As I mentioned in my previous posts that the camps season is near and now it is even nearer. Today we did our final rehearsal for the first camp (that is YPE camp at Bhilai). We had all type of programs like elocution, songs, stories, instrumental music for all groups. Our job was to fine tune it before the final show. Here are some pics

Last minute Choir tuning (Backstage)

(Click on the picture to enlarge it)
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Who should read this: All who are serious about blogging and wants to try new things with blogs.

Notice the recent posts,

• Google Vs Hedir
• How to authenticate Googlebot
• Adsense and SSL
• All work no fun not good
• Desktop Blogging tool
• Hedir releases web 2.0 bookmarking tool

If you notice the recent posts including this one you will see a section called “Who should read this”. I have added this section to save my regular visitors time. I prefer to write on various topics from Search Engine Giant Google to Directory head Hedir, from marketing to HR and everything else available under Google search. Also I sometimes hundreds of words. Due to diverse and long posting my daily visitor may find themselves lost, or they may miss an important post so I decided to add this section to help them decide.

I have added it as I myself is more of a blog reader and I read following from home

• Matt Cutts Blog
• Google Blogs including the webmastercentral
• http://avc.blogs.com
• Search Engine watch

I read many others from office which is mostly related to US credit system or Online marketing. I have added it as a live bookmark to save my time.

As I reader I always had problems in determining the post’s worth for me. I certainly do not want to waste time in reading something completely irrelevant and more importantly I do not want to miss any important topic because of irrelevant start or unassociated topic title. Do let me know your opinion about this addition.

Who should read it: All SEM interested people along with ones who track online business. All people assosiated with Hedir.

Is Google to trying to imitate Hedir’s idea? This is a question asked by one of Hedir’s reputed member Google Junky. Hedir is the oldest and the most established human edited directory (much more than a plain directory, this is web 2.0 community based review system) which scans the websites for its,

1. Services
2. Products
3. Vision
4. Policies
5. Overall customer reputation

Not on the basis of

1. Web Contents
2. OBL and IBL (outgoing backlinks and incoming backlinks)
3. Page Rank
4. Keyword optimization

The best thread which explains about Hedir is at webproworld.com, a six page discussion.

Hedir is a complete Human based ranking system which has its own limitations and disadvantages. New patent application (System and method for supporting editorial opinion in the ranking of search results) Google is going Hedir’s way. Let’s see what does this patent say,

1. Look for the words “an editorial opinion parameter). It shows a shift from focusing on algorithm-based changes to the integration of a human editorial process. The patent page says

   Other search services have attempted to improve Internet searching by compiling static lists of web pages on specific topics. Directory listings, such as Yahoo! (www yahoo.com) and Open Directory (www.dmoz.org), are examples. These services map a search query against the editorial comments accompanying each web page that was reviewed by an editor of the service, and optionally the full text of the documents, to generate a list of results. The scope of these services is limited, however, to the set of pages that has been reviewed by the search services’ editors.

   AskJeeves (www.ask.com) generalizes the application of editorial opinion to a collection of pages. Their editors identify a set of pages that share a common theme (e.g., home pages of airports) and associate this set of pages with specific trigger words (e.g., the word “airport”). When one of the trigger words appears in the query, they present the user with a concise representation of the associated set of pages, allowing the user to choose one. Again, the scope of this technique is restricted to the set of pages that were reviewed by the editors, which tends to be many orders of magnitude smaller than the set of useful pages on the World Wide Web.

   Therefore, there exists a need for a system and method that improve Internet searching.

   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
   A system and method, consistent with the present invention, address this and other needs by providing a mechanism that enhances the ranking of search results by integrating editorial opinion.
   
   In accordance with the purpose of the invention as embodied and broadly described herein, a method that provides search results is disclosed. The method includes receiving a search query, retrieving one or more objects in response to the search query, determining whether the search query corresponds to at least one query theme of a group of query themes, ranking the one or more objects based on a result of the determination, and providing the ranked one or more objects.

   In another implementation consistent with the present invention, a method for determining an editorial opinion parameter for use in ranking search results is disclosed. The method includes developing one or more query themes, identifying, for each query theme, a first set of objects as being favored, identifying, for each query theme, a second set of objects as being non-favored, and determining an editorial opinion parameter for each of the objects in the first and second sets.

   (Nothing new to the people who are in Google as they know it is already implemented, ask if Matt can deny it).

2. Categorization: The patent says
   

   In a second way, the editors may establish categories/topics from a directory that may be compared to the search query to determine if the query satisfies a particular query theme. For example, a set of topics could be the topics in an online hierarchical directory (e.g., a Web Directory), such as Open Directory, Yahoo!, or Google (www.google.com). For determining sites that help in finding accommodations, a query theme could be expressed as a set of topics in Yahoo! as shown below:
   Recreation: Travel: Lodging;

   According to me a better categorization can be done using a mix of tags, Hedir suggests the solution at http://www.hedir.com/remove-addoption.html . Here Hedir has suggested a mix of taxonomy and folksonomy. Another area for Google to imitate.

