Google May Change Your Page Titles

In case you were not aware, Google "reserves the right" to change the titles of your pages in search results. Google's Matt Cutts has released a video discussing why and how they go about doing this.

Cutts says Google wants to show the titles that it thinks are most useful. "For example, suppose the title of your page is 'Untitled' or if there is no title. If that's the case, we try to show a relevant, useful title."

"We reserve the right to try to figure out what's a better title, what's a more descriptive title or snippet to show the users," he continues.

According to Cutts, if you have a title that's really long, they may still use that in their scoring, but in the snippet, they might try to find a "better title." This is presumably based on what the user is looking for.

As Cutts has said in the past, sometimes Google will use snippets right from the Open Directory Project (DMOZ). Sometimes, they'll simply use snippets from the page or the meta description tag. "We do a bunch of different things to find the best description that we can," he says.

"If you have a bad title or a title that we don't think helps users as much, we can try to find a better title, and one we think will be an informative result so that users will know whether that's a good result for them to click on," he says.

Have you noticed Google changing your titles? Did they find better ones? Discuss here.

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In Some Ways Twitter is Better Than LinkedIn for Jobs

Twitter is a tool that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It can also mean a lot of different strategies and opportunities for a lot of different businesses. More and more companies and jobseekers alike are using the social network/microblogging platform as a way to find and fill jobs.

Traditionally, Twitter has been known as the network of choice for jobseekers. That role has been filled by LinkedIn. LinkedIn, however, is finding that other social networks are invading its territory to some extent. Just last month, we looked at a story from Fortune, claiming that recruiters were increasingly turning to Facebook to find job candidates. One reason for this is that Facebook offers a broader look at the candidate in many cases. People tend to be more in their natural element on Facebook than they do on LinkedIn, which is meant for business networking. This applies to Twitter too.

That's not to say that LinkedIn is having trouble maintaining usage. comScore recently reported that LinkedIn neared its all-time high in July, with about 8 million visitors. That's a 66% increase from the year before. 

 Twitter is gaining momentum in an industry where LinkedIn has been thriving for some time though - the jobs industry. This topic was explored in a recent Mercury News article. "Accessible by computer or cell phones, Twitter can be used to post a job, poke around for one, bone up on a potential boss, or simply keep your friends updated on your job hunt," says Mercury's Patrick May. "It's free and it's fast. And while social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn focus on connecting you with people you know, Twitter makes it easier to broadcast messages widely and to form groups of common interest. By 'following' others and having them follow you, the conversations quickly multiply."

And there is certainly no shortage of tweeting going on. Twitter appeared to suffer a temporary slip in tweets in August, but that is likely due to some denial-of-service attacks that occurred in that time, causing interruptions (more than normal) in the Twitterverse. Numbers for September looked more positive, showing tweeting on the rise again. As we make our way out of recession and more companies begin to hire, you can bet on Twitter playing a vital role in the filling of a great many positions.

All you need to know about RSS

What does RSS mean?

RSS may mean three different things. The original RSS (RDF Site Summary RSS 0.9) was developed by Dan Libby for Netscape. After a couple of months, they produced a simpler and easier-to-use version called Rich Site Summary or RSS 0.91. But they later lost interest, leaving it without an owner. As more and more users were using RSS, Winer made an adapted version of RSS 0.91 for Userland, claiming it as his own. Later in 2005, Microsoft developed Really Simple Syndication in relation to its Simple Sharing Extensions.

What is RSS?

RSS is a XML file format for syndicating content and news in the web. It is usually used by websites that constantly need to update their content regularly such as news websites (CNN, BBC and Reuters) and weblogs. Since it essentially gives one’s webpage more traffic, it is now more widely used in marketing, web publications and virus reports. Today, large and small websites alike are usually RSS-enabled.

For example, you’re an avid fan of baseball and you want to share something recent about one of the players. Other than content, you can also attach multimedia files, like videos or pictures. By using RSS feeds, other Internet users subscribed to RSS-enabled sites can read your “headline” for free. They can also track for changes and updates using news aggregators, which will be discussed later on.

How does RSS work?

To be able to use RSS, you first have to download a software (content management system), by which XML format can be read. The title and, excerpt of the article, and a link to the full article are shown. Other than just text, you can also insert multimedia files in RSS feeds like pictures, videos, mp3s and others. Broadcatching, picturecasting, photocasting, and podcasting are some features you can incorporate into your feed, but will not be discussed in this article.

For users to access a RSS feed, they need to use an aggregator or a feed reader. An aggregator searches for updates on RSS-enabled webpages then displays it. It can either be a standalone program or a web browser extension, depending on your operating system. Search engines for web content broadcasted over RSS feed are also available such as Plazoo and Feedster.

How can I make an RSS feed?

It is definitely easier to make an RSS feed if you know HTML. If not, you could sign up for a blog (there are hundreds out there), some of which automatically creates RSS. If you’re using a personal webpage building system, you need to understand more about RSS. Making an RSS feed from scratch is relatively easy.

An RSS feed should always contain an “item”, whichever version of RSS you might use. If you wrote about a recent event in your city or a book review, the contents of this article can form an item. An item is essentially composed of three things: a title, its description, and link (where they can find your webpage). In choosing a title and description, use something that will describe the web content best. Although it will be easier for you, it doesn’t follow that the title tag of your webpage and the item title are the same.

An item will look like HTML tags. First, you need to put an opening channel tag that defines it as an XML file. Then, label the tag as an item by putting <item> after the channel tag. After this, you can now insert the three essentials of your item: <title>, <description>, and <link>. Just like HTML, we need to close the tag by writing </channel> and </rss> at the bottom.

An RSS feed that contains multiple tags looks like this:

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<rss version=”2.0″>

<channel>

<item>
<title>Arisyulianta.com: Make Money Online</title>
<description> If you haven’t read Arisyulianta.com yet, you will be greeted with shocking make money online secret… </description>
<link> http://arisyulianta.com </link>

<item>
<title>What is RSS Feed?</title>
<description> The recently released RSS secret has proved for fellow readers…</description>
<link> http://arisyulianta.com/what-is-rss-feed </link>

</channel>

</rss>

Now, if you’re still having a hard time understanding these tags, look for HTML tags tutorial to further grasp the concept. Have fun!