Have you ever held off on booking a flight because you had a gut feeling that the price would be going down? Do you ever monitor airfare so closely that you feel that you can predict what day of the week it will be the lowest?

Well, with a new travel search engine named farecast, you can back up your inclinations with historical evidence!

Here is how they describe their patent-pending technology:

Fare History shows what the lowest fare was for your trip each day, up to 90 days ago. We monitor price changes multiple times a day and store more than 50 billion observations (and counting). We make a significant investment in data, hardware, and storage costs to provide you with real prices based on availability.

What a wonderful concept. Instead of manually checking flight prices on a weekly, daily or even hourly basis, you can now simply visit a site that is backed by 50 billion pieces of data!

If fareceast can deliver on all of their promises (and I am hoping this is the case), I can see their website changing the way that I book flights!

The site is currently in a beta stage, meaning that your search options are significantly limited (as of right now, you can only search for fares from Boston and Seattle). However, they plan to add all major US and international markets in the near future.

Whether you fly often, or even if you only fly once a year, I encourage you to check out farecast as soon as it hits your market!

P.S. For those of you in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, please submit a request to have the Twin Cities added to their search engine! The more requests we are able to submit, the sooner we will be able to use this service!

What is local sponsored search?

Local sponsored search is an extension of Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing that gives advertisers the ability to show their ads only to a limited, geographically specific audience.

This is achieved by using the IP address of each person who searches on Google or Yahoo to determine their location. Your IP address contains some valuable, geographically-specific information that allows the search engines to pinpoint your location to your specific county, city, and even zip code. This is made possible because the majority of Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) provide geographic information relating to their IP addresses.

Before local sponsored search was made possible, many localized businesses were not able to show up in the sponsored results for Google and Yahoo. This is because if they were to advertise for keywords on Google and Yahoo, they would not be able to limit their audience; they would be paying to have their ad run nationally! That would be the equivalent to a local bank advertising on a nationally televised program. Not only would it be extremely expensive, it would also lead to a plethora of inconsistent leads!

With the ability to pinpoint the location of users based on their IP address, localized businesses now have the opportunity to use the powerful traffic generating products offered by Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing, without the worries and costs associated with conducting a campaign on a national level.

The ability to geographically target web searchers from local markets unlocks a huge potential market to businesses who only offer their products and services to a small radius of potential consumers. They can target potential customers without spending outrageous amounts of money on advertising costs.

An additional advantage to using local sponsored search is that not many businesses know about it! As I mentioned earlier, there simply aren’t very many businesses that understand local search at this point. This creates an opportunity for market domination for those who do make the venture into local sponsored search!

Not only will brave local businesses be pioneers in local sponsored search, but they will also be able to do so for a reasonable cost. This is because Google and Yahoo both base their search marketing rates on a keyword auctioning system. This essentially means that keyword positioning is auctioned off to the highest bidder, and if there are few bidders, the keywords will cost significantly less.

It may take years for many localized businesses to catch on to the benefits of local sponsored search, if they catch on at all. At the same time, the number of people using search engines to do local searches is increasing exponentially! With little competition and a rapidly increasing user base, it is becoming imperative that localized companies consider using sponsored search as a way to compliment their current marketing campaigns.

I hope that you feel as empowered in reading about sponsored search as I did in writing about this exciting technological development. If you are interested in local sponsored search, but aren’t sure where you should start, feel free to contact Digital Mantis for a free assessment. We are well versed in the world of search engine marketing, and specifically local sponsored search.

Source: http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=64656

I don’t agree. In fact, I believe that the recently released Google products miss the mark entirely. Now I must qualify my opinion by saying that I am not basing my opinion on actual use of the office system. I have not used any of the “Google Office” features that have recently been released by Google (spreadsheet, calendar, Google Base, etc.), nor do I intend to. Perhaps my reasons are ignorant, and perhaps my reasoning is short sighted, but here is why I will never trust my important documents to an online program:

The Internet isn’t always stable

What do I do if my Internet connection goes out? How will I access my most important documents if I can’t get onto my computer? What if I am traveling on business and need important documents for a presentation? What if I can’t access them due to a lack of an Internet connection? Sure, I’m throwing out a lot of “what if scenarios”, but I think that one of the major advantages to “offline” documents (such as those documents created in Microsoft Office), are the fact that they are indeed offline. Meaning, I will ALWAYS be able to access them as long as my computer maintains it’s hard drive and operating system integrity. (Sure, computer crashes may also be an issue of it’s own, but that’s another story… That’s why they invented Jump Drives, CD-R’s, DVD-R’s, External Hard Drives, Network Drives, Tape Backup, and even the wonderful 1.44 MB 3.5″ floppy diskette!)

