Bing vs. Google: Webmaster Tools - Part 2
In a previous article, I’ve started analyzing Microsoft’s new search engine Bing versus Google. However I didn’t focus on search results, but we focused on Webmaster tools offered by both Bing and Google.
In this article, I’m going to go on with analyzing Google Webmaster tools and summarize both Bing and Google webmaster tools as well.
Google Webmaster Tools
Home page includes messages that Google may send to webmasters to enhance their sites and a list of sites added by a webmaster.
Dashboard includes 4 sections for first 9 top search queries, crawl errors, external links that refer to my site and a list of sitemaps within site.
Sitemaps page shows available sitemaps for site with total URLs and indexed URLs as well. Page allow deletion and resubmission of the sitemaps and an option to download sitemaps list or data for all sites.
Crawler access page gives details about the robots.txt file within site and checks which options are disabled by the robots.txt file that prevents search engine crawlers see some pages.
Sitelinks are links to interior pages within the site. Google generates these links automatically based on site structure allows Google algorithms do this process.
Change of address is a cool tool that allows faster indexing of the new domain that site moved to and keeping old domain data as if domain was never changed.
Settings of Google Webmaster tools allow webmasters to check target users for a certain country, set preferred domain and set crawling rate either automatically or manually.
Top search queries displays information about each user search queries as for impressions and clickthrough. Clickthrough means user clicks on site links in these searches.
Links to your site page shows a list of links that lead to site.
Keywords page is one of the coolest tools in Google Webmaster tools, because Google bot not only index pages, but also it analyzes every word in the site and finds the most frequently used words within site that a webmaster can add in site meta tags to enhance search results.
Internal links are pages linked by other pages on site.
Subscriber stats are statistics about users who subscribed for site RSS feeds.
Crawl errors is a tools that gives complete details about errors found during site crawling. The cool is that this tool not only for web, but also for WAP access through mobile devices.
Crawl stats page shows graphs about pages crawled by day and kilobytes downloaded per day
The best of the tools is found in the last page I display in this analysis and it’s the HTML suggestion page. This tool finds issues within site while Google bot was crawling the site. These issues if they were well treated will lead to a better experience and performance to enhance site rank on Google search engine. Tool includes 3 sections as for: meta description, title tag and non indexable content with capability to download these issues and a date for last updates.
Summary
I’d never found any powerful Webmasters tool like Google Webmasters tools. I can consider it a perfect for any webmaster who doesn’t want to invest extra money for paid tools and the greatest investment to get their site on top ranks of Google search results.
Searching for Ahmed Mahdy’s site contents on Bing and Google
Now after displaying and analyzing features of Bing and Google Webmaster tools, I’ve made a real test about searching for site contents.
Searching: Ahmed Mahdy
Bing
As seen, after the sponsored sites, you can find 2 sites with title: [Ahmed Mahdy - “From Community. To Community”]. This was my old URL that was cancelled! And still yet indexed since the old Live Search!
My site –which you’re on now- is ranked 5th using my name as reference. No more results about it on Bing.
Google
As seen, Google ranks my site the second and third after an old indexed site before. First result of my site is for the root URL, second one for the items tagged with my name. Really cool!
Searching: Imagine Cup WWF
Bing
As seen, Bing never found any result for my site for a post has the text: Imagine Cup WWF.
Google
As seen, Google firstly ranks the highest priority sites in their list which include same search results “here MSDN Blogs in this case”, while my site rank taken place in third and fourth positions.
Overall Summary
Bing Webmaster Center is a very basic tool in comparison with Google Webmaster tools. Microsoft is still in need of a very long time to be able to create more professional tools for webmasters. Google would still the top of search engines for long years.
Bing is more likely to be Live search with a replacement for Live logo and URL. Bing search engine yet was designed for USA to let them make decisions, while Google doesn’t make any difference between any country.
If you’re not American citizen and would like to use Bing, so you’re so unlucky, since whole Microsoft web based services was only designed for USA: Bing, Live Translator, adCenter and more.
Microsoft should re-take another step to enhance Bing and its web better more. We might see those changes in the next few years. Hoping so…
Bing vs. Google: Webmaster Tools – Part 1
Since Microsoft announced the launch of its competitive decision maker search engine, all
news to show the powers of Bing versus its first competitor and world first search engine Google.
