As our site grows every day we want to share some information with you on the way we are operating the project. We call this section «Business Blog» as it is similar to doing a log book where data is recorded in a chronological order. «Blogging» is gaining popularity with more and more people picking up the habit of publishing their experiences and thoughts on the Internet. Our Blog covers various topics — from TOEFL, TOEIC, MBA, GMAT, ESL/EFL test preperation to cultural traditions and current political events.
There will also be some Internet marketing terminology and if you have any questions regarding the information simply let us know.

The Business Blog is written by Torsten Daerr and edited by Alan Townend.

2003 — September 10
If you are an attentive and regular reader of our NetLog (and of course you are), you surely remember that I mentioned something very good happened to our website a couple of days ago! It all has to do with Mr Gates. His web portal is called MSN — Microsoft Network and it’s also the third largest web search directory (after Google and Yahoo). The good news for us is that now a lot of people from all around the world are finding our site through MSN because we are listed at the top with the following three search terms: english test (with a total of over 2.5 million results), english tests and free english tests. Other than Google, MSN is not a «crawler» — a server that identifies and indexes webpages — but rather a search directory which means the submitted websites are evaluated and entered by human beings instead of a software program.
Of course, human editors can't do everything, so MSN Search also relies on search providers for answers to many of its queries. Usually, it will be human-powered results from the LookSmart directory that dominate each page. The obvious advantage of such a directory is the greater effectiveness of a search query because the listings are arranged by editors — people who have actually read the contents of a website and have even added a short description to each entry. I’ve read that Microsoft has been investing millions of dollars to improve their search service and get the edge over Google and Yahoo.

2003 — September 09
Back in 1998, I purchased a booklet called «Insider Internet Marketing» by Jim Daniels — not to be confused with Jack Daniels of course! ;-)
Half a year later, I lent the book to an acquaintance of mine who then claimed to have sent it back to me via mail (despite living in the same town) although to this day I haven't received it.
Instead of whining about the loss, I decided to order yet another copy of it online and so five years after my original purchase, I’m reading the book again. I must admit that ever since I got connected to the internet in December 1995, I've been looking for information on how to make a living online. Jim Daniel’s little book is in my opinion a must for anybody who is searching for an alternative to their 9 to 5 job. Even today, 5 years after his book’s first edition, Jim Daniels delivers a unique insight into the business opportunities the internet provides along with strategies to learn how to take advantage of them. He tells you how he quit his job 8 months after he had started searching the internet for ways to establish his own home-based business. He was a technician at a telecommunications company until the end of 1997, when the income from his part-time online venture had surpassed his weekly paycheck from his full-time job. I haven't met Jim Daniels in person yet but based on all the information I have about him (including his book), I’m convinced that everything he says is true and his success principles can be duplicated…

2003 — September 08
Last Friday my grandmother turned 90! It goes without saying that this was reason enough for me to leave my computer alone for three days in order to celebrate this big event with her. I sometimes wonder what life will be like in about 60 years (that’s when I’m supposed to hit 90). Will the internet still be around then? It most certainly will, although the technology we are currently using will be old-fashioned by then and most likely smiled upon or even forgotten all together. These days it’s hard to predict what will happen within the next 5 years, so who can say what the long term future will look like? However, one thing is for sure. In 50 years and beyond, there will be millions of people speaking English and using the language to find answers to the many questions that emerge during the course of their lives.
As for my grandmother — well, she has been sticking to her mother tongue and has managed to come up with a lot of her own answers such as how to keep mentally and physically fit way into old age. Her tips include: avoid idleness of any nature, adopt a major purpose in life, design a plan for its attainment and spend the bigger portion of each day acting upon it. Ah, and play Rummy with your friends and family regularly. Sometimes my niece plays cards with my grandmother and the two of them are 80 years apart in age…

2003 — September 05
This week we have often talked about Google. So, what is it that has made Google the number one search engine within a breathtakingly short time? Without going into all the technical details here is what it comes down to in my opinion.
The founders of Google researched the behaviour of millions of internet users worldwide and drew the following conclusions:

• most people use the internet to find information
• most people use search engines to help them find that information
• the vast majority know of only two or three search engines

Therefore these search engines receive a couple of million search queries per day. Another observation they made was that the majority of people using a search engine look only at the top search results of any search query. If you type the term «business» into a major search engine you will receive a list with upwards of 50 million webpages. How many of them do you think will attract 90% of the total number of visits? It's quite obvious that any page that is not listed in the top 10-20 search results will receive almost zero hits. This means most people looking for information on a search engine don't bother clicking through more than the first, top-ranked, pages. The reason for this behaviour could be either a lack of time or a lack of patience or a combination of both.
Yet as you probably know from your personal experience the top of the list often does not contain the most relevant information in regard to the keyword or key phrase you were looking for. This is where Google's system comes into play…