SEO/SEM News

Google, based on statistics, is probably the most popular search engine in the world today. But Russia is a whole different territory where language and culture is different and Google just can’t seem to penetrate.

What websites do Russian’s visit?

Most probably their own websites if you will ask me. I have no valid statistical study but I will base my findings from 3 websites looking at their ClustrMaps.

Action Online - Business and Technology Blog

This SEO/SEM Blog

Pinoy Isulong

Although these websites above are not really targeted for the Russian audience, it was not specifically targeted for the Chinese audience either. For Indian, Australian and for people in countries in Europe, but you can see still there is quite a large amount of traffic coming from those areas even if these sites are not specifically geo-targetted. But if you check the traffic from Russia, only some occasional one or two dots from Russia will come out.

But for sure the Internet is alive in Russia, with all these Russian SEO friends we have on Digital Point’s forum and also these SEO applications made by Russian programmers, for sure the Internet is alive in Russia. But what websites do they visit? Most probably they visit Russian websites as well.

Language and cultural preferences probably does not make Google the top search engine in Russia

The top visited websites in Russia as reported by Eric Pfanner on the New York Times says the top 3 most visited sites in Russia are Yandex, Mail.ru and Rambler. And based on online advertising revenue, Yandex controls 50% of the market and Rambler is second with 41%. The remaining 9% is for other online ad companies that include Google. Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh also says in this report:

“With real estate, it’s location, location, location,” he said. “On the Internet, it’s technology, technology, technology. We have this homegrown technology that in many cases is better than theirs.”

Ironically, one of the founders of Google, Sergey Brin is a Russian and was born in Moscow in 1973. Unfortunately, Google is having a hard time dominating his mother land.

Are you getting an information overload already with everything you can watch, read and listen to online? Here is more information coming to your computer screens.

So what was the deal with Google and NASA all about? It’s 1:30pm and their meeting started less than 3 hours ago.

Here are a few things NASA and Google have teamed up to work on as part of their Space Act Agreement:

• Real-time weather data visualization and forecasting
• 3D maps of the Moon and Mars
• Monitoring of the international space station and space shuttles

Both Google and NASA said they intend to incorporate NASA data with Google Earth.

NASA Ames director S. Pete Worden said: the Google deal reflected an agency push to work closer with private industry.

I want NASA Ames to establish partnerships with the private sector that will encourage innovation, while advancing the vision for space exploration and commercial interests.

via: InformationWeek

We all know Google and NASA has been teaming up already ever since Google Maps started showing satellite images and Google Earth with a 3D touch to it. Then Google Moon and Google Mars came out. With Cassini’s last flyby over Jupiter, maybe Google Jupiter will soon follow. As mentioned by Garett Rogers earlier today on ZDNet, NASA Ames Schedules briefing to discuss Google Agreement as mentioned in the NASA press release. which will be on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 11:00am Pacific standard time. They will be discussing the Space Act Agreement. A Space Act Agreement’s purpose as taken from the official document:

Sec. 401. (a) The purpose of this title is to authorize and direct the Administration to develop and carry out a comprehensive program of research, technology, and monitoring of the phenomena of the upper atmosphere so as to provide for an understanding of and to maintain the chemical and physical integrity of the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

And with the good research Garett does, he points out iEarth, a software by NASA that had problems putting together various data about the Earth and has used Google Earth to superimpose this data as a solution to their problem. Could this be part of the discussed Space Act Agreement? Will we be seeing atmospheric pressure, temperature, wind direction, wind velocity, amount of rain fall, sea level elevation and other data in Google Earth and Google Maps in the future? Let’s see what news comes out after Monday, December 18, 2006.