Check your keywords effortlessly

There is a neat little tool that allows you to check whether your keywords or search terms will appear in major search engines results pages (SERPS).

Covering four major search engines, namely Google, MSN Search, Yahoo! and Alta Vista it is as good as a gold standard.

However, it is a no-frills tool, giving you just the information you need without clutter of graphs and charts.

This tool is called Search Engines Results Tool. All you have to do is fill in the search term and type in the URL of the page. Click submit and the results will be given as positions in the respective search engines.

I came across this tool quite by chance when I visited Brown Baron's which highlighted it in a very interesting blog.

A lot of traffic can also be bad!



Before the rise of social media, marketers seemed to believe the more user traffic the better. WebProNews caught up with Sage Lewis of Sage Rock at the SEW Live in Columbus, Ohio, and spoke with him about this issue. Lewis explained that a lot of traffic could sometimes be bad if companies construct an entire marketing campaign based on social media since it could backfire on them. Find out how negative aspects can be transformed into good effects plus all the details on Sage Lewis’s Search Engine Watch column at WebProNews.

Microsoft upgrades Hotmail

This is a hot news item from San Francisco. Hotmail may be lagging behind but looks like things are changing. Microsoft on Monday, 7 May began a massive upgrade of its Hotmail email system, to match advances by competitors like Google and Yahoo.

The software giant said the upgrade represented the most signifcant improvements to Hotmail since it debuted in 1996 to become the pioneer of web-based email.

Log in to your Hotmail and you will be surprised. If you haven't got an account or have dropped yours, it's time you got a new one. It's a new Hotmail!

The new system allows Hotmail's 280 million users to easily sort their mail and enjoy enhanced security features. It also boasts an expanded storage capacity of 2 Gig and a built-in interface for mobile devices, right-click and drag-and-drop capabilities, preview pane customisation and auto-complete addressing.

Interesting Article on Blogging Laws

For bloggers, US bloggers in particular, blogging has become full of potential legal issues and the situation is made worse by the fact that law in this area is constantly in flux.

In the article 12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know a dozen of the most important US laws regarding blogging are highlighted and some simple tips for handling and overcoming them are provided.

The 12 laws deal with: disclosure of paid posts, deep linking, images and thumbnails, copyright, trademark domain names, readers' private data, user-developed content, monitoring blog comments, tax laws, limited liability laws, spam laws, and journalism shield laws.

Go to 12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know. It's worthwhile reading.

Google's Vanessa Fox. Nude.
Something from WebProNews

Blogging has been defined as a bearing to your life force. That is exactly what the product manager of Google’s Webmaster Central wanted to do when Vanessa Fox created her blogging site. Since she enjoys writing and blogging, she decided to create an experimental site. Her site is entitled vanessafoxnude.com. In an interview with Webpronews at the SES conference, Fox said that she created the site because Dave Naylor was ranking for “vanessafoxnude,” and she thought if anyone was going to rank, it should be her. Fox assures us that the name has nothing to do with her being nude.

Meditation to celebrate Wesak

To celebrate Wesak, let us talk a bit about a gem of Buddhist philosophy – meditation.

Here’s some writing by Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who lives, teaches, writes, and gardens in southern France:

WALKING MEDITATION

The mind can go in a thousand directions.
But on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.
With each step, a gentle wind blows.
With each step, a flower blooms.

Walking meditation can be very enjoyable. We walk slowly, alone or with friends, if possible in some beautiful place. Walking meditation is really to enjoy the walking – walking not to arrive, just for walking. The purpose is to be in the present moment and enjoy each step you make.

Therefore you have to shake off all worries and anxieties, not thinking of the future, not thinking of the past, just enjoying the present moment. You can take the hand of a child as you walk, as if you are the happiest person on Earth.

We walk all the time, but usually it is more like running. Our hurried steps print anxiety and sorrow on the Earth. If we can take one step in peace, we can take two, three, four, and then five steps for the peace and happiness of humankind.

Our mind darts from one thing to another, like a monkey swinging from branch to branch without stopping to rest. Thoughts have millions of pathways and we are forever pulled along them into the world of forgetfulness.

If we can transform our walking path into a field for meditation, our feet will take every step in full awareness. Our breathing will be in harmony with our steps, and our mind will naturally be at ease. Every step we take will reinforce our peace and joy and cause a stream of calm energy to flow through us. Then we can say, “With each step, a gentle wind blows.”

The Buddha is often represented by artists as seated upon a lotus flower to suggest the peace and happiness he enjoys. Artists also depict lotus flowers blooming under the footsteps of the newly-born Buddha. If we take steps without anxiety, in peace and joy, then we, too, will cause a flower to bloom on the Earth with every step.