I’m pleased to announce that The Web Optimist blog has been accepted as an iEntry, Inc. blog partner. This means that posts on this blog can now be shared across the iEntry, Inc. network of sites, including WebProNews.com and SearchNewz.

Guess I’d better get busy!

Take a look at the sample Google search engine results page (serp) below and see if you notice anything in particular.

No, I never was what you would call a “headbanger” but I did love Quite Riot’s “Cum on Feel the Noize” and listen to it to this day. The video for that song was one of my favorites on MTV, back when MTV actually showed music videos.

But, let me point out some things about Google’s search results page for this heavy metal group.

Let’s see, the first result is a link to Google’s Quiet Riot albums page. The second result is a link to Google’s news page. Hmmm, result #4 isn’t what you would call a Google property, but the last I heard Google dishes out the ads for MySpace. Results #5 and #6 are YouTube videos, another Google property.

Out of the top six results (those above the fold), four are Google and one is a Google partner. That leaves one non-Google related search result. Naturally, that’s Wikipedia.

Get the picture? Google’s roll out of Universal Search earlier this year makes it entirely possible for Google’s own pages and its partner pages to dominate the result pages. It’s not unimaginable for a results page to consist of Google image, map, news, book and video links, pushing the rest of us down and potentially off of the page.

Frankly, I see this as Google’s overall plan to do battle with social networking sites. In order to rank in many cases, your only option is to be a part of the Google “social network” with popular videos that can be dished out by way of YouTube, news that shows up in Google News, optimized images that can show up (frequently at the top of the search results page), local maps and so forth.

What can you do? Start optimizing now. I know a lot of SEOs who are taking a wait and see attitude on Universal Search because they don’t see results that are so dominated by Google very often. I suspect that as time goes on, that could change, so now is the time to get with it. And, optimizing for Universal Search can only help your web presence in the long run.

For a jump start, take at look at my previous posts S E O 101 - Universal Search, S E O 101 - Image Optimization and S E O 101 - Social Media Optimization.

So, is Google really planning to take over its own serps? The answer is a resounding “when it suits them” if you ask me.

Make like a Boy Scout and be prepared.

PS. You can also read this post over at SearchNewz.

Share a keyboard and mouse with multiple PCs with this handy, free utility.

I’m an SEO working on multiple monitors and usually two PCs - my laptop and desktop. For a long time I either juggled with a keyboard and a mouse for each or I just struggled on the laptop with the finger mouse and the cramped little keyboard.

No more. I have found a really terrific and FREE (and that’s one of my favorite words) piece of software that allows you to share your keyboard and mouse with two or more PCs through an IP address.

It’s called Synergy and it’s simple to set up and use. All you need to have is a home network and know how to get the IP address of the PC whose keyboard and mouse you will share (hint - In Windows XP just hit Start -> Run -> cmd -> ipconfig and hit the enter key).

Install Synergy on both PCs and configure them. On the host PC, you have to enter some information like which side of the host PC the client will be located and screen names. On the client, you just pop in the host’s IP address and hit the Start button.

I’ve been using this neat utility for several months and it’s been a gift from Heaven. Every so often I have a network glitch that makes it lose the connection between the two, but overall it has been terrific.

Heck, this baby will even sync the screen savers on the PCs and allows cutting and pasting between them.

Synergy is open source and released under the GNU Public License (GPL). It’s available for Windows, Linux and Mac systems supporting TCP/IP networking, though the site indicates that the Mac version is incomplete.

Hope you find it as useful as I have!

I recently walked into my local AT&T wireless store fully intending to upgrade my three-year-old mobile phone with a Windows Mobile phone/pda device. Like, I assume, many others, I walked out with an iPhone instead.

For the same price I was going to pay for the Windows Mobile phone I had my eye on, I could get the revolutionary iPhone. For the original price of $599, I wasn’t even going to consider it. Nice as it is, I’m too poor for that. But, once the price was dropped to striking range of the competition, things changed. After playing with the iPhone in the store, I decided to give it a go.

Here’s my video review. As whiz-bang, high-tech, sci-fi as the iPhone is, there are just some basic things that keep it from living up to what it really could be - the phone of the future now.

Some things to consider before choosing an iPhone over a Windows Mobile phone:

1. Oily fingers make the phone a mess.
2. The on-screen keypad is difficult.
3. Can’t do VOIP like Skype.
4. Internet access is slow
5. Due to #4, connecting to iTunes requires WiFi.
6. Forget custom ringtones unless you buy from iTunes.
7. Can’t share web connection with laptop.
8. Audio connection requires an adapter.
9. No manual. (See iPhone: The Missing Manual by David Pogue.)

Don’t get me wrong. The iPhone is fantastic! I love it, but, yes, I miss some of the very basic things I could do with a Windows Mobile phone.

Watch the video review for more. Just click on the image above or play it right on this blog on the video page.

By the way, this blog looks great on an iPhone. See The Web Optimist on iPhone.

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