October 2011 Newsletter

Issued on Wednesday, 12 October 2011

Welcome To The October 2011 Edition Of The CommArt Newsletter

In this edition we will discuss Search Engines - Market Consolidation, give an update on the Feedback service, provide an overview of our new Mailing List service and our Site Search service.

Search Engines - Market Consolidation

It was only a few years ago, there were five (5) main search engine providers...

Ask Jeeves
Google
Moreover
MSN Search
Yahoo

Now the list is down to three - Google, Bing (formerly Live Search, formerly Windows Live Search, formerly MSN Search) and Ask (formerly Ask Jeeves).

Moreover was the first of the big five to change, they decided to concentrate on the web (RSS) feed market.

The next to go was Yahoo - they signed a deal with Bing (Microsoft) in which Bing would provide the back-end infrastructure to Yahoo search results.

This has impacted on our clients who have subscribed to our Search Engine Notification service - WebDev system only notifies the three remaining search engine operators. If a new player starts to gain acceptance in the Search Engine market, we will develop a notification mechanism for the new provider. Currently smaller search engine providers can use a less proactive approach to web site changes - this is already part of our search engine notification system.

For those who may not be aware of the WebDev feature - CommArt's WebDev has the ability to automatically notify search engines of changes to a web site. This feature is only provided to clients who have subscribed to this service.

Feedback Service Update

The Feedback service which provides a web based mechanism for web site users to send messages to the web site operators/owners has beed updated with new features. The complete set of features are...

Definable recipients without revealing email address
Fully integrated appearance - the Feedback application operates with the same look and feel as the main web site
Spam reduction mechanism - optional sender email address verification
Theme based page display dependant upon the recipient

The theme based page display gives the webmaster the ability to set up a different web page for a given recipient as apposed the more general Feedback page. For example, all enquires directed to 'sales' could have a different page content ('Sales Enquiry'), rather than the more general feedback page.

New Mailing List Service

Nemostar, the parent organisation of CommArt, has deployed a mailing list system on its own servers for CommArt's clients. This commercial service manages all the housekeeping of the mailing list with minimal action required by the list administrator. Some features are...

Fully integrated appearance - the Mailing List operates with the same look and feel as the main web site when integrated with that site
Spam reduction mechanism - optional sender email address verification
Spam reduction mechanism - optional moderation of messages
Web based management system
Email based management system
Daily statistics report

The Mailing List system hosted by Nemostar continues to grow in features. The system was recently extended to allow list administrators the ability to add/remove/test mailing list subscribers via a web based form. This allows list administrators the convenience of managing mailing list subscribers using a simple but powerful web based system.

New Site Search Service

Nemostar, the parent organisation of CommArt, has deployed a Site Search service on its own servers for CommArt's clients. This commercial service provides an search index that is more up to date than the above mentioned search providers. The Site Search service indexes all pages on a web site unlike the other search engine providers. Some features are...

Fully integrated appearance - the search results have the same look and feel as the main web site
Always current - never out of date
All pages on a site are indexed

Sales Enquiries and Further Details

CommArt welcomes any enquiry about this newsletter, as well any services and products we supply.