As you all know, the second stage of the Jagger update is well underway. GoogleGuy gives confirmation that the updates will first be reflected at the 66.102.9.x datacenters first:

McMohan, good eyes in spotting some changes at 66.102.9.104. I expect Jagger2 to start at 66.102.9.x. It will probably stay at 1-2 data centers for the next several days rather than spreading quickly. But that data center shows the direction that things will be moving in (bear in mind that things are fluxing, and Jagger3 will cause flux as well).

With Jagger2 in full swing and Jagger3 just around the corner, SERP rankings will likely be “unstable” for the next few weeks. For now though, things are looking very rosy for the two SEO experiments we started.
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What comes to mind when you hear [Filipino search engine]? I can only think of Yehey and I’m not even sure if that qualifies as a true meta search engine. Alleba? Finder.ph? Please.
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Guess there might be some truth to that joke about professional criers (people you rent to cry at somebody’s funeral). Found this via a forum member’s signature. Very interesting business model.

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Abe, how many Filipino bloggers did you say you have at Pinoyblog? :)

I know they said to keep our posts short, but I couldn’t help it. Read my lengthy Panday SEO Recipe post at Pinoy Tech Blog. A must read for entertainment and pseudo-entertainment Pinoy bloggers.
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Here’s another SEO related opening: Information Professionals, Inc. is out looking for a Web SEO (don’t know why the had to add the “Web” qualifier).
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Note to self. Stop your airline portal dream.

Type two cities in Google, e.g. Sydney Manila.

I hate Jensense for bringing the topic up because like most AdSense publishers, I’m totally clueless about Smart Pricing :) now I’m one clueless and paranoid publisher.

Google’s smart pricing feature automatically adjusts the cost of a keyword-targeted content click. So if our data shows that a click from a content page is less likely to turn into actionable business results - such as online sales, registrations, phone calls, or newsletter signups - we reduce the price you pay for that click.

As an example of smart pricing, consider two websites, each related to digital photography. The first page features digital camera reviews, while the second offers photography tips. Clicks from the page of photography tips might be charged less, because they are expected to convert into sales less frequently, resulting in lower value for advertisers. Google data determines that clicks from the digital camera reviews convert better, so clicks from this page are not discounted.

Wolf-Howl.com’s Marissa Mayer Google Image experiment shows promise. With Google Search SERP for famous celebrities returning Google Images before the #1 listing, this might be one untapped optimization technique applicable for entertainment/showbiz sites.

Graywolf’s experiment led to the following conclusion:

If you are interested in optimizing for Google Image Search make sure you put the words in close proximity either before or after the image. Naming the files with the keywords seems to help, but is less of a factor than the surrounding text.

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Can CAPTCHA be the solution to splogs? Google seems to think so. That, and a whole lot of manual spam tagging.

“We pushed out a change that will prompt some users to solve a CAPTCHA if our spam classifier identifies the blog as spammy,” wrote Google’s Blogger Product Manager, Jason Goldman, on Blogger Buzz. “So far, we have observed a slight decrease in the amount of spam being created.” The “CAPTCHA” test is a method by which automated programs that post or create blogs can be foiled–where the user is asked to type in a sequence of letters from a line that people can read, but computers can’t decipher.

Just how bad is the problem?

Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer of Intelliseek, a firm that monitors and searches blog content, said that spam blogs–especially on Blogger–present a major problem for the corporate blogosphere. “We predict 30 percent of all the new blogs are spam-oriented,” he said.

David Sifry, CEO and founder of blog search engine Technorati, had a much lower estimate of the percentage of blogs that were spam–2 to 8 percent

Via Online Media Daily.

The Philippine online community is growing and maturing at a very rapid pace. Filipino webmasters, bloggers and publishers are discovering that there are more effective ways to drive traffic and to earn residual (even full time) income from their properties and activities online. If membership to the SEO Philippines mailing list is any indication, then it’s safe to say that more and more Filipinos are becoming interested in search engine optimization (SEO). Why the sudden interest in this field?
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