This is good that Google is going this way. At SEO conferences we all expected that such a move when,

• Yahoo acquired del.icio.us
• Google and Yahoo stated manual scanning. There were few more threads but I lost the reference. Also read Matt cutts comments on when asked the same question.
• When Wink hit the market.
• When Hedir started getting publicity.
• “TrustRank” has been being “quietly” implemented through several algo changes starting back maybe as early as the “Florida” update on December 3, 2003. Subsequent updates including “Jagger” involved new “TrustRank” implementation layering including ranking of IBLs and OBLs (inbound and outbound links).

If I get back to my original question Is google to trying to imitate Hedir’s idea? May be yes as Hedir is growing popular and many people are watching its growth rate. Google Analytics have also copied few features from other existing analytical products and some of them were copied from Visitlab for sure. http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js See how it is using image file for tracking (if it needs more explanation, you can contact me ).

Google Vs Hedir

starts

Who should read it: Whoever is interested in getting traffic from Search Engine esp Google.

Google Bot is a welcome visitor to all the websites and in recent time I have covered few topics on Google Bot. Here is the list:

1. Google Bot went Unhappy
2. Google Bot Mystery
3. Google Bot and cache

Thanks to Matt cutts for helping me continue with the series. As I have explained earlier that you can fake Google bot by changing the user agents. Firefox extensions are allowing you do this easily, try http://chrispederick.com/work/useragentswitcher/.

Matt and his team says,

Telling webmasters to use DNS to verify on a case-by-case basis seems like the best way to go. I think the recommended technique would be to do a reverse DNS lookup, verify that the name is in the googlebot.com domain, and then do a corresponding forward DNS->IP lookup using that googlebot.com name; eg:

> host 66.249.66.1
1.66.249.66.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer crawl-66-249-66-1.googlebot.com.

> host crawl-66-249-66-1.googlebot.com
crawl-66-249-66-1.googlebot.com has address 66.249.66.1

I don’t think just doing a reverse DNS lookup is sufficient, because a spoofer could set up reverse DNS to point to crawl-a-b-c-d.googlebot.com.

Read more at http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-to-verify-googlebot.html

Who should read it: Adsense does not support SSL, if you have same site running with http and HTTPS and you want Adsense on it then this article is certainly for you.

Recently we enabled Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for one of our sites. How does SSL helps? It encrypts the communication, between the client (the browser) and the web server. It helps in stopping Eavesdropping and your customers feel more secure about it due to the perception they have for the lock. This is just a security for the transport layer.

So we decided to offer both the versions of the site, one with SSL (HTTPS://, http over SSL) and another the normal with no encryption (http://). Also the identity was verified by VeriSign to avoid the browser issued messages(Browsers will issue warning messages if the certificate is not signed by a trusted third party). If you find yourself nowhere with the encryption then certainly you need to read more. I remember my classes on data encryption and data communication with our great professors Dr Pinaki Mitra and Dr A.K.Laha (Yes, I remember that I promised to write more about http and HTTPS, yes I will do that. I will try to do it tonight else in the coming weeks.)

Even after completing everything the browser kept issuing a warning that the page contains some non-encrypted items. After some investigation we saw that the HTTPS pages were having some items with http, like images added with http. We made all the images relative that all the images can come with HTTPS under HTTPS. We changed all the js included path and made it relative.

The problem remained due to Google Adsense and Google Analytics. I searched web to find a solution for it. I got a big “No” from Google Adsense Help pages.

Do you offer an SSL version of your ad code?

Although you may place the Adsense ad code on a page using Secure Socket Layers, we do not currently offer an https version of the Adsense ad code at this time. Therefore, you may see a message asking for confirmation to load all items on the page when placing the Adsense ad code on secure https pages.

All our pages were static pages. Also Adsense was our bread and butter, so removing it wasn’t a feasible solution. Also we desperately wanted https across all pages as many of our customers were asking for it. Only options left were

1. To make it dynamic and based on the port number (port number 443 whereas http works at 80) we could switch off the Adsense. It will make the pages slow which was again unaccepted.
2. To have two pages, one for http and another for https. Management problem which was the rejected.

We then decided to use JS to check if it https://

if(!document.location.href.match(/^https:///))
{ Adsense Code}

And similarly for Google Analytics

if(!document.location.href.match(/^https:///))
{ Google analytics Code}

This is what I did urgently but the Google analytics has an option,

< script xsrc="https://ssl.google-analytics.com/urchin.js"
mce_src="https://ssl.google-analytics.com/urchin.js"  type="text/javascript" >

< script type="text/javascript" >
_uacct = "UA-XXXXX-X";
urchinTracker();
< /script >

More details are available at Google help pages. There is no way you can make you Adsense work with Https, so only way is to switch it off with https.

