It has been announced by Hitwise that between March 7th and March 13th 2010 social networking site Facebook overtook search engine powerhouse Google in terms of number of visits in the US, making it the single most visited website in the United States between those dates. Although seemingly just another stat which proves nothing other than the circumstantial trend of that period: it is in fact a massive insight into the changing way in which we use the internet.

This switch in number one spot from Google to Facebook does not mean that the famous search engine is in decline (their market share was up 9% on the same period in 2009) but more so that social networking is growing in popularity at an incredible rate. The large market share of search engines is easily explained: as they serve as a gateway to discovering other websites and are often set as homepages. The vast majority of visits to social networks however are purely to access the information contained on the site itself or as a means of communication and inter-personnel social activity. As such it can be asserted that it is not necessarily the case that one site is more popular than another, but that the manner in which individuals use the internet is beginning to change: which is a much bigger deal.

The early incarnations of the internet were built around newsgroups and other means of sharing a wealth of information with like-minded or interested parties. With the rapid growth in the number of people using the internet came rapid growth in the number of different applications of the worldwide web. Throughout this period of flux the primary use continued to be as a tool for accessing information, hence the sustained popularity of search engines. This recent news however could well be indicative of the beginning of a phase when non-email communication usurps information sharing as the main purpose for instances of online activity.

Drifting further into the world of conjecture, there could potentially be implications of the rise of social networking sites which have a heavy bearing on offline as well as online activity. Does a rise in interaction via the internet for instance, mean reduced emphasis and reduced prevalence of face to face communication? Although a possibly far-fetched assumption, the fact that this prospect can be legitimately considered as feasible is certainly a concern in itself and something which cannot realistically be monitored.


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This announcement rocked the world yesterday. Sorry we are late posting about it. The BBC has had some budget information leaked which is very very interesting. It seems that they are going to be making huge cutbacks and their website is going to cut down in size by 50%.

How does this affect us and SEO in general. My guess is massively. It has been proven that websites can rank and rank well with only one or two quality inbound links. I for one always try and get a link on the BBC website as I consider it to be an authority within the UK and any link I do manage to obtain has always benefited my clients in terms of rankings.

I believe we will see a quite a shake up in rankings once these pages have been taken down as all those companies who have been ranking off the back of a BBC link alone with no other SEO efforts will slowly disappear.

If any of those companies would like to work with an excellent SEO Manchester company then give us a call before you start to drop as we are more than happy to help maintain and improve your rankings.

At Web Vitality we are always trying to improve things for our clients. As our client base grows so does the need for more effective reporting. As a result we are currently developing an in house project management system.

This new system will be firstly available to our SEO clients who will be able to log on at anytime and find out exactly where their money is being spent. We are going to include absolutely everything in there including:

• Search engine ranking reports
• Lots and lots of graphs (we like graphs)
• Work done (so you can see what we do and when we do it and for how long)
• Analytical data (a breakdown of Googles analytics filtering out all of the rubbish and only leaving the good stuff)

Plus lots lots more. This is a long term project and isn’t going to happen overnight however, we have just completed the back end section of the search engine ranking reporter. Once we have the nice usable front end a whole host of ranking data will be uploaded from this new wonderful tool (probably weekly).

For now though our clients can be wowed by yet another new report. We will still be sending out the usual analytical data but our current clients will also be receiving a more polished ranking report (with graphs) not only this, we have given in and re introduced Yahoo and Bings rankings.

It’s a very exciting time in terms of reporting (well as exciting as reporting can be) at Web Vitality as we believe it’s vitally important that our clients experience of our company is a good one. Going forward we would like to also roll this out to web clients so they can see exactly where their projects are up to during the build process.

Watch this space

We would like to post a big thank you to two of our London clients (you know who you are)

The trip was very successful and it was a pleasure to finally meet them both. We came away with lots of ideas for their websites and search engine optimisation for this coming year and are looking forward to a successful continued relationship.

I can see us making our way to our countries capital a lot more this year so don't be afraid to get in touch with us just because you are not local.

Please feel free to check out our website and if you would like a free website SEO health check or a new web design quote then visit our website and drop us a line.

Hi all,

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

This is just a quick post to let you know that I'm rather excited at the prospect of sharing the wonderful news with you that Web Vitality have started 2010 as Which Web Design Company's top rated web design firm in Manchester, click here to see for yourself!

We aim with your help to maintain this position throughout the decade and also boost our position from 17th in the UK to number 1 too!

Thank you for the support!

When doing our usual rounds in the search world we came across the latest offering from Google. Latest Live news feeds for certain search terms.

Not 100% sure (at this stage) where it is pulling the information from but looking at some of the results we are seeing. Twitter updates are showing, Google News updates and many more.

This is just another example of how Google are pushing the boundaries of search, providing up to the minute results. Definitely one to watch me thinks.

Sat in the Travelodge next to Euston station -  X Factor about to start and thought I would throw up a quick blog post to let everybody know that I can't wait for tomorrow, as it should be a really in-depth seminar.

Also wanted to point out that I have cheated the extortionate costs of the Travelodge Wi-Fi as I have plugged my iPhone in and am now getting great service levels. Hats off to the iPhone!

Off to watch X-Factor now. Come on Danyl.

Short post to keep everybody up-to-date on whats going on within Web Vitality this coming week. I will be out of the office Monday and Tuesday attending the SEOmoz London training seminar.

I'm really excited about the event, it should be a good conference jam-packed with lots of useful tips and tricks to help improve my knowledge, as well as a chance to network with other SEO's from around the country and the world.

I will be making full use of Twitter during these two days so make sure you follow me MF_WebVitality, and keep an eye out for some interesting blog posts whilst I'm there.