Google Announces Hosted site search for businesses

Official Google Blog:: "Today we've released Custom Search Business Edition (CSBE) to do just that. CSBE is a hosted site search solution that provides Google-quality results for your website. It's fast, relevant, reliable, and flexible, so that users can quickly find what they're looking for through search results customized and integrated into your business website.

CSBE builds on the Google Custom Search Engine, a hosted search solution we introduced last October that allows organizations to create a search engine and search results that are tailored to their point of view... Businesses that want further control over results presentation and integration with their website can obtain results through XML. Now those of you with business sites have the option to turn off ads and have further control over branding. In addition, CSBE provides options for email and phone support. The pricing starts at $100 per year for searching up to 5,000 pages."

Finally Google is offering a 'private label' search service, and seems affordable too. Now I feel bad for folks like Picosearch.

Don't Lose Your Visitors: Better 404 Pages

Devlounge: "Error pages control a lot more of our destiny than you may think. If a visitor has the unfortunate coincidence of reaching an error page on your site, chances of them attempting to access the page again are slim to none, especially if they were referred to the page from a direct link. How can you prevent this? Don’t let your error pages, especially 404, go un-noticed..."

This article is a handy summary of why it is important to carefully consider the design of your error pages when developing your site strategy. This can be of particular importance if you are doing a major redesign or any other thing that will change the existing structure of your site. You don't want to completely lose what you've worked hard to gain in terms of bookmarks and search engine entries.

Five Tools for Spying on Your Competition

"By understanding the marketing strategies of your competitor, you can always stay a step ahead of them. The key is knowing how to obtain all of this vital information without having to hire a PR firm, an FBI agent, or an undercover spy. Luckily for us, all we need are a few online tools to find out exactly how are competitors are running the show."

Spying is kind of a harsh word when it comes to keeping an eye on the competition. It's not like these sites are tracking down secret formulas. However, they appear to be some easier ways of tracking down info than completely manual processes. I find Google Alerts to be very handy. In fact, I suggest setting up google alerts related to your own business as a way to keep an eye on your own internet presence. Sometimes you'll be pleasantly surprised to see a link on a blog or something you might now be aware of without the help of such an alert.