Know Your Shopping

After the latest PR update at Google and MSN’s beta search going live, there is one
thing for certain in 2005: the world of search is in for some major changes. There
has been growing speculation around the SEO world that reciprocal linking is a thing
of the past. Rumors are abound that PR means less and less, if anything. Bill Gates
came out of his cave to say that “Today’s search is nothing” and that it won’t be that
way for long. There are quiet rumblings in the SEO back alleys of a new, state-of-
the-art search engine currently indexing the internet. Websites are dropping off the
face of the planet. And we’re all left to sit here and put together the pieces. So what
is in store for 2005?

1) Reciprocal links, while not becoming totally dead, are decreasing in value, and
there will most likely be an algorithm update to lessen their importance. The
original thought process behind the importance of a link was that it was seen as a
“vote” for the linked-to site. Now that reciprocal links are everywhere, it is hardly a
great way to count “votes” for a website. Reciprocal linking will continue around the
internet, although the amount of people who try to get away with one-way links (by
never getting back to you once you’ve added their link) will increase significantly.
This will, of course, be an attempt to acquire one-way links, which brings us to our
next subject….

2) One-way links and triangle linking, though already quite popular, should explode
over the course of 2005. Both are much harder to control and acquire, which makes
Google happy. The triangle link “ploy” makes links look like one-way links even
though “Site A” is returning the favor to “Site B” through “Site C”. There will be
attempts to sell triangle linking programs and systems by SEO companies, however,
the complexity, difficulty and time involved in this scheme will produce ridiculous
prices.

3) What this about a new search engine that is going to index every site on the
internet, EVERY 10 seconds? Become.com has turned a few heads with it’s claims.
Site owners have reported Become Bots spidering “like crazy”. It’s all quite hush,
hush, however and you need to have an invite in order to test it out. It should be
interesting to see what they’re capable of if and when they decide to go live. I’ll go
out on a limb and say that it’s a household name by this time next year.

4) MSN will scrap the “beta” tag on February 1st from it’s sparkling new search
engine, which is currently live at search.msn.com and Bill Gates thinks it will rival
Google. There is a lot of debate over this issue, but there is no denying that it is far
better than the old chugger they were using before. Love him or hate him, Gates has
most likely given a hard right to the chin of Yahoo!, which seems to be suffering
from a magnitude of quality problems. MSN will be second to Google in total
searches in 2005.

5) PR still has importance. However, it is also decreasing in value. PR is only based
on the quantity and quality of links (both inbound and outbound) from the given
web page. The most obvious reasoning for the declining importance theory is due to
the fact that on any given search on Google, the PR of each page seems to have
barely any correlation with it’s place in the rankings. For all you PR lovers out there,
hold on to your toolbar’s tight, because this could be a bumpy ride.

Bobby Heard (bheard@abalone.ca) is the Vice-President of Abalone Designs
(http://www.abalone.ca), which offers great SEO results at affordable prices.

It is possible to find home foreclosure listings in every state across this country. Unfortunately, a lot of homeowners have gotten in over their heads with a mortgage payment that they were not able to fulfill. This has opened up a bank of listings for investors to take advantage of. The key is to buy property now that you can hold until the industry right sizes itself. Selling the property will be next to impossible. Many industry experts speculate that this will happen in the coming years. When it does, the property that you bought today for $100,000 could be worth over $500,000.

Many of the home foreclosure listings are not a result of people who were duped into bad mortgage products. Some of these listings are a result of the economic downturn that has caused high fuel and food prices, and job layoffs. The President even signed a bill to extend the unemployment benefits of many Americans who have been unemployed for several months. This helps to ease some of the financial strain, but for some it still is not enough to prevent home foreclosure. It makes you wonder if there is any real relief in sight. Should a person have to loose everything before things turn around for them in a positive light?