This is something I wish every web developer would read. It’s a simple document from Google that lists best SEO practices for onsite optimization. Nothing fancy, just some basic pointers for meta data, alt tags, heading tags, robot.txt, file structure, and alot more.

If you build websites or know someone that does, please share these links with them. I’m getting tired of explaining this stuff…

• Official Google SEO Started Guide
• Direct Link to PDF file

Today Google announced and launched a pretty amazing new feature to Google maps. The Street view.

You may be asking yourself, how do they take a satellite picture from that angle… uhhh yeah… it’s not a satellite photo. Google has broken out of the mold and has hit the streets apparently with the help of a company called Immersive. As you can see from the video and pics it is a pretty amazing tool. They currently only have 5 cities available, but I’m sure there are more to come. So far it’s:Miami, San Francisco, Denver, New York City, and Las Vegas

Joel Burslem points out on the Inman blog that it will have a “great application” in real estate, but I’m not so sure yet… After playing around with it for a while and considering the markets available, and the cities themselves, I see very little value for the residential marketplace. Sure, it is a great tool, but how much residential area is actually represented? It may have value in New York and San Francisco, as there are many city dwellers, but personally, I don’t see it as being practical.

If they bundled it into their current map API, it may be useful, but I don’t think we’re going to see an immediate stampede to use the technology by real estate agents… at least not yet.