With 'Arctic Sea,' Google offers a Web-app boost

Google has passed a significant milestone with the release of its first version of Native Client, a software foundation designed to let Web-based applications tap into a person's computer chip.
The software, called Arctic Sea, is available built into Chrome 10, which entered beta testing yesterday. "A big goal of this release is to enable developers to start building Native Client modules for Chrome applications," product manager Christian Stefansen said of the Native Client release in a blog post today.
Native Client--NaCl for short--is an unusual approach to the challenge of letting people download software over the Web. Web applications today often use JavaScript, an increasingly powerful language but one that still limits a program's performance compared with those running natively on a computer--Skype or Photoshop, for example.
Google's NaCl project lets such native software be downloaded directly from a Web server but includes specific security mechanisms to keep out malicious code. Native Client modules must be written with specially modified tools to restrict use of potentially harmful instructions, and the browser examines the software in advance to ensure it executes only the safe operations. NaCl also confines software to a "sandbox" with limited privileges.
Native Client could let code libraries written in the C programming language be relatively easily adapted for browser-based applications. That could make it easier, for example, to build into Web applications the codecs Skype uses for compressing and decompressing video and audio or for the processor-intensive tasks used in Photoshop's image processing. One company that's committed to Native Client is Unity 3D, whose video-game engine can use NaCl for things like simulating physics.
Why is that important? Because Google is a huge believer in cloud computing, in which the state of an application is stored on a central server on the Internet and a browser acts as a vessel to run it. With Native Client, Google thinks it can get to within just a few percentage points of the performance of ordinary native applications, removing a major impediment to the cloud-computing technology.
That is, as long as Google can convince the rest of the world to adopt it. Fortunately for Google, it's got Chrome as a vehicle to deliver such technology into people's hands--and with more than 10 percent of people on the Net using Chrome, Google has a real foothold. With Native Client, Chrome OS could become significantly more capable, too, and with a variation called PNaCl still in the works, it works on the ARM processors that power virtually all smartphones today. Today Native Client works only on 32-bit and 64-bit x86 processors.
A major part of Google's recent NaCl work has been rebuilding it to use a new browser plug-in interface called Pepper, or PPAPI. (NaCl is the chemical abbreviation for sodium chloride--table salt--and is paired with Pepper. Get it?) With this release and Chrome 10, NaCl now uses Pepper.
Native Client remains turned off by default for now, since its own interface isn't quite finished, but it can be enabled through Chrome's about:flags mechanism.
One reason Google is pitching NaCl to developers is that it's finished some security work that had been incomplete. An outer sandbox, not just an inner one, is working for additional protection. And an auto-update mechanism lets Google more quickly replace a version if it's found to have a security problem, the company said.
How far NaCl will spread beyond Chrome remains to be seen. But to be truly useful, it needs programmers writing code.
That's quite possible, of course. One indicator of interest came in a draft Firefox road map for 2011. Regarding Native Client support, Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's outgoing director of Firefox, had this to say: "Some vendor push here, mostly from Adobe."
Google still has some convincing to do. "I don't think Native Client is going to be a very big deal, but Google does, so we'll see how that plays out," Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, said in a 2010 interview.
And to use NaCl, browsers need a design that isolates plug-ins into separate memory compartments. "We aim to support multiple browsers. However, a number of features that we consider requirements for a production-quality system are difficult to implement without help from the browser. Specific examples are an out-of-process plug-in architecture and appropriate interfaces for integrated 3D graphics. We have worked closely with Chromium developers to deliver these features and we would be eager to collaborate with developers from other browsers," Google said on a NaCl FAQ
Native Client has support now for computing, audio, and 2D graphics. In addition, Google reworked NaCl so that programmers need not worry so much about specifying which particular processor NaCl is running on.
For those who want to give it a try, Google offers a few NaCl demos.
Coming up will be support for 3D graphics, local file storage, the Web Sockets technology for fast server-to-browser communication, and peer-to-peer networking, Google said. Some of that doubtless will wait for the second-generation "Baltic Sea" release.
"We are excited to see Native Client progressively evolve into a developer-ready technology," Google said. Next up will be seeing if programmers share the excitement.

Article information- http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20033365-264.html

