Open Source Featured Article

Survey results discovered by market research firm Gartner, predicted that by 2013, the mobile search market will be worth $12 million. This indicates the enormous potential of the mobile search engine optimization (SEO) ecosystem.

According to Paul Savage, CEO of Visibility Mobile, mobile Web sites are currently not being effectively interrogated by conventional search engines. This is making many brands frustrated and is also restricting the potential and vast range of commercial opportunities that both mobile advertising and the mobile Web as a whole can deliver.  

 

With this challenge in mind, 10 mobile companies partnered and formed the metaTXT working group and launched the open metaTXT standard. This open standard is powered by the Waterford Institute of Technologies research division and is also the first of its kind in the industry that will allow search engines to index mobile sites at ease regardless of their technology domains whether they are m.name.com, wap.name.com, name.com/mobile or a .mobi.

 

Visibility Mobile was the founder of the metaTXT standard. Visibility Mobile, Abphone, Bango, JumpTap, Taptu, MCN, Medio Systems, Mobilytics, Nubiq (News - Alert), and RingRing Media are working group partners of the metaTXT standard. The metaTXT working group is working with Asian search engine www.MCN-inc.com to leverage its mobile capabilities to its 15 million users.  

The metaTXT standard is an enhancement for mobile search and provides brands with better and more consistent mobile Internet awareness by allowing all mobile sites to be discovered regardless of URL.  

 

According to Visibility Mobile, metaTXT is a mobile search engine optimization (SEO) standard, which features simple text file that can be inserted into the root directory of the Web site, thereby assisting discoverability of the mobile-optimized site on the Mobile Internet. This will enable all mobile sites to be discovered by mobile search engines.

 

The meta.txt file can be created very easily. Users will have to go to http://www.GoMobileSEO.com and type in the desired URL and then enter the e-mail address. Other URLs can be typed in for searching. Details of the RSS feeds, video/podcast content can be added and then users can geo-tag (News - Alert) the required Web site. With this, an e-mail will be sent to the user with the site’s meta.txt file. This file should be then added to the user server’s root directory. 

 

Nearly 200 million mobile sites are anticipated to deploy metaTXT and already one thousand mobile sites are using metaTXT.

 

Mícheál Ó Foghlú, chairman of the metaTXT working group, said, "There remains some hesitation in the market about one Web and the mobile Internet. We are carving out ways where we can all work together to achieve excellence for the Mobile Web – driven by an open standard.  The independence we offer as one of Ireland's leading ICT research centers is such to ensure that all major brands and search engines have given metaTXT a warm welcome."

 

"We are very excited about the launch of this service as it will be a unique opportunity for Zinadoo customers to promote their own mobile web presence," said Hélène Haughney, CEO of Nubiq. "Zinadoo customers will now not only receive a fully customized mobile website, but also a professional SEO service that will improve their search rankings and site visits."