This one is for StatBrain. Their algorithm appears close enough in my testing to warrant checking domains against. Click here to add button: http://toolbar.google.com/buttons/add?url=http://www.michaelteper.com/GoogleButtons/statbrain.xml

I posted a couple of SEO related Google Toolbar buttons before, and here's another one I added recently -- it shows other sites being linked to by the people who linked to the target site: Find Similar Sites (Similicio.us) Enjoy!

Mostly to remind myself, this is a list of local search directories and data aggregators with corresponding submit/edit links: http://local.google.com (http://www.google.com/local/add) http://local.msn.com http://local.live.com http://local.yahoo.com (http://listings.local.yahoo.com) http://www.infousa.com (http://list.infousa.com/dbupdate.htm) http://www.citysearch.com http://www.merchantcircle.com (http://www.merchantcircle.com/signup) http://www.truelocal.com (http://www.truelocal.com/getlisted.aspx) http://www.registerlocal.com (https://www.registerlocal.com/order/configAddress.aspx) http://www.insiderpages.com http://www.judysbook.com http://www.superpages.com (http://www.superpages.com/about/new_chg_listing.html) http://www.acxiom.com (http://bcb.acxiom.com/start.pl) http://www.yellowikis.org (http://www.yellowikis.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) Have I missed any?

Following up on my previous post on how to submit your business to Yahoo! Local Search, this is where you would go to submit your listing to Google Local: Google Local Business Center After you complete your listing, you will have to verify that you are reachable either via phone or mail (your choice) at the business address.

This Yahoo! PowerPoint Presentation won't tell you, but it will give you a pretty good overview of the relationship between Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Local Search, Yahoo! Search Marketing Local Sponsored Search (a.k.a. Overture Local Match), and Yahoo! Yellow Pages. To add your listing, go to the Add/Edit Business Tool. Note: you should only be interested if you want to increase traffic to your website.

I got a chuckle out of this: all a matter of language.

A few days ago I wrote about an issue with Google's new sitemaps robots.txt checker. I am happy to report they've appeared to address the problem. I suspect a possible catalyst for the fix was my comment on Matt Cutts' blog reporting this issue (of course I am assuming I was the only one to notice this!). The odd thing is that Matt had since deleted my comment, but as long as the fix is in I'm not complaining.

[Update 2/14/06: checked again today and problem appears fixed. Score one for Google.] Last week, Google released an update to Google Sitemaps that added a robots.txt checker tool. I started experimenting with it today and found a rather odd behavior: the tool reports access allowed for terms that clearly should not be. I think I've got this boiled down to the simplest case, which appears to have to do with terms starting with “Web” (”W” has to be capitalized). I don't know whether this is domain specific, so I'd love to hear back whether you are able to reproduce this or not....

So, naturally the idea of using the new Google toolbar for SEO is not unique. Here are some more buttons from Aaron Wall of the SEO Book fame. I will say though that where applicable my buttons are better because they work both on the selected text and the page domain if no text is selected. But, no doubt Aaron will fix that in no time. ;-)

I posted previously that Google Toolbar 4 is worth a try. I've since added a couple of custom buttons that I think would be of interest to SEO's. Grab them here: Yahoo! Site Explorer ButtonInternet Archive Button  Also be sure to grab Matt's Whois Button USAGE: - select the domain name in question on the web page you are viewing and hit the button- just hit the button to analyze the domain of the page you are viewing   What custom buttons have you added? Drop me a line.

I am relying more and more on Delicious as a personal info aggregator. If you'd like to follow along, here's what I have been reading on the topic of search engine optimization: http://del.icio.us/mteper/seo You can even grab the RSS feed.

I have recently been reading up on SEO, a dynamic and fascinating component of marketing on the Internet. SEO, for the uninitiated, stands for Search Engine Optimization. Essentially, its all about keeping up with the latest developments in search technologies and search engines with the intent to optimize your site to show up high in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). There are a number of techniques, constantly evolving, and they break down into “white hat” and “black hat” where the former represents reasonable efforts that will both help your visitors and the search engines locate the right content, and...