I first heard of the search engine this past January and immediately became intrigued by what it promised to do. However, given the previous great Cuil failure, I approached Wolfram Alpha’s release with a bit of trepidation, fearing that the hype would lead to a major disappointment. I’m happy to report that Wolfram doesn’t disappoint, in fact I think it’ll supplement Google search in the minds of many web users.

My Review, Just A Preview

Just to let you know, I have yet to spend endless hours on Wolfram so my review is from a “first look” perspective. Over an extended period of time I’ll gradually examine what Wolfram has to offer before offering up a full review, meanwhile I’m sure you’ll be reading a lot about this search engine elsewhere over the coming days.

For hardcore search engine geeks — that would be anyone who long ago embraced Google search as their default search engine of choice — the question that comes up with Wolfram is why do we need a new search engine? Well, we don’t but I’m a firm believer in competition and I also think  that there is room for improvement/refinement with all of our favorite online tools including Google search.  Google Squared was just released which, from what I’ve heard, will provide similar results as Wolfram.

Your Computational Search Engine

Wolfram approaches search differently from basic Google search in that if you enter a term you aren’t going to be served up an endless number of pages which may or may or may not have anything to do with what you’re looking for. Nor will you be subjected to endless contextual ads at least not initially.

For example, when I entered the term “New York” in the search bar, the results served up were for New York City, listing the city’s population, the population of the metropolitan area, a map of the 48 contiguous United States pinpointing New York’s location, local time, current temperature and elevation. Click on a couple links and you can see satellite imagery of the city and retrieve coordinates. And, if you really meant New York State instead of the city, one additional click can bring you information about the state.

Keep Your Queries Simple!

In short, Wolfram Alpha is a computational knowledge engine, one that serves up math based answers. So far I’ve discovered the simpler the query submitted, the better for getting spot on answers.

For example, if your question is, “How many miles from New York to Miami?”  you’ll get “Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input” as your answer. However, if you make your query simple such as “distance New York Miami” you’ll get an answer. So, keep it simple and Wolfram will be able to serve up the correct answer.

If you’re looking for additional takes on Wolfram Alpha, then I suggest you start with Wolfram Alpha, Google ‘rival’, launches or Wolfram Alpha: Wikipedia Killer? for some good reads.

Despite being embroiled in the middle of the worst global recession of our generation, internet giant Google continues to make money although not at the feverish pace of just a few years ago. Still, with its income up by 8% in the first quarter of the year, the company is in an enviable position.

As usual.

Once Again Google Performs Admirably

Analysts had been expecting Google to taper off, but the first quarter figures show that if any company can weather the current storm, then that would be Google.  Revenue did slip compare to the fourth quarter of 2008, but given that the worst of the recession didn’t settle in until after the first of the year, Google’s performance is admirable.

Google still makes a big bundle off of AdWords (advertisers) while not quite a few webmasters are still raking in big bucks with AdSense (publishers).  Google’s advantage is that the company basically owns web search which allows it to serve up ads to most everyone who logs on. Given that its algorithm is almost always spot on, Google remains an attractive and relatively cost effective way for businesses to get the word out.

Chairman Eric Schmidt Speaks

Relating to its most recently quarterly performance, Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt had this to say: “Google had a good quarter given the depth of the recession–while revenues were down quarter over quarter, they grew 6% year over year, thanks to continued strong query growth. These results underline both the resilience of our business model and the ongoing potential of the web as users and advertisers shift online. Going forward, our priority remains investing for the long term to drive future growth in our core and emerging businesses.”

Has Google’s Ad Income Peaked?

Some analysts fear that Google’s ad income may have peaked, but we’ve been hearing them say this for years. Clearly, advertising dollars are harder to come by, but given that newspaper advertising continues to dry up and internet traffic is still expanding, I’m sure that Google will find a way to keep moving forward. Should the economy begin to recover this year, then advertisers will come back, adding more fuel to the Google fire.

What About Twitter?

It is no secret that Google is interested in buying Twitter, given that site’s rapid growth and its threat as a search engine. Personally, I have found that using Twitter Search yields some amazing results, a great way to connect with people who are discussing topics of interest to you and in real time too.

Though I don’t use Twitter Search as much as Google Search, even an incremental shift by users can shift search traffic.

Google will pay handsomely for Twitter and they’ll figure out a way to monetize the site.   I could see Google incorporating the feature’s of Twitter Search into its own toolbar, but I also could see them leaving Twitter alone and running ads along the side of these results.  Maybe Google would do both.

Returning to Their Roots

As far as the rest of the web is concerned, the other internet giants will continue to work to make their business models more efficient. Now that EBay has sold StumbleUpon and has an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the works for its Skype internet telephony unit, they’ll be returning to their core business of managing online auctions and internet retailing.