Google is holding the power

The Google Office product will be free, and your content will be stored on Google’s servers, and ONLY accessible to you. What if Google changes their mind? I am sure that they currently have a policy in tact that says that any information you share with them is private, and for “your eyes only”. What if they decide to change their policy? If they are anything like credit card companies, they can change their privacy policies with little more than a letter in the mail. Much like credit card companies, Google could make a change to their policy and bury it in a 50 page legal document. Who reads through those things?

Google is in business to make money

Sure, Google offers their products for free, but how long can this last? What happens when Google decides to charge people for using their Office system? Why would they give away a product for free if they can charge people for it? It would be bad business to offer powerful software for free, and I don’t think Google wants to make any moves that are considered “Bad Business”.

Web-based productivity software? Is it really productive?

NO! I have had extensive experience using web-based programs that are designed to mimic the GUI (graphical user interface) programs we normally run on our personal computers, and you know what? They all stink! This is not due to the quality of the program itself, but rather the massive amounts of data transmitted in order to create the look and feel of a stand-alone GUI program. It takes massive amounts of resources in order to mimic a program such as Microsoft Word in a web browser, and this results in slowly loading pages. This is not likely to improve any time soon. In fact, as these systems improve, they will most likely consume even more resources, and take even longer to load!

Conclusion

Now I must reiterate that I am not basing my distrust of Google Office on anything but my own personal experiences with previous “online” software solutions, and I’m not basing this on my actual experiences with Google Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, etc. Take what you will from my opinion, and feel free to share yours by posting a comment to this post.

I have been there. In fact, you could even say that I “am there”. You see, since starting Digital Mantis, I have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to work with several wonderful clients. As a result I have been very busy working as hard as I can to ensure that each client is delivered exactly what I promise them (and hopefully even more!), and I leave myself very little time to concentrate on updating the Digital Mantis website.

Yes, I do appreciate the irony associated with being a web designer who has trouble maintaining their own website, yet I don’t think that my situation is very uncommon. The fact is, I have been involved with many projects where websites are created as static entities, and they offer little room for growth. And you know what? More often than not, this is an effective way to approach website building.

Sure, creating a static website is effective, but is it really the best way to do things? The answer to that question is in a state of evolution. If you would have asked me a year ago to rate the importance of updating the content on websites, I would have told you “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”. Meaning, if you put your best effort into your website, then you shouldn’t need to make any changes. I approached websites the same way as I approached papers in college; once you turned in your final draft, that paper was done; no further editing necessary.

It wasn’t until the blog revolution hit full force over the past year that I began to realize that it is to your advantage to have as much content on your website as possible! Here are some truths that have come forward from the blog revolution that have changed my opinion on website development in general:

• Search Engines favor “fresh content” when they are creating their search results. As a result, Search Engines are placing more importance on content from blogs than content from static web pages.
• The more “entry” pages you can have on your website, the better chance you have of people finding you. It’s a simple numbers game; 1 page gives you 1 opportunity to be found. 50 pages give you 50 opportunities! Which odds would you take?
• Blogs take on a more “laid back” approach to writing. While grammar, spelling and punctuation are still very necessary, the tone of your posts can be much less formal than in static web page creation. You can also reach your readers on a more personal level. This makes blog posts easier to write, and allows you to write more frequently.

With these new factors coming into light, I am beginning to realize the power of the blog. I plan to maintain this blog very regularly, and I hope that people check back often. Essentially, I hope that this blog will serve two purposes:

1. The first is that it will help me maintain a consistent relationship with my clients. If you ever wonder what Digital Mantis is up to, or the direction we are heading, you’ll be able to read all about our latest ventures, and also affirm that we are using up-to-date tactics when it comes to website design, search engine optimization, and the other services we offer.
2. The second serves as an experiment to see how well I can do in the search engine rankings. I have already shared with you my hypothesis that a well-formed blog will help your website do well with the search engines. This blog will be a way for me to not only test my hypothesis, but also report my successes (and even failures) to my clients. I can then take these successes and failures and iron out a bullet-proof website and search engine optimization strategy for my clients.

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,327433,00.html

Ok, so this article is not necessarily about web marketing. In fact, it barely makes mention of the web. However, I found this article to be interesting, and I am taking away several key points from what I have read. More than anything, I am sharing this article with all of you so that you can enjoy this perspective on how to use your logo effectively and in memorable ways.

