Even the biggest and brightest stars in the online galaxy are at risk of flickering, as search giants Google were reminded this week. But, despite the concern caused by Google's outage on Friday, it doesn't seem likely that its place in the constellation is under threat from the technical glitch. Instead, the launch of a new rival search experience offered by Wolfram Alpha may prove more worrying for the current kings of search.
As always, Google's media presence was a mixed bag this week with Fridays' issues balanced by the exciting news the search engine brought us at its much anticipated Searchology event. The search expo sparked much industry discussion and prompted a number of bigmouths to explore the impact new Google techniques will have on the search sphere; including an investigation of the practical application of Rich Snippets and a look at search engine optimisation for the semantic web era.
This week, one of our newshounds also had a look at thin affiliate indexing problems and how to avoid them with some savvy organisation, while another bigmouth discusses the way that planning ahead can help site owners take advantage of search surges by looking at the way football penalties increase search engine use.
Google also revealed further health-related updates this week as it continues its quest to become indispensible to web users and web browser stars Mozilla took another step towards catching up with arch rival Internet Explorer this week, as figures reveal Firefox's popularity is growing in Europe.
Additionally, the news that written content sharing site Scribd is to launch an option for users to purchase content will be welcome to authors and publishers the world over, as people come to terms with the fact that e-books are here to stay.
It's been a dynamic week in cyber-space, so chart the stars of this week's news with a little help from the bigmouthmedia newsletter and avoid an information black hole.
Scribd to enter the ebook market
Document-sharing site Scribd take on Amazon for lucrative ebook market
Wolfram Alpha arrives, get searching
The computational knowledge engine Wolfram Alpha has been launched today after much hype and anticipation - hitting the tweetstream by storm pushing (hash)wolframalpha to the top 5 on Tweetstats.
Search engine optimisation for the Semantic Web era
The World of Search is constantly evolving: those who want to achieve top positions on search engine rankings need to be worried not only of what's happening now, but what the future might bring us.
Google's Friday outage continues to cause concern
Google's one hour outage has caused concern among experts about the search engine's ability to deal with downtime.
Thin affiliate indexing problems: you need spider efficiency
A bigmouthmedia reporter investigates the idea that Google Suggest may be telling us more about the biggest brands in the UK.
Search engine use increases after penalties
Penalties in football are always followed by huge surges in search engine traffic and our friendly bigmouthmedia search experts want you to know that knowing about search surges like this can help you drive more traffic to your site.
Firefox makes a welcome weekend break for Europeans
The popularity of Firefox is growing in Europe, with weekend usage soaring against currently dominant Internet Explorer. Could this be enough to take the Mediterranean wind out of Microsoft's sails?
Dr. Google will see you now
Further health related updates revealed for Google.
Recapping Google's Searchology revelations
Revelations made at yesterday's Google Searchology event will let users view search results like never before.
Rich Snippets – Microformats take another step forward
Google has announced that "Rich Snippets" will be used within search results in future.
