I have used NoDofollow add-on for Firefox for a long time now. It is actually my favourite Firefox addon, just a little one effective enough to show you dofollow and nofollow links. But as I upgraded Firefox to latest version 3.6 some days ago, I found NoDofollow is  not woking with it. So I waited and waited for the original developer to make an update to support it for latest Firefox. But it hasn’t happened yet. But today I found an unofficial version of NoDofollow that supports Firefox 3.6. You can find it in Scott Miller’s blog. I tested it personally in my Firefox 3.6 and it is working perfectly.

Have your ever checked your page load time with Google Page Speed? Perhaps you have checked the site loading time using some other speed test services. But you can do it by using Google’s own Page Speed Service. For that you need FireBug addon with Firefox web browser. But frankly speaking, I was never not too excited about it. The page speed activity looked somewhat clumsy to me. First of all, it will display all the request and response times for whole open browsing session. That means if you have more than a site opened in your Firefox then the log will get mixed up with all the service times across the domains in a single console. And the individual request time just comes and goes through the console. So when a processing is finished like a image loading or Javascript execution, those timings will vanish from console. If you want to monitor times, you have to stop Page Speed Activity in the middle of page loading. That is rather inconvenient. By the way, check this manual from Google to learn in detail how to test page load speed of a single site and monitor times in log.

But one thing that stands out is analyzing performance using Page Speed.

So it will have a thorough check-up of your page and give you a overall score out of hundred. And it will list all the problems from DNS  request, url  redirection, image loading to CSS, Javascript or caching problems. You may find out a few things that you really need to tweak.

Many of us wake up every morning and sit down in front of our computers and not really realize what is going on behind the scenes of the industry and how much this mammoth communication tool has actually grown since its birth not too long ago. The internet has really only just begun and I can see these numbers in this video really increasing frantically as time moves forward.

This is a great video, not related to search engine optimization, but a really cool one to check out:

The generations behind us are increasingly computer savvy when it comes to the online space and we will see more and more young developers and entrepreneurs climbing the search rankings as pioneers in the search space. This video allows us to see what the internet really is in a whole new light. You know that it is a very active space but you never realize how big it truly is until you see the numbers first hand, amazing video that really allows you to see things from a different angle.

Are you are still applying the same exact SEO tactics that you did a few years back? Have you evolved into what is happening now in the search marketing space? If you haven’t you could be shooting yourself in the foot with your online marketing approach. This is a very fast moving industry that requires a great deal of constant education. I won’t compare it to the education level needed to consistently be a good doctor but there is a fair amount of information that needs to be digested at almost all times to stay on top of the internet trends. Savvy start-ups are springing to action with great force almost every single day. Some of these new technology start-ups are changing the way that people communicate online and if you don’t keep up with it you could fall behind your competition.

The pace of change is much like a runaway locomotive train and consumers along with businesses are trying to simply grab a hold and stay on. The reason why old SEO tactics do not work like they used to is because consumers are starting to act and purchase on trust rather than emotion. They need to see your business in many different areas before they decided to contact you for any reason.

Let’s take a look at some location and mobile search marketing areas that I think we will see strong growth online in the very near future:

1. Location Based Search Marketing: Foursqaure and Gowalla have taken what Twitter does and twisted and tweaked it to remove the spammy business side that tends to infiltrate the website now. Your phone understands where you are and shows you a list of places surrounding your immediate location. You can then check in to those places to let others know you are there and how you feel about it. In this process you receive badges for frequency of check-ins. Recently Facebook and Twitter both have already started implementing their own location based features. This is obviously a direction where things are starting to head. Location based marketing is really just getting started but it will eventually be an integral part of any online marketing campaign.

2. Mobile Phone Applications: Search engines are not just on desktop computers and laptops anymore. They now follow people around in their pockets on their mobile phones. The mobile app industry is absolutely exploding and more and more users are shifting away from looking up a business on their mobile website and moving to just downloading a mobile app version for that specific business. It makes things much easier for the user and more efficient as well. As devices get stronger and more powerful people are going to rely on their hand held devices even more making it very important that all business get involved with the online mobile space sooner than later.

3. Trust Trumps All: Technology is growing at such a rapid pace that many of us don’t really have the time to keep up with everything going on around us. We are all in an era that is under a heavy content overload. Everywhere you turn online you see more news, more information and more ads. Consumers are trying to really bob and weave to avoid the junk that is being thrown at them everyday. Trust is going to drive purchases in the future. Online trust is going to have a very heavy decision factor for many companies and individuals looking to make a purchase online. With so many new websites and businesses making their way into search results the ability to really brand yourself and stand out from the crowd is going to be vital in the very near future. No more spammy SEO techniques for just ranking. You seriously have to brand your business online the right way to grow and prosper.

The search engine marketing space is changing every day. New unfathomable technologies creep up and infiltrate our communities on a regular basis creating brand new platforms for everyone to jump on and be part of. This is not going to slow down and applying SEO techniques from years past is not going to prepare you for the future. The future of search is happening right now. We can see the industry going through the changes already which means that businesses have to go through the changes as well.