual Screenshot from Microsoft Bing 7/29/09
That 3rd result about "Microsoft’s New Search Engine" looks promising, doesn’t it? (Too bad it’s about Microsoft’s previous search engine. Oh, wait. It is actually about the attempt BEFORE the last attempt! In fact, it is about the beta release of Microsoft’s MSN search engine at search.msn.com! If you’re wondering that is from 2004, five years ago.
Google recently rolled out a "More Options" link on every search page that allows you to use time-based criteria easier and more effectively for any search. Before that innovation, Google allowed you to search within a specific time frame from its "Advanced Search" screen.
In other words, Google has offered date based searching for a long time. Microsoft, a company that has made its entire living off of playing copy cat to other’s innovations, missed the boat on this particular feature. Or, perhaps, they are simply incapable of delivering such queries and results at this time. Either way, the lack of date based searching makes MS Bing a non-starter for this user before a single search is performed.
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