Browser number 9 for Microsoft

The time for a new Internet Explorer is approaching, with new additions that will make it more accessible to web designers and possibly SEO consultants…

Over the years we have been over-familiarised with Microsoft Internet Explorer, mainly due to almost every PC at one time installed with Windows also coming with the browser pre-installed. This led to many disputes of unfair competition and market saturation by Microsoft but over time other browsers have risen up and given Microsoft a run for their money, Firefox being the perfect example, see here.
It is almost a given in our industry that SEOs prefer Firefox over Explorer due to the ease of use with plug-ins and add ons for the browser which make our lives easier, however, Microsoft`s new iteration of their browser, Internet Explorer 9,could become more of a popular choice again amongst designers and SEOs. With new additions and support to aid designers requirements, some feel this is what IE8 should have been.

They have finally designed the browser to include support for CSS3 which could result in designers working on Windows returning to IE9. According to Microsoft they are looking to make websites a part of the desktop browsing experience rather than just a separate window and this, along with many other updates could entice people back.
The big question of whether SEO companies will use IE9 is whether it will include support for add-ons like Firefox does. If this is implemented and third party developers can add their creations and SEO consultants can utilise them effectively within the browser then it is possible people could convert. From a design perspective it has HTML5 support built in so as to create “ a more immersive experience” and compared to previous versions where displaying design elements was sometimes pixelated, basic and visually unattractive, IE9 will display with a higher quality of presentation. Ultimately though there can be no doubt that they are looking at increasing their browser market share and by attracting PC web designers back to using Explorer they stand a better chance of achieving it.

Have they shot themselves in the foot?

The likelihood of IE9 taking over SEO and web design computers is still relatively low at this point as Firefox is almost an industry standard now with such great applications and tools that can be used, it is going to take something special for Microsoft to leapfrog them in the web design area. One major consideration however is that IE9 will not support any operating system lower than Windows Vista, meaning all of those PCs sold with Windows XP on them shortly after the Vista fiasco will not be able to use IE9. This could be a major mistake by Microsoft as they are limiting usage across a large portion of their market. Incredibly, XP is still the most widely used PC operating system in the world and this could be the mistake that kills off IE9 from becoming truly successful before its even got started.

There is a fox on fire and it`s not animal cruelty!

It`s Firefox`s birthday and they are the grand old age of 6 this year, proving that non-profit organisations can provide something that can compete and have a bright future within the browser industry. That non-profit organisation was Mozilla and they released Firefox 1.0 in 2004 and went into direct competition against the industry giant Microsoft and Internet Explorer. To most people who use Windows they would undoubtedly be familiar with Internet Explorer, even if they dont necessarily use it and in terms of sheer user volume it is without question the most popular and widely used browser for Windows. With lawsuits previously filed against Microsoft for pre-installing Internet Explorer on Windows based machines the tide was turning for other open source developers and independent companies to target the browser market. The most famous lawsuit was United States Vs Microsoft which claimed that Microsoft was unfairly restricting the browser market by including IE with every Intel based windows machine. Consumers though did have a choice and when they became more savvy at what was available to them the tide started to change.

Firefox was facing an uphill struggle when it launched against a dominant opponent in Microsoft but they had a secret weapon which would help them to grow into a successful and increasingly popular choice for consumers and more significantly the SEO industry, netting nearly a quarter of internet users and providing the browser in more than 70 languages. The advantage they had was the Firefox add-on tools and the ability to adapt third party tools into the browser and these are actually used today by more than 150 million people for customisation of their browsing experience. For the SEO industry Firefox became the obvious choice due to the ability to use specific add -on tools that were created by the industry, for the industry.
The compatibility of Firefox with SEO add-on tools is irreplaceable and daily we use these functions to help us do our job more efficiently. Third party developers continually create new tools to apply to the browser which simply are not available for Internet Explorer users.

SEO Tools

Some of these popular tools include “Firebug” which is ideal for breaking down various elements of a site including the html code and the css and allow you to view these elements easily, which is most valuable when performing internal SEO work and bringing an existing site up to standard.
Other useful tools include the Live Page Rank (although this is not exclusive to Firefox now) and the Web Developer tool, which helps to easily and quickly identify image ALT text, link titles and a Java disable option. There are also more complete all-in-one toolbars that can be installed such as the SEO Book toolbar which is a comprehensive plug-in which enables you to look at website strength, inbound links, indexed pages and cache dates, as well as being able to compare up to 5 sites against each other, allowing an easy method of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of those chosen sites.

There are many, many more plug-ins available that offer numerous advantages to anybody performing SEO and recently more third party developers have branched out into creation for other browsers but crucially, most of the tools being created are still not compatible with Internet Explorer with developers actually favouring Firefox and more recently Google`s excellent Chrome browser.

In the future more iterations of browsers are sure to enter the mainstream and utilise these additional plug-ins as they try to gain consumer favour but Firefox will always be remembered for being the first truly adaptable browser for the Windows system that was open to innovation for various industries. Time will tell which browser will be preferred by users for SEO but at the moment, all trends seem to point at Firefox with increasing numbers using it every day and with them being the internet browser equivalent of the ever popular Kings Of Leon, their fox truly is on fire.

Script:

Hi and welcome to this weeks SEO video blog, The news this week is that Google are threatening to stop censoring its search results in the Chinese Google and possibly stop trading all together. This is partly due to a recent attack on Google mail users, a colleague of mine has recently written an article discussing this further so check that out on the Creare blog.

We thought this week we would take look at the SEO friendly plug-ins currently available for Firefox.

SEO For Firefox - This tool provided by the SEOBook.com is one of the most popular tools available, providing the user with a wide range of information from identifying that a link is follow or no-follow to analysis within search result itself. You can see the in the example, information is shown in the search result. Some popular statistics are Alexa rank, Dmoz listing, Cached date, Twitter, Yahoo Position and various social bookmarks.

Joost de valk - We have mentioned this tool in a previous video blog, the tool essentially details information about backward links and works as an ‘add on’ for Yahoo Site Explorer and Google’s Webmaster Tools. As you can see in the example the anchored text appears along with the Page Rank. The text is colour coded to represent if the link if ‘follow’, ‘nofollow’ or is displayed red if the link isn’t found on the web page shown.

Google Toolbar - This provides you with various tools, the ones that we use on a regular basis are Google page rank and the Highlight feature, the highlight feature highlights the search terms found with in the current web page, from the last Google query. We can see both of these features being used in the example video.

SEopen - An excellent tool that allows an user to quickly find information out about a specific web page. The main features include Yahoo! backlinks, Indexed pages, Google backlinks, cached dates, Pagerank check, Alexa overview and many more.

We have linked to all the Firefox plug-ins on the supporting blog post.

• SEO for Firefox
• SEOpen
• Google Toolbar
• Joost De Valk

Thanks for watching, if you have any questions of comments please leave them on the Youtube channel or blog.