Many of the points they make in this article seem like common sense to me, but perhaps that is why I enjoyed the article. It’s always a positive thing when you read a “how to” guide on a topic, only to learn that you are already following many of the “best practices” they offer in the guide. For many of you reading this article, you may simply see this as reinforcement. For others, perhaps you’ll pick up a tip or two. Personally, I am making a mental note of these methods, and I hope to incorporate them into my future branding efforts.

One of the counter points I would offer to the author of this article is that much of their points are easier said than done. I work for a small business, the smallest of the small. It seems like it would take years for me to receive any kind of recognition from my logo. Even then, I’m afraid that the recognition may not be from my target audience.

Do you feel that your existing logo is easily recognizable? If not, did you find this article helpful? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Also, feel free to critique Digital Mantis, and their logo usage. We are still in the process of finalizing our logo, so your feedback may help us through the process.

Source: http://www.searchengineguide.com/odden/007720.html

This is a very basic article covering the optimization of blogs. I found this article to be useful, as I’m just now venturing into the blog realm. A lot of the principles applied in this article are principles that are already readily applied to search engine optimization of websites, so no particular part of this article really jumped out as revolutionary.

There were a few points that were covered that gave me a greater understanding of the blog optimization process. For example, I have heard a lot about blog pinging, but I never really understood the importance of such an act. Basically, pinging allows you to tell RSS feeders, blog search engines and other entities every time that something new is posted on your site!

This is a wonderful concept in my opinion, because it allows you to actively alert people of fresh content on your site, without suffering a penalty for making the alert. This is a departure from some search engines, where you can actually be penalized for alerting them about changes to your website. Plus, with blog software such as wordpress, you can automatically ping blog trackers every time you post! What a great concept!

All in all, I found this post useful because it consolidated much of the information I have already read on blog optimization. It also was written in fairly basic language, which made understanding the article a breeze. I can’t tell you how often I read articles pertaining to web design and search engine optimization and think to myself “what the heck are they talking about?”

Last, I am most happy about this article because it reinforces much of what I am currently doing when I develop blogs, and ensures that my current venture into blogs is being done properly.

Have you thought of creating a blog, but have no idea where to begin? Digital Mantis can help! We have designed blogs for companies of all shapes and sizes, and we would be glad to assist you through the blog development process. We can even make the blog fit seamlessly into your current website!

I was just served with a legal notification from a Domain Dispute Case Coordinator Supervisor (National Arbitration Forum) regarding a domain name I picked up because of its keyword significance www.classicmetalroofing.com

I have bought hundreds of domain names due to a rumor years ago about keyword importance in a domain name. Since Classic is such a mainstream keyword along with metal and roofing, I would assume this would grant usability. Google keyword assistant ranks classic metal roofing as a strong keyword - so as any webmaster would do - I purchased the domain name.

The Complaint was submitted by Classic Metal Roofs, LLC.

http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=64302

This post, and resulting comments, highlights many very relevant issues with the domain name registration process, and domain names in general. It seems like at least once a week I either read or hear something about a domain name dispute. These disputes range from copyright infringement, domain “squatting”, intellectual property laws, and even stolen domain names.

Given my recent struggle with re-obtaining the digitalmantis.com domain name, it seems like I have an infinite number of resources and articles bookmarked that pertain to domain name property rights, the governing body of domain names, international policy surrounding domain names, and many more fascinating topics (well, perhaps it’s not as fascinating to you as it is to a geek like me).

I’ll share many of these articles in future posts, as I feel it is essential reading for ANY website owner. I think that too often business owners and site owners in general put a lot of faith into a domain name registration system that they do not fully understand. I know I have been guilty of this in the past, and it lead to me losing a domain name that I held dearly since my college days.

It is to your advantage to become more educated on topics such as domain names, and I intend to provide much of this knowledge during the upcoming months of this blog.

If you have any specific domain-related questions that you’d like to ask, please feel free to comment on this post, or send me an email!

I also believe that a much of this buzz around domain names is unfounded, and leads a lot of people to believe that they will be able to quickly get rich off of domain prospecting. I would even go as far as saying that many of these articles create a false hope that people will be making BIG money off of domain acquisitions and sales. Although it’s very true that few people make BIG money off of domain name purchases (and when I say a few, I’m talking less than 100 people in the world), for the average domain name prospector big profits are rarely seen.