Who should read it: Anyone who wants to have fun with work :). Everyone.
Here are a set of games that can be play while at work. Earlier I mentioned about Google image labeler, thats fun and few of us are already addicted to it.

Here is another one, peek a boom, this is cool as well.

The Basics: Peeking and Booming
You and a random partner take turns “peeking” and “booming.” While one of you is peeking, the other is booming. The booming player (Boom) gets an image along with a word related to the image, and the peeking player (Peek) gets no image (see Figure below). Booming consists of clicking parts of the image; when Boom clicks a part of the image, it is revealed to Peek. The object of the game is for Peek to type the word associated to the image — from their perspective, the game consists of a slowly revealing image, which has to be named. From Boom’s perspective, the game consists of clicking on areas of the image so that Peek can guess the word associated to it. Once Peek guesses the correct word, the two of you move on to the next image and switch roles.

So have fun with work. Hey, be careful let not your boss ban those IPs from your office network :). These days people are crazy about orkut too.

Who should read this: Anyone serious about Blogging and want to try a desktop tool for it.

These were the tools I tried with few of my friends sometime back. These desktop tools makes your life easier for sure. Check them out.

1. Ecto - A copy of ecto costs $17.95. (not used yet)
2. MarsEdit - Only for Mac and $24.95 single license
3. wbloggar.com - Free (Used), it is simple and usable.
4. qumana - Free (Used). I have used it and it is a cool with an integrated ad system.
5. blogjet - $39.95 single license (not used yet)
6. Elicit $59.00 with life time updates. A 30 day free trail is available.

Firefox extension
Firefox users can try http://performancing.com/firefox. This started as a small project but these days they are offering everything that is needed for blogging. I used to use it.

My Current Desktop Blogging Pet
I like to explore new things, so these days I am try out with Windows Live Writer (beta)

I will write about my experiences with Live writer, I am liking it as it drafts it with ease. Also because it checks the spelling in a simpler way. MS is trying to support free systems, a list can be found at http://ideas.live.com/. Also there are many plugins available for Windows Live Writer.

One of the problem that I face is with the slug. I am not able to post the slug with this tool, either I need to explore more or MS needs to develop it.

Who should read it: Anyone who wants an easy solution for social bookmarking on their blog/site taking the minimum space. And all the Hedir fans :).

USP of this tool: Simplicity. Visible web space is expensive and Hedir saves it for you.

I am a big fan of Hedir from the time it started challenging DMOZ. It is as young as a one year old baby and growing as faster as a lover boy wanting to marry his little lover girl. Hedir is desperately going after his lover girl aka success covering milestones with every hop.

(my favorite avatar by Google Junky)
It is growing faster with so many add-on features. Why I support it over DMOZ? The answer is simple,

• growth rate when compared to DMOZ (for that matter any other directory)
• the concept, this is working exactly on web 2.0 concepts.
• the community, the people are so great. Initially I was inspired by Winterfrost and now the list goes on and on with ADAM, Baggeroli, Google Junky, Francesco, Brett, writergrrrl, Anthony, Bret, Josh, Norah, Lakhya, … (The list is too big to be added under one post). Great community.

Also read Norah’s post on how hedir is different from other directories at http://norah.hedir.com/2006/01/17/how-hedir-is-dif…

Last week under their Friday-release class we saw another great tool, web 2.0 bookmarking. http://www.idealwebtools.com/blog/googlebot-cache/, with the blog post you will be able to see , this allows you to bookmark the page to your browser (typical unavoidable web 1.0 and web x.0) and to all the social bookmarking (social sharing) sites.

The best part is the management, it is easy to use.

1. Go to http://www.hedir.com/web2.0/ ,
2. choose the sites of your preference and generate the code.
3. Paste the code to your website/blog.

It starts working for you, it checks multiple browsers and adjusts its bookmarking accordingly. Great tool. Keep watching for next Fridays :).

I have also decided to donate my wordpress work to Hedir community. I am talking to few people at Hedir. I will donate the code and let the community generate money for further development. I will be honored if they accepts it. Love you all at Hedir.

If you are a fan of Google like me, here is a chance to be in Google. If you are a web2.0 Shakespeare try http://services.google.com/events/wordmasters . I have recommended it to some of friends who are good at writing.

Why to Join Google?

1. Since it has two “o” in its name. Also it has two “g” in its name. In short since it is Google.
2. It allows you to work on your own interested area 20% of the time. I think this is very unique.
3. 
4. 

And plenty of more reasons , find them all at http://www.google.com/jobs/reasons.html

For last two months my blog is gaining popularity. I am not lying I can prove that, Spams. Everyday I get close to 10 to 20 spams. Today they crossed the limit with over 100 spams. I decided to make them work harder for every comment.

Sorry for the inconvenience and I am sure my blog will help you recapitulate those mathematical lessons. Have fun. Do you also some spam controller for your blogs?