How long has it been since you last received an email that came out as absolute gibberish? I do not exactly remember myself, but it has been a long time. There used to be hundreds of different encodings for storing and indexing text on the internet. Since these encodings were different, they were not as such compatible with one another. "For example, on some PCs the character code 130 would display as é,

Google is dominating the global desktop search marketplace, with its current market share standing at 67%, according to Trefis. While it is good to dominate, it is even better to own - and this is almost what Google does when it comes to global mobile search. According to Statcounter , Google delivers a staggering 97% of all mobile searches worldwide today. The reliability can be questioned,

Russia's most visited website and leading search engine, Yandex, announced yesterday in a press release that it has purchased a license for digital maps supplied by world-leading location content provider, NAVTEQ. In using NAVTEQ's comprehensive map data, Yandex follows in the footsteps of Bing and Yahoo who also rely on data from the Nokia subsidiary. Yandex expands its global reach When Yandex launched a local search engine in Turkey last year, yandex.com.tr ,

According to Alexa, the top ten local websites in Cyprus are sigmalive.com, kerkida.net, 24sports.com.cy, philenews.com, onlycy.com, shootandgoal.com, supermpala.com, politis.com.cy, laiki.com and apoel.net. These websites attract thousands of visitors, however, according to our study these are not SEO friendly. The SEO factors used for comparison are the following: Title: The text that appears in the browser. Titles should be relevant and use primary keywords.

Geo-targeting is a common problem for organizations with an international website, who are targeting multiple languages and regions around the world. Making sure the right user sees the right content at the right time is the goal - but achieving that is not always easy. How do you ensure that all your UK customers aren't seeing prices in dollars or that your Spanish users aren't seeing product pages that are only available in Peru?

Data released by comScore has shown that Facebook is now the leading social network in Brazil, with a staggering 192% increase in the number of visitors in the past year. Brazil is the fifth biggest user of social networks globally, yet Facebook has until now struggled to compete with the popularity of Google owned Orkut, which had a strong presence in the South American country. The figures are quite astonishing. In December 2010, Facebook had 12 million Brazilian users,

With 153 million users, Spanish is the 3rd most used language online, trailing only English and Chinese. However, the variations of this language, along with the cultural diversity of those using it are vast, making the job of the search marketer all the more challenging. Ani Lopez, a native Spaniard working as an SEO Manager in Canada,

India has urged social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter and Google to remove offensive material and self-censor user generated content, unleashing a storm of criticism from internet users complaining of censorship in the world's largest democracy. One of the first major government pushes came in April, when the " Information Technology Rules 2011 " were introduced. These rules require intermediaries - companies like Facebook, Google and Yahoo,

December 6th saw Google inaugurate its new French offices in Paris, , which will serve as its headquarters, not only for France but for all its Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa operations. As part of the celebration, French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited the offices to meet Google's Chairman Eric Schmidt, and while there he connected with many French speaking Googlers from around the world via Google+ Hangouts.

Google has announced "New markup for multilingual content" which has sigificant consequences for anyone running websites in more than one language or in more than one country. This includes those with different versions for English for the US and UK and also anyone running ONE version of English but using it in multiple countries. The blog post announcing the changes is here googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-markup-for-multilingual-content.html .

The Financial Times is reporting today that Dealreporter.com )a subscription service( has details of a 400 page document spelling out accusations from complainants to the EU related to abuse of the search engine's commercial dominance in Europe. The total list of complainants is now growing in length and includes, Foundem, eJustice, Ciao!, 1plusV, VfT, Microsoft, Elfvoetbal, Hotmaps, Interactive Labs, nnpt.it, dealdujour.pro, and Twenga.

Strategically a very significant step was announced in eastern Europe today " Yandex's video search system is to power Seznam as part of a wider partnership agreement! The video search service is at videa.seznam.cz and has been re-developed specifically for Seznam, the Czech language and its users. Seznam has a leading 56% share of the Czech search market according to Toplist's November 2011 figures. The new video search engine is based on the Czech language,

The only conference for international marketers is back in London on 24th November - and for anyone working in the global SEO, PPC and social media space, the International Search Summit is one event not to miss. And here are 5 reasons why you'll want to be there: Unique Content: ISS covers topics you won't find anywhere else.

SaveurBière.com has been sentenced and fined a 10000euro fine by the Cour d'Appel de Douai, France )court of appeals of Douai( for abusive SEO tactics & techniques. Google did not think those techniques were outside its guidelines' The story 2007, Julien Lemarchand bought Saveur Bière.com domain name - as well as fifty odd related domain names )misterbiere.com, esprit-biere.com, couleur-biere.com'(. Each domain name had a unique page with unique content.

For decades it was the media companies that largely controlled the tools through which consumers were told what to buy and where. With the mass popularity of the Internet consumers now have the ability to generate, curate and distribute content to their peers in real time. As a result they can also effectively co-author the stories that brands tell and do seek active engagement from the brands that they use.

The leading Russian search engine Yandex, announced yesterday that its revenues had grown by 65% in quarter 3 compared with the previous year. With a turnover of 5.2 billion Rubles )$161.9 million Rubles( and a profit of 1.8 billion Rubles, Yandex exceeded stock market expectations. CEO Arkady Volozh said, "Yandex delivered strong financial results and made significant progress across all areas of our business during the third quarter.

International SEO will be a key topic at the upcoming International Search Summit on 24th November, where delegates will be guided through the challenges of marketing to a global audience by international marketing specialists who have been there, done it - and survived! Annabel Hodges, aka @searchpanda , will be speaking on the international SEO panel, where she and her OMD colleague Martin MacDonald, will share strategies,

This week's TargetOnlineMarketing.com infographic monday is about good old SEO and content . Google's head of spam Matt Cutts has been repeating to us that quality content is king. And still is' Check our previous posting about Google's war on spam . It is not just about social.

International SEO, Geo-targeting, Global Search Trends, International PPC and Multilingual Video Optimisation are just some of the sessions on offer at the International Search Summit London on November 24th. Targeted at international marketers, the Summit focuses on the topics, issues and challenges involved in creating and managing search and social media campaigns in multiple markets and languages.

On the 6th December .fr )France( and .re )Reunion( domain names will be available for registration to all European Union citizens. Afnic, the non-profit entity managing the French top level domain names attribution, has until now only allowed companies and individuals residing in France to buy a .fr domain. Afnic will also activate the domain names .wf )Wallis and Fortuna(, .tf )French Australasian and Antarctic territories(, .pm )Saint Pierre and Miquelon( and .