After conquering Earth, Google looks like they have set their sites wet on the rest of our solar system.

Google has recently released a new service showing space. I can explain what they have but you can get a much better idea yourself at http://www.google.com/sky. A picture really is worth a thousand words.

They also have pictures of the moon http://www.google.com/moon/. The site has some history of the USA’s Apollo missions. I’m glad I didn’t buy the kids a telescope for Christmas. You can see so much more here. A great new offering by Google.

Since Yahoo and Microsoft have not been able to give them real competition, maybe their next competition will come from alien search technology.

After using the same system for the last 10 years, Alexa has changed the way they rank website traffic. They have used the Alexa Toolbar as their basis of traffic rankings. The problem with this system is that it relied on users who downloaded the Alexa toolbar. Webmasters had more incentive than the average user to use the toolbar, resulting in a bit of skewed results.

Alexa says that the new rankings are the results of a “new and improved algorithm”. They also say that “the new rankings should better reflect the interests and surfing habits of the broader population of Web users”. They say that the new rankings are based on more sources of data but they do not provide these sources. Here is a link to the Alexa announcement.

An interesting effect of the change is the history. They state that that they are”recalculating historic traffic data” and that they will continued it over the coming weeks”. They “should have several years of data back on line shortly”. I’m am not sure how they can retroactively calculate this data unless they have have collecting it over many years. Maybe the purchased it from someone like Google.

I’m sure we will here more in the near future.

I have been working pretty hard at reaching the 10,000 directory mark and we are really, really close. I have put a real push on in the last couple of days. As a result of finding some good article directories, the article directory list has doubled to more than 600 listings. Listings include both general and niche directories. I also cleaned up many of the parked / dead sites.

Tell your friends.

If your article directory is not on the list, leave a comment on this post and I’ll add it. Le me know if submissions are free or paid.

I am so not a fan of Vista. I woke up this morning and my machine had rebooted because Windows had installed another update during the night. My machine is even sloowwwwer than yesterday. I didn’t think it was possible. Sure I can get more memory but I shouldn’t have to. I already have twice as much as my old XP machine.



In a taped interview, Bill Gates lets the cat out of the bag. Thanks for being honest Bill. Hope it has cost you billions and hope you don’t do it again.

http://gizmodo.com/342920/holy-crap-did-bill-gates-just-say-windows-sucks

With close to 10,000 directories I needed some extra help. We would like to introduce our newest team member Zoey.

Zoey is our Golden Retriever. She has been very busy. She has collected 100 pet/animal directories. She is especially proud of the 27 dog directories. She is trying to be fair when looking at the 18 cat directories.



Zoey has searched Google up and down. She is looking for more pet directories. Submit yours today. As usually, submissions are free.

I have been noticing of late, how a well placed link on a good, frequently spidered site can improve your rankings in a matter of hours. It used to take weeks. Examples of these sites would be forums and blogs. Important sites that change frequently tend to get spidered and re-indexed often.



Here is a blog post from Matt Cutts back in August where he commented on Google’s ability to re-crawl, index, and score web documents quicker than ever. They seem to really have their sh*t together. Yahoo is not too far behind. MSN still takes awhile.

Our directory list is quickly approaching 10,000 listings but I have probably added thousands more over the last couple of years. I have notice a huge amount of directories disappearing. I have seen the "parked site" page so many times that I can’t wait until they show a different picture.

Too many directories are disappearing. Here are some observations of why?

• There is massive competition. In the beginning there was a couple of hundred directories. Now there is well over 10,000 and too many of them are general directories. The chances of a new directory becoming relevant are slim. Directories are too easy to set up. There are some great low-cost tools available. Anyone can do it, even if they don’t have the perseverance and the funds for the long haul.
• Free directories are expensive to run (time is money), mostly because they receive tons of spam from automated submitters. Many users of automated submission software don’t care if their site is appropriate for a directory. They just add any directory that they can spider. They Many directories become paid to solve the problem but this is not a great solution as they are too new to be a viable paid directory (remember all the competition).
• Huge networks of directories. Why create two directories when you can create two hundred. In my opinion, these directories are all but useless, especially if they have identical content and are stored on the same IP. The chances of an individual directory from the network getting well promoted is slim. The fact that the owner hasn’t spent any real time or money on the sites makes them easy to abandon if they don’t work out. Google tends to crack down on these sites and I have seen many networks disappear over the last 3 years. The worst case is this group of over 250 directories hosted on the same IP. I’ll discuss these in detail in a future post.

I guess what I am saying is that running a directory is not easy. It may have been 2 years ago but certainly not now. Don’t start one to make quick, easy money because it won’t happen. You need the time and perseverance.

I have just completed some in dept research for US and Canadian directories. I have hundreds of new ones and have added them to our list of USA directories and our list of Canadian directories. Good examples of the US state listings are the California and Florida categories.

Canadian listing include Ontario and Alberta.

I’m a bit surprised that there are not that many American directories compared to listings for countries like the UK. Regional listings can make a difference for many sites, especially tourism type sites.

You can also add your site by making a short comment on this thread in the following format.

• URL:

• Type: (e.g. USA, Canadian)

• Cost: Free, Paid or Reciprocal

For the podcast crowd, checkout our list of Podcast directories. I just researched and added a bunch of podcast directories (about 45 new ones). The list is clean and should be useful for marketing a podcast.  The podcast category is part of our ever increasing Internet Press section.