Google Webmaster Central Blog
Google has published an “SEO Starter Guide” to answer some of the questions you may have about search engine optimization. The compact guide list some best practices that the Google team and many webmasters follow to improve their sites’ “crawlability and indexing.”

The 22-page guide steps through about a dozen optimization topics, such as improving titles and descriptions meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, and content creation. On the last page you will find a list of links, as well as helpful resources in case you get stuck, including tips on hiring an SEO, so you don’t go it alone.

Search Engine People
What can White Hat and Black Hat SEO teach us about social media optimization? Brian Carter makes a gallant effort to explain by first defining the terms and then providing examples. Through a combination of Web sites, numerous blogs, and social networks, Carter holds six of the top 10 rankings for his name, and 10 of the top 20. So, Carter considers himself a “White Hat,” meaning he’s earned the rankings with hard work, quality content and maintaining a good reputation. (more…)

beu blog
Google and Adobe have teamed up on a new algorithm to index text in Flash. The results: Googlebot now indexes “textual content in SWF files of all kinds and extracts URLs embedded in Flash.” Brian Ussery spent months of research to illustrate how Google handles Flash since the update in July, which is designed to assist Googlebot to traverse simple JavaScript, like SWFObject. While the full impact is yet unknown, the technologies will redefine how Flash sites are created, constructed, designed and, as a result, optimized. (more…)

Ars Technica
Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 is officially here, and Ars Technica has an in-depth look at its features and functionality. Mozilla hopes to make this latest version a strong incremental improvement with user interface enhancements, new features, and increased support for emerging web standards.
The new server includes an improved JavaScript engine, which supposedly makes it faster than Google Chrome’s V8 engine - except it isn’t quite enabled by default, and appears buggy. (more…)

Webware
Yahoo has rebranded IndexTools as Yahoo Web Analytics, likely the first step in really giving Google Analytics a run for its money. “Its big advantage over Google Analytics is that the information is updated within a few minutes of user activity,” says Josh Lowensohn. “In comparison, stats from Google tend to take about 24 hours, however anyone can sign up for it.”

Currently, the only issue with the new suite is the excessively high demand for it. While advertisers and third-party developers already have access to Yahoo Web Analytics, small business owners and other interested parties are being added to a wait list. But there’s an easy way to get your hands on the new version ahead of the masses, Lowensohn says, and that’s to tap Yahoo for either search or display ad services.