Part 1 in the series: Mastering Google - I know it, you know it, your friends know it, and it's even likely people who've never used it still know it... Google is king. Now I'm sure the good folks at Yahoo and MSN steam at that fact, and as hard as they try, they just can't get back on top of the proverbial "search engine food chain." Google has taken over the pride and remains the top dog, err lion. But surprisingly, quite a few people just accept that fact and never ask why or how.

Three years ago Google was like any other growing website... it was known about but fell short of the likes of search giant Yahoo or half-a-dozen other competitors. It was one in a few hundred search engine prospects; many of which have since gone to the graveyard - hotbot, lycos, altavista, and even jeeves himself. No they aren't dead, but they aren't doing much to be alive either. And that my friends is why they are not what Google is today. Three years ago all of these companies had the chance to make it or break it, and while Yahoo stayed the course it was one, the folks over at Google had a better idea... grow grow grow, and grow some more. And with a little innovation and smart market tactics, they've since not only surpassed Yahoo, but they've taken on rivals from markets wide and far to become a nearly $80 billion dollar company AND have taken the crown as the world's largest and most popular search engine - 8+ billion pages indexed and counting. So how'd they go from an "average joe" in the search engine world to the "big dog?" Well, they gave people what they wanted... simple as that.

Most of us know Google as a search engine tool that can find just about anything on the web. From looking for details on the formation of the cosmos to building a home, Google seems to have all the answers people are looking for. But more importantly is how relevant the results are to what folks are looking for. Google has a decent reputation of putting the best results first; and it's likely for that reason that many Webmasters not on the front page of Google fret. Quite frankly, if you're not on the front page of Google, you don't exist - the best results people need ARE typically on the first page; and that says a lot for Google and their technology.

Furthermore, Google hasn't gone the way of MSN and Yahoo (the other big boys) and used Ads that appear above and below your search, which quite frankly just creates "page noise" most people don't want. Google instead has used it Adwords program to create text ads to the upper right of each page, and on the rare occasion, above the search results (but not nearly as intrusively as MSN/Yahoo). Google has also kept to the mantra, "Simple is best" and "Less is more." Their homepage remains very clean and clear cut. Yahoo and MSN have a couple hundred if not thousand links off their main page; which is great for information, but it's almost too much and bombards most folks who just want to, well, search! Google wins big points here amongst most people, myself included. Google simply divvies up the main areas using simple tabs, and I'll go into those more in the next few blurbs on this series.

But beyond good listings on a search engine page and a clear cut homepage, Google has a lot more going on behind the scenes. Little tricks that can be used to manipulate the engine into giving you more accuracy and precision than you might have ever dreamed. Plus, there are new technologies being programmed into the search engine that make tasks that used to require five websites, now only requiring one. As I continue this series in the coming days and weeks we'll go into those technologies Google is utilizing that continue to make it king. And you too, can then become a Google Master.

This has been Part 1 in the series: Mastering Google.

John C. Derrick
Founder