While all news and posts gave great analysis about both Bing and Google –as search engines, all news neglected the included tools for webmasters.
I was lucky because Bing was launched in late May while I moved this site to new server with new domain name, that gave me opportunity to start adding my site to both Google Webmasters and Bing Webmaster tools as well.
In a series of 2 articles, I’m going to make a complete analysis and analogy between Bing vs. Google Webmaster tools.
Bing Webmaster Center
Note: You might need to install Silverlight to display images
Images up show all different options in Bing Webmasters Center.
First image shows the site list that can be added per account and authentication method used by each site.
Second image shows the summary of chosen site as for last date site was crawled by Bing bots, number of indexed pages, domain score and same details for top 5 pages crawled.
Next image shows site profile as for sitemap address, verification method and webmaster e-mail.
For Crawl Issues page, any crawling issues are shown if found.
Backlinks gives details about sites that have links for your site with score of reference pages.
Outbound Links shows links in my site that refer to other sites.
Keywords is a very weak tool to manually search keywords on site.
Sitemaps are a method to inform Bing bots about site pages.
Summary
Since May 2009, Bing crawlers didn’t crawl but only the homepage of the site! That’s pretty much weak crawler bot. Last crawling process was taken 25 days until the date of writing this article. Regarding profile, it’s very simple and doesn’t allow more details.
In the next article, I’m going to give details about Google Webmaster Tools and summarize the topic as well. Follow up!
The Power of Windows PowerShell
Windows PowerShell is a command-line shell and scripting language that helps administrators improve their productivity in day to day management tasks and achieve greater control over their IT environments. Using a new admin-focused scripting language, more than 230 standard command-line tools, and consistent syntax and utilities, Windows PowerShell allows admins to more easily control system administration and accelerate automation.
PowerShell ships with the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. However if you’re running Windows XP or Windows Vista, you are still able to download a standalone installer for PowerShell.
PowerShell or as I’m going to call it PS for shorten, won’t replace the existing CMD “Command Prompt” already in Microsoft Windows. PS has CMD included within it in order to let admins do all tasks through the same environment.
PS is considered an intermediate environment that is a perfect choice for both Developers and IT Professionals as well. Since a developer can do some system procedures using PowerShell depending on “CMDLETS”. CMDLETs are .NET classes that represent APIs and GUIs. While IT Professionals can do a delicate scripting commands that became pretty more easier than other scripting languages like JavaScript and VBScript.
For example, if we’d like to list Inactive Services in a running instance of Windows, we can write the procedure as:
For VBScript
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" & _
"{impersonationLevel=Impersonate}!\\" &
strComputer & _
"\root\cimv2")
Set colStoppedServices = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
("Select * From Win32_Service Where State <> 'Running'")
For Each objService in colStoppedServices
Wscript.Echo objService.DisplayName & " = " & objService.State
Next
For Windows PowerShell
get-service |where {$_.status –ne “running"} | ft displayname,status –au
Any easier?! :)
Why PowerShell?
Productivity
- Consistent syntax and approach – learn once apply many times
- Frictionless Composition – Type what you think
- Flexible system – works against the “old” and the “new”
Fun
- Multiple ways to administer tasks – interactive, scripting, API, GUI
- Makes Windows administration as pleasant/productive/cool as possible
Sharing
- Enables an ecosystem where the community can effectively fill in the things we’ve missed
This was the first article of a series I’m going to present about Windows PowerShell in the next few days. Follow up!
AHMEDMAHDY.COM Recognized By Microsoft MEA MVP Lead!
Before a month, and after few days of site’s re-launch, I was surprised that Rurai Plint, Microsoft MEA MVP Lead recognized me and my site on his personal blogs!
Here is Rurai’s blog about me and my site posted on June 9, 2009
Microsoft Student Partners Hit The New Tech
It’s not often I write about an individual, but from my previous role I developed a soft spot for education and to today I still give Lectures in Universities, why? Because it’s such a blast and students have so much passion. Imagine Cup (World wide Student Software Competition) was one of my favourite activities.
Well I digress, this chap I met when joining the MVP program however and we started communicating on MSN on a regular basis, since then he has become a MSP (Microsoft Student partner) and has really matured into technology. just yesterday we caught up and he now has a very active blog, and WOW talk about embracing the new technologies.
