Latest Media

Ask and you shall be social

Do you remember going to Ask.com in the oldern days long before Google started playing god with the interwebs? I do - but yes, that was a long time ago. Now Ask.com has reinvigorated its service by introducing a new focus on the social.

Along with a new interface and improved semantic searches, Ask.com will offer a Q&A product which will draw from 500 million indexed questions and answers, and will ask users for the answers too. Instead of just linking to websites which might contain the answers, Ask.com will be delivering real answers from real people. We expect this new community aspect to bring more subjectivity, discussion and raw opinion than you would expect from a search engine.

Scott Garrell, president of Ask.com, is confident in the new approach, based on the “the rapid growth of the social Web and the shift in consumer search behavior". Indeed, the social realm does play an increasing role in where we get our online information. There is even speculation within the SEO community that Google might draw on social media information as well as the traditional SEO factors like relevant content and links.

Good SEO happens very gradually, over a long period of time - and the more natural it looks to Google, the more credible. So naturally, if a website deserves to be on page 1, it should be all the buzz across the social sphere too. Building real connections with clients and customers on social networks is what SEO is becoming - and considering Google already does real-time searches of our favourite social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, now is a very good time to start socialising for your business. 

Web hosting and SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a complex game of tiny, interrelated factors which can either make or break a website in the eyes of important search giants. While SEO companies are great at getting your website to page one, there are a few decisions which need to be made by you - like which web hosting company hosts your website. Most of the time the web hosting has long been sorted before SEO is brought in, and many people don't even realise the impact this can make. When choosing or changing your web hosting company, important factors for consideration include things like physical location, server speed and size, and customer support.

In the last week, Aussie host Crazy Domains had a number of unprecedented downtimes. Facebook, Twitter and various forums were amassed with complaints about the extended offline periods - reminiscent of last year's barrage against Webcentral - another Aussie web hosting and domain service offering cheap prices. If your business is too important to disappear off the interwebs for indefinite spouts, it's probably not a good idea to value cheap prices. Customer service also weighs in heavily, as a company which can offer genuine support over the phone, and in the same country, can mean the difference between downtime lasting a few minutes or a few days.

Location is another biggie for SEO. Many of the important search engines look at country location when returning search results. So if you want to appear on Google.com.au, it's important that your website is hosted locally rather than offshore. Also consider where your data is stored, and how secure the data centre is. Things like heavy storms, floods, fire and power failure can sometimes affect data centres, so it's important that your web hosting company has adequate redundancies in place. If there are problems, it's again important for the support team to be located in the same country as you - as it will mean less double-handling and a faster fix.

Similarly, server speed and size can definitely impact your SEO. Google has mentioned that it may start to factor in website speed in its algorithms - but besides this, people will naturally back out of your website if it doesn't load fast enough. Ranking well is pointless if nobody stays on your website. As well as this, your web hosting company needs to be ready to handle large amounts of traffic coming through your website. You should pick a company with a support department which knows how to optimise their servers and help you with traffic levels.