I expect that other businesses will be doing the same thing — dumping unrelated subsidiaries to concentrate on what they do best. In this economy, returning to your core seems like the wisest (and safest) move to make.

Yes, it appears that Google is hitting its stride with the all-important, but not that important Google PageRank update, by making changes on a quarterly basis. I say important because for some people it is the chief way that they measure their site’s worth, but I also say not important because there are many different factors and tools which tell how well a site is performing.

My PageRank Report Card

For the record, Matt’s Musings went from PR2 to PR3, WordJourney from PR3 to PR2, AutoTrends held steady at PR3 while The Article Writer is back up to PR4. FYI, The Article Writer made its debut at PR6 in June 2005 before gradually falling to PR5 before dropping to PR3.

Several tiny, niche sites (and even placeholder pages) I manage acquired their first ranking, PR1 to be exact, while my client’s two blogs at SayEducate.com and SayCampusLife.com managed to hold onto their previous PR4 position.

Other Ways To Measure Success

Granted, any drop in PageRank can be frustrating especially if you’ve been link building and using other methods to promote your site. However, there are other ways to measure the value of your website including:

Alexa Rank — Once widely panned by the SEO community, Alexa has gained some respect if only for their frequent updates which occur several times each month. The lower your Alexa number the higher your score.  However, it can easily be gamed through sites like Entrecard which encourage others to visit your site to inflate traffic numbers.

Google Analytics — If you run Google Analytics, you can gain an excellent understanding of your site’s traffic trends. While you won’t get a “rank” for how well your site performs, you will be able to gauge traffic numbers including page views, sources, and how well your AdWords campaigns perform.

Compete — Like Google Analytics, you can receive site traffic history and measure how your site compares against your chief competitors with Compete. Even in the basic (free) format, you can obtain some decent information about your site as well as your competition.

Semrush — Forget PageRank as I want to see how my sites perform with specific keywords. Recently, I discovered that the sharply increasing traffic to my The Auto Writer blog was bringing a lot of good attention my way. Turns out that I secured the #1 keyword phrase for a new vehicle about to be introduced, sending 200+ extra visitors to my site each day. Semrush has a freebie tool which can help you identify some of the results for free. Pay a monthly fee and you can get a hold of all of that information.

SERPs — You can check any search engine’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) manually to see how your site is doing. Honestly, I only check Google these days because of their dominance in the world of search. However, I also use Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools to analyze all of my data.

Miscellany — Of course, I use Twitter to help build contacts online and have been particularly taken by Twitter Search which is an excellent way to find out who has been talking about your favorite topic recently.  I also like to use a good backlink checker to find out who is linking to me, I let Google notify me when certain keywords or phrases I’m following get mentioned. Additionally, I like to peak at domain tools when I want to obtain information about a client, a competitor or when I’m considering purchasing a domain or website.

So, as you can see PageRank doesn’t carry quite the weight that it some think that it should, given the many different measurements to quantify your site’s success. True, I would love to have a higher ranking from Google across my network of sites, but it is the other factors that weigh heavily and seem to bring fresh business my way.

Making Good Use Of Twitter

In any event, I’ve been making good use of Twitter over the past few weeks, by following people who are relevant to what I write about (cars, mostly) while twittering away to the tune of ten to twenty tweets each day. That is, if I have something beneficial to share.

Funny how you can dismiss something simply because you don’t understand it all that much. A few years back, in June 2007 to be precise, I mentioned how I found people online and where they could find me online.

Not An Early Adopter By Any Stretch Of The Imagination

I casually mentioned, “…but I think I’ll sit Twitter out” when I described my approach to social networking. Admittedly, I’m a more recent convert to Twitterdom, having come around to understanding how useful it can be. Sure, you can go crazy with it, but I’ve been able to get quite a bit out of many of the 140 or fewer character tweets that I have been reading.

Yesterday, I connected with a one-time client, Vinny, who is a Cadillac enthusiast who happens to also live in New York City. Though I’m not able to attend the New York International Auto Show in April, he will be there and plans to take plenty of pictures of various Cadillac models and concepts.

I mentioned that if he was to send a photo my way, I would post it on one of my sites, giving him full attribution. As you can see, this is a good win-win opportunity for us both.

Helpful List Of Do-Follow Sites

I also snagged a link from Andy Beard who shared information about a report created by Alex Goad which lists scads of do-follow sites where you can leave one-way links.  Sure, it could become a webmaster’s worst nightmare if spammers game the list, but a lot of the sites are familiar to everyone and likely to be on guard for such mischief. A terrific find!

Little did I know that Twitter is also a very good search engine too.  Sure, it isn’t as thorough as Google, but if you are looking for concise and highly relevant information, there is a lot of useful stuff that turns up.

Just don’t expect to see ads on Twitter…at least yet. How they make money off of this concept is a mystery to me, but its value as an internet destination is something I’m sure some of the web giants would love to absorb.