Don’t worry, my friend. I’ve already compared blogging to coffee shops. For me, it’s the conversation that makes blogging worthwhile – that and the relationships built through conversation.

I hear you on SEO techniques. Oh, how does one find the time?

Google’s webmaster Tools is a source of abundant information for people interested in improving their site’s optimization and standings with Google.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

The challenge is just reading all what Google has to offer and putting into practice. Most people don’t have time to do all this, also there is a ton of trial and error in this as well. It is one thing to take advantage of SEO Tools, but the second half to the unleashing the power, as you know, is the content on the site and the market demands for the content. If all these elements are balanced, then a blogger is looking at running a very powerful site.

Oops… sorry man, the direction of this post is changing from what it was originally intended. I take the blame for that.

I find the same thing. Using site maps my posts are often indexed in under 2 minutes. I’m simply amazed with it myself.

I can write a post and within 24 to 48 hours, I can find it in Google. To me, that is amazing!

Whether other people can find the post, that’s a different topic! LOL… but the post is there!

Isn’t that interesting? Google’s pretty good at finding what I want much of the time. But as a user, I certainly think it can be better. Just goes to show you how difficult it must be to create a truly functional search engine.

A few months back, and I don’t remember where I read it, I heard that Google was going to be dropping en.wikipedia from their SERPs… but it doesn’t seem to be the case, because the references still pull up strong.

Your comment got me to thinking more about it and I dug around a little bit and found a an interesting article about it on WebProNews

Usually the first result in a Google search is the Wikipedia page for the thing you’re searching

As I said, I’m pretty much the same. I think my backup tends to be…well, I don’t have one anymore. If I’m looking blog-specific – Technorati, IceRocket or BlogPulse are often my faves.

I know. That’s what makes Google so darn valuable – their accuracy at helping you find what you’re looking for. Still no one comes close. It’s remarkable. Is that because everyone else lacks the sight that Google has or is Google just better at it than everyone?

If we would have 3 major search engines more close to each other in terms of search results relevancy, this concept would be quite interesting.

Unfortunately for them, Google results are usually all you need.

Yeah, I’ve seen it as well. Pretty neat concept. I’ve played around with it for a couple of weeks myself. I find it more fun than functional. But hey fun is fine.

There is a kid’s version of Quintura. It’s fun and seems quite safe. I tried a few inappropriate terms and Quintura Kids returns a “no results” error. And the interface is cute.

No, I didn’t. Though I should think about it, having two young kids myself. Will do so in a bit and get back.

Smarty Blog

It works, just renders slowly. I like Quitura too. Helpful, yet functional. Unlike KartOO – which just seems fun.

Anyway, Quitura seems very nice. My favorite from those mentioned by you.