Recently, while perusing the Internet during a break, I discovered that my Macromedia Shockwave player needed to be updated. When prompted, I approved the download and waited for it to complete. After the download was finished, Shockwave informed me that it was going to proceed with installing the update upon my approval.

Yahoo’s new beta stage toolbar contains a feature called Anti-Spy. This marks the first search engine toolbar to have a spyware remover integrated into it. As reported in a previous WebProNews article, Yahoo’s Anti-Spy beta is powered by PestPatrol, a third party software designed to combat spyware and other malicious programs.

Metasearch engine Dogpile has won the PC Magazine Editor’s Choice Award for their search toolbar. The issue is scheduled to come out on June 8, 2004. This award marks the third major industry award won by Dogpile this year.

Yahoo has begun beta testing a new toolbar that will feature a spyware function called Anti-Spy. The new anti-spyware addition will allow users to protect their computers from these types of programs.

Search engine toolbars have become a very popular item, giving users the ability to search from their browser without actually visiting any particular search engine. All major search engines offer a toolbar of some sort, with this design in mind.

Like most reputable search engines, Yahoo offers a toolbar that gives users the ability to search the web without their browsers pointing to Yahoo Search. However, Yahoo.com is not merely a search engine, it is also a portal. Because of that, Yahoo is offering portal-like features on the latest version of the their toolbar.

RealNetworks announced today, 04-20-04, that version 10 of the company’s downloadable RealPlayer will have Google’s Toolbar bundled in with the player.

Eager to capitalize on the growing search engine industry, MSN, Microsoft’s web portal, has launched Sandbox. Sandbox is the testing ground for MSN technologies designed to provide a broader search engine presence.

Google updated PageRank on the 7th, a fact noted in many forums, including WebProWorld.

Yahoo has added popup blocking to its downloadable utility, the Yahoo Companion Toolbar. Similar to other search engine toolbars, Yahoo’s toolbar gives users easy access to the portal’s search engine technology.

This week, Dogpile launched an updated version of its search toolbar. The newest version now features an RSS “ticker” designed to give users the ability to track their favorite news source. Atom’s news feed service is also available to Dogpile toolbar users.

Yahoo announced that it was releasing a web page ranking tool. Similar to Google’s PageRank, Webrank is integrated into Yahoo’s newest version of their search toolbar, called Yahoo Companion.

Face it, it’s getting harder and harder to stand out as a realtor on the Internet. As a legitimate business professional, it must be frustrating to realize that much of your advertising just isn’t getting through to your best prospects. These days your prospect is well equipped to block, filter, and kill most of your advertising – even if they legitamately asked for it. Tough anti-spam filters block your emails – even though your prospect requested it. Pop-up blockers may prevent your prospect from seeing information that they need and would find useful. Simply, your prospect’s marketing radar is more sophisticated and getting your message under it is quickly becoming harder than infiltrating U.S. airspace.

Search engines, do you use them? Of course you do! Most if not all internet users use them at some stage or another, and why not, they are very easy to use, simply go to the address of the engine be it Google.com, Alltheweb.com or any other engine and enter keywords relating to what you want to find and viola!

Like many other useful toolbars out there so is the Google Toolbar. I consider this toolbar a must have for any serious search engine optimizer and anyone who searches the internet on a regular basis. Here’s why

Have you ever wanted to do research on a topic and didn’t feel like going to a specific search engine to do it? Well, you don’t have to. If you download a “search toolbar,” you can actually perform research from wherever you are online and do some other pretty cool things depending on which one you may be using.

Dan Thies is the author of “Search Engine Optimization Fast Start,” and a frequent contributor to WebProNews. He has more books coming out soon on pay-per-click advertising, email marketing, e-zine publishing, and a beginner’s book on building a small business website.

Dan is happy to answer “almost any” question, but if you would like an intelligent answer, please stick to the general topics of online marketing, website promotion, and search engine positioning (including pay per click). Please include your website’s URL, and as many details as possible.

Dear Dan,

We recently achieved #4 on Google tool bar, does it help to bring the site up in key word search? Because until now in key word search our web site is not visible. Do you have any idea what we should be doing to improve the ranking. Can you look at our web site and give us suggestions. Thanks.