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Webkrauts advent calendar: YQL image gallery as WordPress plugin

Michael — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 08:27:02 +0000

Based on yesterday’s article “SELECT Bilder FROM Flickr OR PicasaWebAlbums WITH YQL FOR Bildergalerie”, I describe in today’s article on the Webkrauts advent calendar how to build a simple WordPress plugin that provides a shortcode to easily integrate a gallery with images from Flickr or Picasa Web Albums into your posts or pages.

Read the article “YQL-Bildergalerie als WordPress-Plugin” on webkrauts.de

Webkrauts advent calendar: Image gallery with YQL and Flickr or Picasa Web Albums

Michael — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:11:21 +0000

Take a peek behind the ninth door of this years Webkrauts advent calendar to read my article “SELECT Bilder FROM Flickr OR PicasaWebAlbums WITH YQL FOR Bildergalerie”.

Read “SELECT Bilder FROM Flickr OR PicasaWebAlbums WITH YQL FOR Bildergalerie” on webkrauts.de

Is Google Instant killing SEO?

Michael — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:55:50 +0000

Google just unveiled its new project Google Instant. As you start typing into the search box, Google tries to predict what you are searching for (most likely using the Google Suggest algorithm), and instantly displays results for that prediction. So it’s not really displaying results as you type but kind of before you type. For now, this feature is only available to logged in Google users and is therefore also the next step of personalized search.

Although I believe that this will change the way people use Google, I don’t think that it will kill SEO (search engine optimization) or make SEO irrelevant, as Steve Rubel wrote. The search algorithm is still the same. As the results are refreshed while you type, we’ll probably see more and more people typing in order to pull results to the top that they consider most relevant, instead of typing, clicking (or hitting “enter”) and scrolling. Therefore I believe that long tail keywords will see an increase in traffic. But it also might make lower rankings less relevant. I guess that people will be less apt to scroll down and even more so go to page two of the SERP. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will affect our search behavior.

Google Instant will not make SEO irrelevant but it will most likely have a strong impact. I think it’s an exciting innovation that will make search engine optimization even more challenging, especially since no two users will see the same results.

What do you think? Will you keep it or dump it?

UPDATE (Sept. 17th, 2010): Stefan Tweraser, Deutschlandchef von Google spricht im internetworld.de-Interview auf der dmexco über Google Instant und äußert auch die Vermutung, dass durch die Neuerungen der Long Tail noch länger werden wird und dass sie wenig Einfluss auf White hat SEO haben werden.

Introducing HTML5: A Book From the Future

Michael — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:51:23 +0000

Today I received the highly praised book “Introducing HTML5″ by Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp. I was pretty surprised, when I opened it and found out that this book must have come from the future. The first page tells me that its copyright is from 2011. How is that possible? Is that a typo or is that just due to the futuristic nature of the topic? Is it safe to read it now or do I have to wait till next year?

Update: I just received word from Peachpit, saying that any of their books published after June carry the next copyright year. Thanks. That was quick.

Google Mails’ new look

Michael — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 06:32:52 +0000

When I opened Google Mail this morning (the first thing I do on a work day), it greeted me with a new look and some info about the visual changes. The GMail team has moved “Contacts” and “Tasks” further into the forefront. I haven’t had to use these features in the past, mainly because of GMail’s automcompletion when typing the recipient’s address. This might be a huge improvement for some users but not for me, as of yet. I might look deeper into what “Contacts” could do for me but because I mainly use “Things”, I have no need for “Tasks” in Google Mail.

They also decreased the size of the header and thereby moved the list of messages up by *drumroll* 16 pixels. Should I care about this? I’m not sure.

But what I really like is that they shed (most) rounded corners. Although such a visual feature is nice, it’s nothing more than pure eye candy with no practical use whatsoever. I assume that the Google Mail team threw these rounded corners overboard in favor of overall performance and I congratulate them for this step.