Houston Astros: Next Year is Here – Recreation
Houston Astros: Next Year is Here
Garret Tupa Jr
Every year the Astros say next year, will its next year, and the Astros and the fans are ready. This year the Astros look ready to fight for it all. What will really happen this year Injuries can be a key factor for them this year. Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio will have to step up to the challenge and have great years. Bagwell is still putting up the power numbers as he hit 39 homers and batted in 100 RBIs last season, but the BA has slipped down to .278. As for Biggio, hes a fighter. Biggio led the league last season with 27 HBPhit by pitch.
Look for Brad Ausmus to turn around last seasons horrible hitting.229 BA and have a good season at the plate, and behind the plate this season. Jason Lane, Orlando Palmeiro, and Jose Vizciano will the the best trio off the bench in the National League this season. Berkman, Hildago, Kent and Ensberg will have great all-around seasons. Adam Everett will struggle but find his way this season. The bats will be very exciting, runs will be plentiful.
The astros will have two 20 game winners this year and could end up with the best staff in the league. Oswalt, Pettite, Clemens, Miller and Tim Redding will be the rotation for the Stros this season. Oswalt, if he can stay injury free is one of the top pitchers in the game and Andy Pettite won 21 games last season. Clemens is a future hall-of-famer and could put up 15+ wins. The relief pitching could struggle at first but will get there act together in time to make a run for the playoffs. Octavio Dotel will take over the closing role with Billy Wagner in Philly now. Dotel was one of the premier set-up men last season and he has to turn into one of the premier closers this season.
In all, fans should get there tickets early and often. The 2004 Houston Astros will fight for a World Series birth. I think the Astros will end up with 95 wins. The Astros will be in the World Series against the New York Yankees, and game seven will be a game for the ages. This is the year that every fan can be proud to say "The Astros are my team".
About The Author
Garret Tupa Jr. wrote this article for http://www.sportznow.com
To Buy or Rent For Your College Student – Mortgage
To Buy or Rent For Your College Student
Dan The Roommate Man
September always means Back To School, and for thousands of families it also signals Off To College. In addition, more and more young people are opting to continue their education with post-graduate studies.
Once a student is past the Mandatory - Freshman - Year - In - The - Dorm Policy that many colleges have, parents face an interesting dilemma: should they continue to shell out rent, or considering buying a property for their children to occupy while attending school
Here is a TRUE Story.
In 1994, A young man decided to attend North Carolina State University. He enrolled in a combination Master/Ph.D. program. This meant he would be in Raleigh, NC for the next four -six years. After investigating the rental options in the area, his parents decided to help him purchase a townhouse.
This was the deal. A 3 bedroom, 2
The Latest Innovation in Search Engine Algorithms . . . User Popularity – Marketing
The Latest Innovation in Search Engine Algorithms . . . User Popularity
Robin Nobles
For years, the search engines have continued to introduce new factors into their algorithms to make their search results more relevant and to keep savvy search engine marketers from "cracking the system."
Weve seen many ranking factors come and go in importance. For example, years ago, META tags were the key to success, or so we thought. Stick in META tags that were loaded with your keyword phrases, and you were sure to achieve top rankings.
Then, we had keyword weight as a ranking factor. We struggled to determine the keyword weight of our competitors pages, then duplicate that weight in all of the various areas of our pages.
Along came link popularity, and with it, the massive link farms and link exchange programs. Web site owners joined as many as they could in an effort to boost the sheer number of incoming links pointing to their sites.
In the midst of these evolving ranking factors came changes to page components like the title tag. Put your keyword at the beginning of the tag for maximum ranking potential. Oops. Things have changed. Put your keyword as the 3rd and 4th words in the title tag. Wait - lets try the 2nd and 3rd words.
These are just a few of the ranking factors that have come into play over the last several years.
Can you see the potential for problems here
After all, including keywords in your META tags doesnt mean that the page is more relevant for those keywords. Just because you have 12,792 worthless links pointing to your site doesnt mean your site is relevant for your keyword phrase.
Now, were in the middle of another "link popularity" or "link reputation" surge. But the rules have changed. Now, we want sites that are related in content to our site, or authoritative, popular sites in our focus area.