He is even become super proactive and has won prizes in the beta testing programs Microsoft runs, Well done Ahmed you have developed nicely I wish you all the best into the future and I hope I had some influence in this great work you doing :-)
Check out his blog, some neat Windows 7, VS2010 as well as some Bing stuff:
http://www.ahmedmahdy.com/
I’d stop very long by this post that’s considered a medal of honor for me personally and a trust from Microsoft leads of our news and blog posts, promising everyone that we’d always offer the best of the best whenever site is up :)
Rurai, A BIG THANK YOU!
If you’re interested to read the original post, please refer here: http://ruariplint.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!4DC22E349714F30F!590.entry
Can’t Decide The Answer? Bing It!
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO unveiled Microsoft’s new web engine codenamed Kumo, Bing at All Things D conference in San Diego, 2 days ago.
Bing is the fourth release of Microsoft’s search engine formerly known as MSN Search, Live Search and Windows Live Search.
In this article, I’m not going to give a historical background for Internet searching, but I’m going to give a list of Bing top features as shown in Bing’s product guide.
Bing Top Features
Auto-Suggest – Offers intelligent alternatives for search queries
Instant Answers – Serves up information within search results, eliminating the need to click on anything
Best Match – Provides useful links and information for definitive sites
Related Searches – Points to deeper information available with one click
Deep Links – Enables easy, direct access to relevant content within a site
Quick View – Summarizes a Web site at a glance, before clicking through to the site
Smart Video Preview – Previews a 30-second clip of videos simply by scrolling onto them
Infinite Scroll - Provides easily browsed image results without clicking to a new page
Quick Tabs – Tailors search results with one click
Bing will be officially launched on June 3, 2009. I won’t be in need to watch videos, read articles about the new engine, I’ll set my homepage to Bing and start investigating it myself!
I hope everyone turn to Bing!
The Top 10 Strategic Technologies For 2008
Bye bye 2008! On the technological field, I’m going list the top 10 strategic technologies for 2008 as per Gartner Inc. analysis.
Green IT. The focus of Green IT that came to the forefront in 2007 will accelerate and expand in 2008. Consider potential regulations and have alternative plans for data center and capacity growth. Regulations are multiplying and have the potential to seriously constrain companies in building data centers, as the impact on power grids, carbon emissions from increased use and other environmental impacts are under scrutiny. Some companies are emphasizing their social responsibility behavior, which might result in vendor preferences and policies that affect IT decisions. Scheduling decisions for workloads on servers will begin to consider power efficiency as a key placement attribute.
Unified Communications. Today, 20 percent of the installed base with PBX has migrated to IP telephony, but more than 80 percent are already doing trials of some form. Gartner analysts expect the next three years to be the point at which the majority of companies implement this, the first major change in voice communications since the digital PBX and cellular phone changes in the 1970s and 1980s.
Business Process Modeling. Top-level process services must be defined jointly by a set of roles (which include enterprise architects, senior developers, process architects and/or process analysts). Some of those roles sit in a service oriented architecture center of excellence, some in a process center of excellence and some in both. The strategic imperative for 2008 is to bring these groups together. Gartner expects BPM suites to fill a critical role as a compliment to SOA development.
Metadata Management. Through 2010, organizations implementing both customer data integration and product integration and product information management will link these master data management initiatives as part of an overall enterprise information management (EIM) strategy. Metadata management is a critical part of a company’s information infrastructure. It enables optimization, abstraction and semantic reconciliation of metadata to support reuse, consistency, integrity and shareability. Metadata management also extends into SOA projects with service registries and application development repositories. Metadata also plays a role in operations management with CMDB initiatives.
Virtualization 2.0. Virtualization technologies can improve IT resource utilization and increase the flexibility needed to adapt to changing requirements and workloads. However, by themselves, virtualization technologies are simply enablers that help broader improvements in infrastructure cost reduction, flexibility and resiliency. With the addition of automation technologies – with service-level, policy-based active management – resource efficiency can improve dramatically, flexibility can become automatic based on requirements, and services can be managed holistically, ensuring high levels of resiliency. Virtualization plus service-level, policy-based automation constitutes an RTI.
