News for webmasters, archives of 2008 and older

New about the development of web sites, and new resources for the programming of the the Web 2.0.

Short news

Adsense in Analytics

The Digital Inspiration site provides screen shots of what Analytics will look when it will provide detailed statistics of Adsense income.
- The overall results.
- A comparison of income over time.
- Earnings per page.
- The sources of traffic, sites and engines and revenue that they have provided.
September 12, 2008.

The Google's browser available for download

Google launched on September 2 the Chrome browser, an innovative tool designed for navigation but also for Web applications that can run online or offline through integration of Gears by default. Chrome is multi-task: each tab is as a separate browser, it is very simple to use and more secure, it integrates already what will come in Internet Explorer 8, but has specific features, such as a URL bar which is also a search bar!
Download.
A Chrome FAQ to answer some questions...
3 September 2008.

Google is experimenting the Wikia system

This does not appear on the standard interface of the search engine, but during tests with a limited audience, Google used features similar to that offered by the Wikia engine. When it happens on your searches that you find a blank page, a broken link, a spam, you'd like to be able to inform the engine that this should be deleted from the index, that is what Wikia offers, and what Google is testing by adding buttons to the results: an arrow to move down the page, a cross to delete it. I can not say if this feature will be added to the public interface, knowing that Wikia, which is entirely based on advices from users has a very modest audience, as seen in the previous article of 20 August.
However, the engine is always growing and you will have noticed the integration of Google Suggest at footer of result pages, thus this new feature seems possible.
August 27, 2008.

Translation from the search bar

A new command is available in the Google search bar: translate. Followed by another word, it displays in the first row of results a translation from some foreign language to English! The language depends upon the country.
Another addition is the integration of Suggest in the new toolbar that lets you know most frequently similar used keywords or that correct typographical mistakes.
A final new from Google: Gears availability to Safari, in a test version.
August 26, 2008.

Google Dance 2008

Google's annual holiday with real robots that are not robots for indexing. To learn more about the RoboNova humanoid robot of the video (and not robanova as written in the video). The event happens to Googleplex at Toronto and the theme of the evening is "Glow in the Dark".
August 25, 2008.

Google still progressing

The site Hitwise has just published the market share for major search engines. In the U.S.:
- Google: 70.77% against 64.35% in July 2007.
- Yahoo: 18.65% against 22.13%.
- Live: 5.36% against 8.79%
- Ask: 3.35% against 3.21%.
About Wikia, the collaborative search engine inspired by Wikipedia, it represents 0.000079% queries in the USA.
August 20, 2008.

Information, the key to success

Insights for Search, an onlinetool to guide the webmaster, reminds us that information is the key to success. The article List of statistical tools for webmaster wants to indicate what tools are available and what information they provide to know what visitors are looking on a site, and on the Web in general. This knowledge will be line to follow to make his site popular!
August 18, 2008.

Insights for Search

A new service from Google for webmasters: knowing what the world search for. When you type keywords in the search bar of this service, the interface displays the demand for these keywords, the geographic distribution, the changes over time. It is a refinement of Google Trends.
6 August 1006.

Dotclear 2 released

The advantage of Dotclear 2 on Wordpress is the possibility to create a blog or news server on a website in SQLite, without database on the host. In addition, the version 2 has now features of the Wordpress CMS, such as static pages, and suppresses most of the drawbacks of the version 1. Users of this version should migrate to the new version, at the cost of importing the database that is facilitated by the functionality integrated into the software. See the list of CMS. (PHP 5 with SimpleXML and domxml required). August 6, 2008.

Google claims 1 trillion different URL scanned

To create its index, Google scans 1 trillion URLs (in the short scale in the world of numbers), 10 power 12. All pages are not indexed because of duplicate content. To calculate the PageRank of 26 million pages, it takes two hours to the Google's network of servers.

Knol is open to the public

Knol is the new online encyclopedia launched by Google, and in test for months. It takes the best of Wikipedia and corrects its drawbacks (spam, vandalism, no notion of completion). Articles will be written by contributors in all languages who sign their articles and may if they wish to be paid by Adsense ads. The public can make a contribution through comments.
July 24, 2008.

3D virtual space by Google

Google launches Lively, a social network, expressed as a virtual world, which seems intermediate between Facebook and Second Life. But it is expected that the service will be extended and will become closer to the second or even surpass it. For now you can create a room, choose the scene, the avatar which represents you, and receive your visitors. A fun way to invite people to discuss on its site. Imagine a forum in 3D images where visitors come to explain in images their solutions! A directory with streets where webmasters submit a poster presenting their site ...

July 9, 2008.

Moonlight 0.7: Silverlight compatible

The version 0.7 of Moonlight has just been made available for download. Compatible with Firefox 2 and 3, it offers more features with the latest version of the browser. But it works, it is its goal, under Linux, while Windows and Mac are equipped with the Microsoft's software. Silverlight 2.0 is partially supported as it was intended. In addition, the authors work to be compatible with the Opera browser for a total portability.
July 8, 2008.

The end of extensions (TLD) ?

ICANN has announced that from the first quarter of 2009, so in less than a year, it will be possible to create domain names without standard extension. ICANN is the organism that assigns to companies the management of extensions, such as Verisign for .com. Extensions, called Top-Level Domain, will continue to exist and will always be recognized by browsers, but it will be is also possible to create names with free extensions as is the name itself. Theorically, the site Scriptol could have free extensions as web, ajax, etc. and such domains could be registered: scriptol.web, scriptol.ajax... But it is dubious that creating such TLD will be permitted to single users as it is announced by papers and online press, once you have visited the site of ICANN.
Non-Latin characters (Arabic, Cyrillic and so on ...) will also be allowed.
June 23, 2008.

