Many people who read of the internet, want to make a killing on the internet and retire at 40 , and whom most likely are induced by the “Facebook movie” – believe all they read and hear.
Yet it was not long ago that Facebook was a minor player. It was a roster of people on the internet. Facebook rules were very strict. In essence they summarized – this is a roster, you are allowed one ( 1) account only. If we find you have more than one Facebook account you will be “banned for life” and worse.
Yet somehow facebook evolved into a community and advertising sales platform. At that point in time , several years ago – sure Facebook ads were cheap – especially compared to Google Adwords ads – yet they were laughable in terms of being horribly non-specific about targeting keywords and providing relevant results.
For example a user on Facebook might type in Viagra and the search engine ad system would deliver ads regarding Mexican vacations and holidays in Puerto Morelis Mexico or perhaps dealing with the cost of dental crowns and cosmetic surgery in Cancun.
Yet Facebook has grown to the point where Facebook estimates are more than 800 million users in total. Contrast that to the estimated population of 300 million in the USA & 100 million Mexican citizens.
Still these numbers must be put in context. Just like kids sign up for free yahoo and hotmail email accounts and forget them there are many dormant and duplicate Facebook users accounts.
Its anyone’s guess what the real Facebook members count really is.
Its a shame. One of the most useful tools for Search Engine Optimization types was the Yahoo site explorer. And now its gone.
Its the old story of what you have you take for granted – that is until its gone.
Google may of been the search engine that counted for most business types – yet Google severely limits the information that they provided to the users and games . That is what links were caught by the search engines , and perhaps what tactics and procedures worked or no longer worked.
The Yahoo tool was a most useful guidepost of figuring out in a gross sense what search engines “caught” or did not catch. On top of that many of the tools that were purchased and taken for granted in a days work – used the Yahoo site explorer as their basis and stock of trade.
Overall now that the service is gone – many users are perplexed . What counts ? What doesn’t ? What is effective and what is not. On top of that many of the tools – that now cost- don’t seem to work for all and catch all links. So it becomes a matter of using a number of tools in concert and working it out with judgment between it all.
Still its good as it keeps the nubes and neophytes out of the marketplace.