Why is this? Well, I believe it’s due to a lack of availability for quality domain names. We’re in 2006 right now, and the mature Internet we see today is far departure from the wild wild west of the Internet gold rush we experienced in the late 1990’s and early 21st century. While the Internet as a whole is once again beginning to experience a financial comeback, there are still lingering effects. Namely, most of the good domain names are taken!

I define a quality domain name as follows:

• The name has at most one or two words. Three shorter words are acceptable, but will not command the same prices as a domain name with only one or two words.
• The name contains keywords that are frequently searched for in major search engines (at least 5000 unique searches per month).
• The name is absent of special characters (-’s)
• The name ends in a .com (although I find .net a viable naming convention, it is still not as widely accepted by most Internet users. The fact is, 5 .com domain names exist for every 1 .net domain name).

How many of these domain names are available? Not many. Trust me, I have looked! While I’m not saying that it’s impossible to find relevant and lucrative domain names this late in the game, I will say that your chances of finding a quality, high dollar, domain name is highly unlikely.

For example, I followed my rules above and tried to obtain a top quality domain for one of my clients, Strategic Performance Group, a consulting company who offers a variety of business consulting services. I researched the amount of monthly keyword traffic associated with the services they offer (management consulting, market research, online surveys, etc.) and noticed that one of their services received an astronomical number of monthly keyword searches on the major search engines.

The term was Online Survey, and was responsible for nearly 165,000 searches on the Yahoo search engine during April of 2006. Keep in mind that at the moment, Yahoo only represents about 20% of the entire search market, meaning that this number only represents 1/5 of the total searches for Online Survey. Taking into account all search engine traffic, it’s realistic to infer that Online Survey was searched for nearly 825,000 times during the month of April!

Now that is some high quality traffic. Naturally I went through the proper steps to try and secure domain names associated with these keywords. First stop, onlinesurvey.com. This domain name was already registered to someone else (since 1997), but surprisingly, the website didn’t actually have a “real” web page associated with it. So, I checked the whois database entry on the subject, and found contact information on the owner of the domain name. I sent him a quick email, and waited for a response.

While waiting for a response, I decided to check out other versions of this same domain name. It appeared as if onlinesurveys.com was being used and contained a legitimate website. Next I tried online-survey.com as well as online-surveys.com. These aren’t as desirable as onlinesurvey.com, but they were worth investigating. I found out quickly that online-survey.com was not being used for a “real” web page. Once again, I checked the whois database, and this time I learned that the site had a private registration, leaving me no method for contacting them.

As for the owner of online-surveys.com, I was able to find their contact information in the whois database, but they did not reply to any messages that I sent.

I did, however, receive a response from the owner of onlinesurvey.com. He told me that he would sell me the domain name for $50,000, which was well out of the price range of Strategic Performance Group. While I do not doubt that this is a valuable domain name, I think a figure of $50,000 seems high.

This story may seem off topic from the original theme of this article, but I think it was necessary to paint a picture of the current domain name market. I tried to use a real life example to reinforce to you the concepts I laid out at the beginning of this post. For example, I mentioned that there are not many quality domain names available, and that the majority of quality domain names were obtained in the late 1990’s. That was certainly the case with onlinesurvey.com, as it was obtained in 1997.

While it may seem remarkable that this domain name is being offered for $50,000, it’s most likely that this domain name would not go for this price on an open market. Much like the real estate market, there is a significant difference between the “asking price” of a domain name, and the final sale price. In fact, this difference is much higher when it comes to domain names, and the final sale price is often a fraction of the original asking price.

Another thing to consider is that this domain name has been registered to the same person/entity since 1997. They have owned this domain name for almost 10 years, and have still not been able to sell the domain for their desired asking price! This certainly disproves the whole “get rich quick” mentality of many current domain prospectors. In addition, they have to pay fees for every year that they own the domain name. While these fees are minimal, they add to the opportunity cost of not selling the domain name.

While I’m not denying that domain name prospecting is a lucrative business, I am warning you that if you want to begin acquiring domain names you will need to have patience and be humble at first. Over the years, you may acquire some domain names that pay you thousands of dollars. However, the amount of money you make domain prospecting is not likely to be enough for you to quit your day job.

Digital Mantis Application

Digital Mantis frequently uses whois databases to find information on domain names. Many clients are impressed with our ability to easily peruse the whois information, and easily provide them with otherwise complicated (or even unattainable) information.

Digital Mantis Application

Digital Mantis has aided clients in securing private registrations of domain names. While there is a small fee associated with private registration, it has helped ease the minds of clients who do not want their personal contact information to be available on the Internet.