Yahoo is the new kid on the block

We all know how hard it is to optimize for Search Engines but one city in Israel has learned how to optimize itself for all 3 Search Engine Companies. As you can see below, all of the major international search engine companies have offices next to each other so all their employees can take advantage of the beautiful beach view.

All 3 search engine companies are neighbors here in Haifa, Israel. Look closely to see the Google, Yahoo and Microsoft logos on the buildings. Also, click on the photos below for a close up.

Click on photos to enlarge and see search engine company logos on the building

Readers of this blog already know that Microsoft and Google have been here for a while. (If you are not a regular reader, get your RSS feed – no need to worry—I only post about once a month).  Our copywriter, Natalie, tipped me off that Yahoo has now also moved in to the Search Engine neighborhood so I grabbed my camera to bring you these exclusive photos. And now that I have a Flip video camera, I grabbed that too.

How did Haifa, Israel become host to all the major search engine companies? And which major internet company will move in next?  Facebook? Digg? Stay tuned and we will let you know as soon as we find out.

Click if you want a panoramic view with audio of the search engine company neighborhood

The beach view that all the search engine people watch when they aren’t working

Well, wonder no longer. Take a break and have some fun with Wordle at http://www.wordle.net/.  And if you don’t like fish, other options are available.

This is much more than a typical word cloud. You can spend hours playing with all the different options. Some are quite beautiful. Use it to print your business cards—they can show what your company is all about at a glance.

This is what this blog looks like on Wordle - the Word Cloud maker.

Internet marketing company pushes the envelope by recycling fruit and vegetables to produce eggs.

It is very fashionable to go green today and Internet marketing offices are jumping on the bandwagon. A search for Green SEO brings up over 20 million results according to Google. A clean environment is a great thing to work for but we do have to be careful of little green lies.

Green SEO brings up over 20 million results

There is isn’t too much an SEO company can do that is different than any other company - recycling, saving energy and the like. However that didn’t stop me from writing a Green SEO article. I did think of a couple of things the SEO crowd can do.

And I think that our office is pushing the envelope by recycling apple cores and other organic remains to feed my son’s chickens which we expect will start laying eggs soon. Every weekend I take the leftover fruit and vegetables to the chicken coop in our backyard.

Read more about Green SEO….

SEO for Extraterrestrials

It is a good idea to target extraterrestrials in order to break away from the over crowded global marketing scene here on earth. We will use Klingons as a case study to show the best methodology for extraterrestrial SEO.

Our first goal is to help people on Earth to market to Klingons. Although there are many technical problems, this group is worth targeting now that they are allies of the United Federation of Planets. Less money spent on making war frees up more disposable income.

First, we want to see if Klingons are a market. Google has a Klingon interface which proves just that. More on
Multilingual Internet Marketing – The Final Frontier

Google interface in Klingon

I thought it was interesting that here in Israel, Google and Microsoft located their offices very close to each other as you can see below.

I had to wade into the water so you could see how close the Google and Microsoft offices are. You can see my sandals in the foreground. Click to enlarge.

Close up of Google’s offices

Close up of Microsoft’s offices

Israel is a very small country and it isn’t unusual for competitors to locate near each other.

There are also great reasons to locate here in Haifa (full disclosure–my office is in Haifa too):

• A beautiful view of the beach
• Close to the Technion–with a great supply of excellent engineering graduates (full disclosure again: I am a Technion graduate)
• Close proximity to freeway and train

Despite our marching towards a global village it seems like local customs still influence multinationals. It is nice that both Google and Microsoft employees can enjoy the view of the Mediterranean.

The Israeli beach–not a bad view for hard working search engine people.

Today we posted our SEO Cartoon Quiz. I hope it will create a lot of smiles in the Internet marketing community (I don’t think regular people will get the jokes). As soon as we finished setting up the quiz a lot more ideas started to come to us. Maybe we will have to put out another edition one day.