7 Advanced SEO Tactics

If you're like most online webmasters, then you have probably read one article after the other about search engine optimization. Most of them rehash the same old information and you end up wading through tons of fluff.  However, this isn't one of those articles. Listed below are 7 advanced SEO tips that you won't find on every digital corner.
1. Syndicating Articles that Link to Your Sitemap
As you probably know, syndicating articles is one of the best methods for obtaining one-way backlinks.
They are also valuable pieces of search engine bait because search engine crawlers are frequent visitors to many high-profile article directories. If you want to get the spiders quickly crawling your site, simply submit an informative article to a site like EzineArticles, GoArticles, or ArticleCity.
However, there's another article marketing strategy that isn't mentioned much in marketing circles. This tactic can get the crawlers searching deeper into your site and indexing more of your pages. Simply link to your sitemap within the resource box. This will send the spiders straight to a content buffet where they can quickly slurp up all of your pages.
2. Translating Your Website Into Other Languages
Are you marketing in just one language? If so, you are missing out on 64.8% of your marketing potential. This is because 64.8% of the world is surfing the internet in a language other than English. By becoming a multilingual marketer, you immediately open up a stream of new markets. Google alone crawls web pages in 35 different languages.
One of the best ways to attract worldwide traffíc is to translate your site and register it with both English and foreign-language search engines and directories. If you are a seasoned SEO, you'll be happy to hear that the competition in foreign search engines is much less than in those of the United States.
In addition, online foreign language markets are currently growing at a much faster rate than English speaking markets.
You have the opportuníty to tap into this market while it's in an exponential growth phase.
3. ROR Sitemaps
As you probably know, sitemaps are important for making sure your site can be completely spidered and indexed by the search engines. Unfortunately, many of these sitemaps are specific to one search engine or another. For this reason, there have been a number of Google and Yahoo site map generators produced in recent years.
However, there is an alternative that is even more exciting. These are ROR sitemaps and they are readable by all search engines, not just by Google or Yahoo.
ROR is an exciting new sitemap tool that uses XML feeds to describe your website. These sitemaps are structured feeds that enable search engines to complement text search with structured information to better interpret the meaning of your site. With a ROR sitemap, search engines can better understand your products, services, images, newsletters, articles, podcasts, and anything else that you want to describe.
For example, if you are selling products, a ROR file enables you to document your product names, descriptions, prices, images, availability, affilíate programs, and any other
relevant information. Search engine crawlers like the Googlebot have an enormous job to do. It's time we start helping them to better understand our content.
4. Keyword Phrases that Convert
Selecting the right keyword phrases is the single most important aspect of any SEO campaign. Unfortunately, many webmasters target the wrong keywords. Too many of us target very general keywords like "real estate" or "internet marketing". Although these terms get lots of visitors, it is unlikely that you will be able to rank highly for them. Then, even if you do, this type of traffíc produces very low conversion rates because it does not target prospects.
You will be much more successful, if you target keyword phrases that are 3-4 words long. These terms are much less competitive and have been proven to convert much better than keywords that are 1 to 2 words long.
Who do you think is more likely to buy; someone who goes to Google and searches for "ipod" or someone who searches for "4gb black ipod nano"? Obviously, the person who searches for a more specific phrase is much closer to making a buying decision.
5. GoogSpy
Would you like to get an in-depth view of how your competitors run their business? Well, you can do exactly that with an online service known as GoogSpy. GoogSpy is a free research tool that will tell you what keywords your competitors are bidding on.
This tool tracks over 500,000 keywords every day from Google and then loads this goldmine of information into the GoogSpy.com database. Using this tool, you can browse by company or by search term.
This tool is extremely powerful. Unfortunately, many people take it for granted. This service basically hands you a business strategy on a silver platter. Maybe we should just keep this one to ourselves and enjoy the benefits of being one step ahead of our competition.
For example, let's say you wanted to do some in-depth research on Overstock.com, one of the largest companies online. You would simply go to googspy.com and type in overstock.com. You will then be shown thousands of words that this company bids on. These keywords are proven profít generators. Research like this would normally cost thousands of dollars, but they are providing it free of charge.
If you want to find keywords with high conversion rates, simply type in words such as buy and purchase. You will be shown keyword phrases that are bid on that include the words buy or purchase. These are very lucrative keyword phrases because the person who types in "buy sony playstation 2" knows exactly what they want. They're not just looking around, they are in buying mode. These are the type of keywords you want to bid on. Using GoogSpy, you can uncover these hidden gems in seconds.

Other high-converting keyword phrases include brand names and product names. Type in the keyword "camera" and you will find thousands of different brands and product names for cameras. These keywords are some of the best keywords because of their high conversion rate.
6. Internal Links Within Content
The navigation of your site is a crucial element of your search engine optimization campaign. Each link within your navigational structure should correlate with a keyphrase that you are trying to rank for.
However, you can also include internal links within your content. For example, let's say you have written an article about online marketing. Within the article are a number of keyword phrases. Some of these phrases include "link popularity" and "web site traffíc". If you have other articles within your site that pertain to these topics, then you should definitely link those keyword phrases to those articles. By doing this, you can increase the link popularity of other pages within the same site.
There are very few sites that take advantage of this optimization technique. By doing this, you enable the search engines to find and index much more of your site. These internal links also contribute to a higher ranking because of the anchor text that is used.
Many people only think of inbound links from outside websites when trying to raise their link popularity. However, the internal link structure is also a major ranking factor
7. Using Your Log Files for SEO
Your server logs reveal very important information about your site. If you learn to use them properly, they can quickly help to maximize your site's traffíc and conversion rates.
One of the most valuable pieces of information found in your log files are search phrases. The log files will tell you exactly which keywords people are using to find your website.
Once you have optimized a page, the log files will tell you how people are finding that page and what keywords they are searching for to get there. If you find that people are using keywords that you hadn't thought of to get to a certain page, it would probably be in your best interest to further optimize that page for those keywords.
You might also want to create a new page optimized for that particular term. This is especially true if a new page would enable you to serve better information on the phrase being searched for.
In addition, by looking at how your site is found organically, you can determine whether the same keyword phrases belong in your paid search campaigns. Only choose the ones that are highly relevant. You will find that these keyword phrases have the best conversion rate.

Article source- http://www.ifergan.org/seo-optimization-tips/7-advanced-seo-tactics.html