And now Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer 8 is available to download, even if not in the final version. This release introduces interesting features as activities and webslices and is closer to standards. But it misses any support to HTML 5 and banks on Silverlight. Do the users follow the path drawn by Microsoft or abandon Internet Explorer to take advantage of Canvas and HTML 5?
June 20, 2008.

What is going on in Firefox 3

The latest version of Firefox 3 broke yesterday during the Download Day a record of 8 260 000 copies downloaded. Firefox 3 is placed well ahead of other browsers in terms of ergonomics for Opéra 9.5 and at all levels for Internet Explorer 7, which is virtually useless on sites using scripts then on the contrary, Firefox becomes a platform for applications and already incorporates much of HTML 5 that is designed for applications, including offline mode.

Download Firefox 3. If your favorite extensions are not supported, you can download Firefox 3 next to the version 2 by setting it up in a different directory and continue to use the version 2 if necessary. For example, SeoQuake is supported and not Firebug.

Link Checker for all systems

A new open source program at command line to automatically detect broken links on your website and improve your SEO. It presents the results per page, unlike the Xenu program, is portable and easy to modify. Link Checker.
June 11, 2008.

Silverlight 2 beta 2

With the release of the last beta of Silverlight a list of changes is published by Microsoft.
June 8, 2008.

Google Earth on your web pages

Google has put online an API to Earth, and a plugin as Adobe Reader to view pages containing 3D views provided by Google Earth on web pages. Inserting a 3D view requires only a few lines of code. The API.
May 29, 2008.

Google offers free website hosting

Google Sites allows anyone to create a Web site without paying hosting or domain name, this last point being not necessarily an advantage. The sites are hosted in sub-directories of sites.google.com. The advantages are in the simplicity of creation from pre-defined themes and possibilities offered by the inclusion of Web services such as Google Map. May 22, 2008.

Silverlight for Linux available

The creator of Mono announces the availability of Silverlight 1.0 for Linux. It works with Firefox 2. An XAML and Silverlight tutorial is available here.
May 15, 2008.

Google Friend Connect

The new Web service from Google: transform each site into social network, whose features are offered in the form of code to insert in your pages: user registration, gallery of members, comments on articles... As any other tool developed with the OpenSocial API.
May 13, 2008.

Writing for for Web, a method

An expert reveals his secret to write successfully articles for the Web.
May 11, 2008

A script to make thumbnails

Thumbnail Maker is a PHP tool for resizing images or generating thumbnails. It is based on the How to create thumbnail images for your Web pages, a tutorial to generate thumbnails and to build a gallery of images.
May 6, 2008. The script has been extended to a converting tool in the 1.2 version.

Expression Studio 2 is available

The new version of Expression Studio has a better integration to Web standards. It is possible to deal with pages containing PHP code even if PHP is obviously not taken into account by the compiler. A trial version can be downloaded. May 2008.

Letter from Steve Ballmer to Yahoo: Clearly a deal is not to be.

In a letter sent by Steve Ballmer to the CEO of Yahoo, Microsoft said it abandons Yahoo bid. The offer was $42.3 billion bid to buy Yahoo, then raised to $47.5 billion but Yahoo demanded at least $53 billion.May 4, 2008.

Design: The size of pages has tripled since 2008

According to studies published by the Websiteoptimization site, since 2003 the average size of Web pages has tripled, from 94KB to 312KB. Similarly the number of objects loaded simultaneously, images mainly, rose from 26 to 50. Most pages have twice the height of the screen. There are still 60% of pages that use tables for layout rather than CSS but 82% nevertheless include a stylesheet. 85% of pages are using JavaScript, which comes undoubtedly from Adsense and other advertisers and statistical services. 92% of pages incorporate images: gif, jpeg and png in that order. April 28, 2008.

Moonlight will be compatible with any Linux

It is the recent announcement in a conference by Miguel de Icaza. This version of Silverlight for Linux 2 is produced by Novell with the help of Microsoft, which wants Silverlight can run on all computers. XAML and Silverlight constitute a more and more serious competitor to Flash and Air from Adobe. April 24, 2008.

Design: Google Website Optimizer standalone

Website optimizer is an online service for webmasters previously reserved to Adwords members, which now becomes accessible to all. You can access it with a Google or Gmail password or register. You will find tutorials and demos. This service allows you to test different variations for your pages and gather the opinions of visitors.
April, 17, 2008.

SEO misunderstanding and the truth

It is necessary to clarify some points on how results are determined by search engines. This is achieved by the article SEO Foundation: Relevance or position that is entirely built on the best references.
May 2008.

SEO: New Alexa Rankings

Alexa displays on its website the rank of websites according to their traffic and has changed its algorithm. Prior the evaluation was based entirely on visits made by people who have installed Sparky, the Alexa toolbar on their browser. This is no longer the case and the evaluation is based now on the visits made by all Net surfers. It was possible before to see a spike in traffic with only a single page aimed at webmasters who all have installed the Alexa toolbar. That is no longer the case. It seems that sites in English are favored with the new system.
April 16, 2008.

A plugin to add news to a portal website

Thanks to the Sidepress plugin You can add news to the home page of your website by installing Wordpress and this plugin.
April 2008.

Google answers to webmasters

Webmasters and the staff at blogcentral has made a conference were the former has been answered to all their questions about SEO. Summary of the best questions: Answers from Google to webmasters.
April 2008.

Start by the design

Essential principles of Web design, the rules. The design contributes to the success of a website.
April 2008.