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.

2004 — July 11
On August 15 this year the NetLog will have been online exactly one year. When I recently checked the statistics I was pleasantly surprised to see that our little diary is now opened more than 100 times each day. Some people even print off pages and that's we call «viral marketing» — of the most effective promotion methods available. You probably know the difference between reading a text online and reading the same text printed on paper which is much more pleasant for the eyes and you are more likely to read the text thoroughly as opposed to skimming through it on a webpage. So, the more pages you print off of our website the closer the connection you establish with us because you become more interested in what you are reading. That's why I will continue sharing the latest news, ideas and suggestions with you here in the netlog.
As for the start of July — a lot of good things have been happening: Slava has made quite a number of changes to the site enhancing its functionality for our users even more. You now can subscribe to Alan's newsletter from every single page. Currently more than 11 people sign up for our free e-zine — that's more than 300 people per month. If you like, you can now also download all back issues of Alan's Language Titbits in PDF here: Alan's Language Titbit's

2004 — July 09
Germany's unemployment rate has been very high ever since re-unification and I can see a number of reasons for this: First of all the Germans always have valued traditions, stability and security more than flexibility and innovation. It usually takes ages for the Germans to make changes in their political as well as economic structure. Or take the German education system. Especially in the East of Germany you can still find a lot resistance against reforms and more democracy. Let me give you an example: I recently worked in an institution that claims to offer occupational training on a European level. And indeed, they organize a 4 week work placement in the UK or Ireland. This summer their German students worked for 4 weeks in various Dublin based companies where they could get an insight into Irish corporate culture. When the students returned the school gave them a project work assignment: Write down your experiences in some kind of handbook, a guide for those students who will take the workplacement in the future. The students liked that idea and one team created a simple website with their photos and little stories that happened during their stay in Dublin. They put their pages online - hosting them on a sub-level domain of another friend's website. When the management of that school found out about that website they quit their contract with the teacher who was in charge of the project. The explanation was simple: We do not allow our students to publish their experiences on the internet. That's the German spirit: Regulations, limitations, laws, rules and of course punishment. Fortunately enough the young generation is much more open to changes and I'm sure they are capable of facing all of Germany's challenges.

2004 — July 08
Upon my last visit to CNN.com I was very surprised to see that they are no longer with Google as their search provider. Not only this, they have also replaced Google ads for Overture text based links. It seems that the search engine battle has been taken to another level with Google losing market share. Rumor has it that Microsoft is planning to launch a new search service with far more sophisticated technology than Google's. Interestingly enough, AOL which belongs to the same parent company as CNN, still uses Google. At any rate, I'm sure we see a lot of change in the industry over the next few months. For the majority of internet users these developments won't have a huge impact. It is the small number of web marketing professionals and SEO experts who are following the latest Google news.

2004 — June 30
Tomorrow english-test.net will have been online for exactly one year — a good time to review recent achievements. A couple of days ago Google gave our site PageRank 6. Now, what exactly does this mean to you, our user? Well, I'm sure you know about the importance of Google — it has become the world's leading search engine within a very short period of time. As Google themselves state — PageRank provides the basis for all of their web search tools. Like many other systems that have gained international recognition, PageRank is simple yet powerful. It is based on a democratic principle: Linking webpages to each other to create a vast yet transparent and reliable network. Google's PageRank evaluates the weight of each single webpage by giving it a grade on a scale of 0 to 10. So, a webpage showing PageRank 10 is very valuable according to Google's assessment. PagerRank is mainly determined by the number of webpages linking to a certain page. For example, if 10,000 webpages link to www.bbc.co.uk it is a clear indicator that this particular page is very important — otherwise why would so many people make a link with it. If you want to see the Google PageRank of a certain page you can install Google's free toolbar — a little program that appears in the task bar of your webbrowser enhancing its functionality. For example the Google toolbar shows you how important A webpage is, it blocks annoying pop-up ads and translates webpages for you into English or other languages.