Mashup & Composite Apps. By 2010, Web mashups will be the dominant model (80 percent) for the creation of composite enterprise applications. Mashup technologies will evolve significantly over the next five years, and application leaders must take this evolution into account when evaluating the impact of mashups and in formulating an enterprise mashup strategy.
Web Platform & WOA. Software as a service (SaaS) is becoming a viable option in more markets and companies must evaluate where service based delivery may provide value in 2008-2010. Meanwhile Web platforms are emerging which provide service-based access to infrastructure services, information, applications, and business processes through Web based “cloud computing” environments. Companies must also look beyond SaaS to examine how Web platforms will impact their business in 3-5 years.
Computing Fabric. A computing fabric is the evolution of server design beyond the interim stage, blade servers, that exists today. The next step in this progression is the introduction of technology to allow several blades to be merged operationally over the fabric, operating as a larger single system image that is the sum of the components from those blades. The fabric-based server of the future will treat memory, processors, and I/O cards as components in a pool, combining and recombining them into particular arrangements to suits the owner’s needs. For example a large server can be created by combining 32 processors and a number of memory modules from the pool, operating together over the fabric to appear to an operating system as a single fixed server.
Real World Web. The term “real world Web” is informal, referring to places where information from the Web is applied to the particular location, activity or context in the real world. It is intended to augment the reality that a user faces, not to replace it as in virtual worlds. It is used in real-time based on the real world situation, not prepared in advance for consumption at specific times or researched after the events have occurred. For example in navigation, a printed list of directions from the Web do not react to changes, but a GPS navigation unit provides real-time directions that react to events and movements; the latter case is akin to the real-world Web of augmented reality. Now is the time to seek out new applications, new revenue streams and improvements to business process that can come from augmenting the world at the right time, place or situation.
Social Software. Through 2010, the enterprise Web 2.0 product environment will experience considerable flux with continued product innovation and new entrants, including start-ups, large vendors and traditional collaboration vendors. Expect significant consolidation as competitors strive to deliver robust Web 2.0 offerings to the enterprise. Nevertheless social software technologies will increasingly be brought into the enterprise to augment traditional collaboration.
“These 10 opportunities should be considered in conjunction with many proven, fully-matured technologies, as we as others that did not make this list, but can provide value for many companies,” said Carl Claunch, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “For example, real-time enterprises providing advanced devices for a mobile workforce will consider next-generation smartphones to be a key technology, in addition to the value that this list might offer.”
For The Second Time in Less than 1 Year, Internet is Down in ME
It’s my third day and my LAN cable is still disconnected, while I have a very limited internet access, 3 naval fiber cables that carries more than 98% of bandwidth to Middle East and Far East countries were broke down near Italy.
Authorities didn’t declare yet the reason of the broke down. That reminds us of the famous Internet broke down in Middle East and Asia in February 2008 where 4 naval cables were broke down in Mid Sea near Alexandria, Egypt and Dubai, UAE in the same way.
Airport planes booking systems were broken down and had to turn to manual systems to be able to book tickets for passengers, Outsourcing companies redirected most support calls to some third parties and partners in Europe to fulfill the needs of worldwide customers and most Internet services were broken down.
In Egypt, Dr. Tarek Kamel, Minister of Information & Communications declared in a report that some routes are being redirected to the Indian fiber cable that links South East of Asia with Europe in addition to routing to some satellite communications and promised that users will get a partial enhancement in Internet service within few hours as a temporary solution until the fiber cables are being fixed.
Official reports declared that Internet services were broke down by percentages between 80% – 100% in the affected countries.
Since most Middle East countries are on Weekend on Fridays, external operations from foreigner investors in ME stock markets won’t be affected except if the problem still persisted by “Saturday” or “Sunday” when opening these markets in those countries.
The previous broke down in February 2008 reported that a new type of electronic terrorism might be the reason of a massive dis-connectivity with the world leaving affected countries in a digital havoc and complete digital darkness.
I think because this problem occurred again by same method “3 cables were broke down”, it might be the new e-terrorism or due to a natural phenomena occurs in the Mid Sea that some water airflows may cause this problem.
Some would ask, and how could I post this topic, I can simply say, in absence of DSL and digital connections, thanks to Dial-up! ;)
Some funny reports declared that the reason was due to some sharks munched the giant high voltage charged cables! Who knows?! Maybe sharks got more wilder underwater like our world is! :D