Okay! Now were beginning to get on the right track! After all, if an important, authoritative site in a particular topic area links to your site, it must mean that your site is important and popular for that subject too. Or, if other sites in your subject area link to you, it must mean that your site is truly about that subject as well.
Equally important, or even more so, comes the "link reputation" factor. If enough popular sites in your topic area use your important keyword phrase when linking to you, its telling the search engines that your site is relevant for that keyword phrase. After all, the Web community has deemed to describe your site using that keyword phrase, which is a vote of confidence to the search engines.
Makes sense, except for one small problem. I can have a site thats devoted to wireless Internet connections, and you can have a site thats devoted to kitchen utilities. I can link to your site from mine and use the keyword phrase "kitchen utilities" in the link text. Some of the engines appear to use the link text as the determining factor when deciding link reputation, not the contents of the page pointing to the site. So, two sites that arent related in content whatsoever could potentially help boost the link reputation of each others sites. We may see the engines consider other factors in the near future, such as the contents of the title tag on the page containing the link, which will help solve this potential problem to some degree.
However, when looking at all of the factors listed here so far, do any of them truly prove that the page is relevant to a particular keyword phrase
With relevancy comes a much more stable, trustworthy search engine. When you search for a particular topic, youre assured of getting search results that contain pages with good, solid content related to that keyword phrase.
After all, most people venture onto the Internet looking for information. If we can provide that information in content-rich, valuable pages, weve done the search engines, the users, and ourselves a big favor.
With all of these various ranking factors, what is the one area that is sorely missing
How about a site ranking algorithm based on a combination of content relevancy and user popularity data
"Content" relevancy and "user popularity" arent as easy to manipulate as link popularity, link reputation, or even keyword placement, so the search engine results should certainly be more relevant. After all, anyone who is concerned about relevancy in search engine rankings should want the most relevant pages and sites to rise to the top of the rankings. If our pages arent the most relevant, we have some work to do!
Introducing an Innovative Search Engine Ranking Algorithm
I just learned of a new search engine that actually uses a combination of content relevancy and user popularity to determine rankings. Its called ExactSeek.com.
How does ExactSeek measure user popularity The engine has teamed up with Alexa, which offers a toolbar that measures activity on the Web. By measuring the surfing activity of millions of Alexa users, ExactSeek is able to determine the user popularity and relevancy of Web sites in its index. User popularity is a far more reliable indicator of where Web sites should rank and gives users some input on the search results they see.
Mel Strocen, CEO of Jayde Online, which is the parent company of ExactSeek, says,
"Alexa traffic data will be a strong factor in the ExactSeek ranking algorithm but not the dominant factor, that being page content. Essentially, weve opted to emphasize user popularity over link popularity."
In fact, in an effort to make the results even more relevant, ExactSeek.com will be in flux for the next week or two as they work to determine how much weight to give Alexa traffic data in ranking search results.
The beauty of ExactSeek.com is that the harder you work toward increasing traffic to your Web site by adding new, relevant content, paying for SEO, advertising in various publications, investing in a PPC campaign, etc., the better your rankings will be in ExactSeek.com.
Can User Popularity be Manipulated
I think a better question would be, what search engine results cant be manipulated The key is to consider relevancy and valuable content, which is something that ExactSeek.com has wisely chosen to focus on.
Its true that not everyone uses the Alexa toolbar. However, it does provide results based on an excellent sampling of users on the Web. Plus, user popularity will be more difficult to manipulate than other factors, because it is certainly more difficult to manipulate the surfing public than it is to manipulate the search engines.
Give ExactSeek.com a Try!
ExactSeek.com is innovative in more ways than the way it determines rankings. For example, you can check your sites rankings in the ExactSeek database from a link on the main page of the engine. How convenient!
In Conclusion . . .
As the search engine industry evolves, well begin to see more and more innovations geared toward arriving at relevant search results that arent as easily manipulated as some of the ranking methods in the past. One of those innovations is being put into place now at ExactSeek.com: user popularity combined with content relevancy.
About The Author
Robin Nobles is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with John Alexander. They teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive "hands on" search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. She also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and she