the insidedesign blog

Over at SEO Scoop, DazzlinDonna wrote a rather interesting post on ThomasNet – an industrial industry directory. With a Yahoo! indexation of over 4 million pages, ThomasNet has positioned itself as much more than a directory, but as an information portal.
Not limited to company listings, ThomasNet also focuses on offering supplemental content its demographic needs to conduct business. So whether a user is looking for a manufacturer of a product, or that product’s CAD drawing – the user knows exactly where to go and ThomasNet is able to retain that …

It seems as though Marco has unearthed an easter egg in Google’s new release of Google Earth, its popular free mapping software. While the new release stunned the world with its addition of mapping the universe, it has also secretly included a flight simulator!
To check it yourself, simply download and load up the most recent version of Google Earth and press CTRL+ALT+A or for a MAC, Command+Option+A. Upon doing so the flight simulator should load right away with a dialog that grants you the options of plane and airport (as …

A recent study held by Cornell University has revealed that students have strong faith in Google’s ability to ranks search engine results based on relevancy. Published in the Journal of Computer-Medicated Communication, the study points out that the student’s “decisions were strongly biased towards links higher in position even if the abstracts themselves were less relevant.” Well, not a very ground breaking statement.
We all understand that users are strongly biased towards higher positions in the SERPs, it shows in our logs! However, and more interesting, the study goes on to …

Awhile back I got involved with Snap.com’s advertising program. They offered ‘Pay-for-Action’ advertising (pay only when the visitor is converted), so it was a win-win. So I thought why not? I had to open my account with $50, not bad considering it would bring me an almost guaranteed return. I setup my keywords and AD copy. Keeping at it for several weeks, nothing happened. Over time, I became more distracted with many other projects and my Snap.com advertising campaign slipped into oblivion.
A few days ago I get an email from …

Any directory owner that is serious about their business venture needs to create a custom design and look for their web directory. In today’s web environment where 20 directories spring up every day, a custom designed template for your web directory is key to be taken seriously. But not just any design will work, it has to match the needs, preferences and wants of your target audience. This post is aimed at providing directory owners and managers tips and ideas to better improve the design of their web directory.
The first …