Recently there have been stories that Google is blocking free hosted websites. The problem with these claims is that they are exceptionally believable. Many free hosted sites are spam.

Google Guy stated "Looks like some redirects on their site interacted badly with us trying to choose a canonical site between www.angelfire.com and www.angelfire.lycos.com." http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/21616.htm

The real cost of free hosting is not one time errors like this, but the more long term marketing effects. It is harder to get people to link to a free hosted site than it is to get links to a paid hosted site. I wrote a small article called "The Cost of Free Hosting."

I believe that the last Search Engine Strategies conference in Chigago sold out, so I decided to wait no more...I purchased my Platinum Passport pass.

As I have been reading books and studying on the web I have emailed back and forth and chatted with some of the best and brightest on the web and in marketing. Many of them will be speaking in New York and I can't wait to see them.

I went to Boston SES last year and thought it was great. I still am kinda cheap when it comes to a hotel room that costs $200 a night...but it should be fun.

Everybody loves to search around to find new stuff...alright, at least I think its fun. Many people do not have the time to waste looking through tons of documents to find what they need. Many business professionals are willing to pay a premium to have access to a searchable database of quality documents.

Northern Light was a full fledged search engine which was purchased by Divine, which sort of died. David Seuss, the original owner of Northern Light, bought out the technology and name for $81,000 at an auction last April. With a price that cheap I am surprised competitors did not buy it, just to stab off future competition...dumb.

Northern Light has brought back unlimited access to the Business Resource Library for the low low price of $19,500 per year. Access to these documents to the general public will begin in March.

Currently a couple other business research search engines are High Beam and Hill Search.

Going Gone ... Gone Gone Gone? GoHook is a new auction search engine. It archives the auction results from sites such as eBay, Amazon, UBid and a few others for years.

What Can GoHook Be Used For? If you are selling stuff this can give you a good approximation of price. In addition after data adds up it can be used to track price over time for trend analysis. Tracking enough data can also show you which creatives are the best to use and what time of day, week, or month is the best for sales. Future upgrades may even contain moon phase.

Of course the obvious reason to use GoHook is to check past prices to see what you may want to bid on something for sale right now. You may also need to know if that item in the antique shop is worth the $3.74 that is on the sticker.

Before you buy from an online auction I recommend checking a few of the price check search engines. Froogle is my favorite, but some other people like Shopping.com, Yahoo Shopping, MSN Shopping, Bizrate, PriceGrabber, MySimon...and other random ones...I probably left a few good ones out...ooppsss

How Much Does GoHook Cost? Free now. They are still trying to build value before they extract profits...

Want to Learn More? GoHook FAQ's

(another cool find from ResearchBUZZ)

As I type this I wonder if a portion of Google's continual change is to help it garner continual press coverage...just a thought.

I wrote an article about Google Update Austin which talks about how it is somewhat similar to Google Update Florida, and some of the things you can do to improve your rankings.

Here also is a quick Google Update Austin rundown from WebProNews. Of course I am evil and do not agree with all of it, but it was interesting stuff.