Howdy!

This is my first post and I aim to make it count, so I'll spare you a lengthy introduction. My name is Mel and I'm from Texas. I came on board at SEOmoz just shy of two months ago, and it has been nothing short of a life changing experience.

I couldn't be happier working with a team of folks who don't just know what they're doing, but have a damn good time doing it.  In my short tenure here I've been given the opportunity to work with a wide variety of very cool technologies alongside some very cool people. One of those technologies is called Ferret.
 

This varmint not only makes for a delicious roadkill quiche, but is also a heckuva good information retrieval tool.

Some of you premium members may have noticed that we silently rolled out the ability to search the Q&A archives a little over two weeks ago.  This search is powered by the aforementioned rodent, alongside another nifty little tool named Ruby (more on this in future posts). Using Ferret gives our Premium users the ability to quickly and easily search through past Q&A discussions. It even has its own query language, which is very similar to Google's syntax.

Try it out for yourself - Querying for seo will return one set of results specifically about SEO, while querying for seo AND keywords will return an entirely different set about both "seo" AND "keywords". Users also have access to other familiar search operands such as NOT and OR.

We're currently working on a bagillion super secret projects that we'll be using to not only improve this search feature, but also other areas of the site as well.  And, speaking of other areas of the site... We've rolled out a new tool this evening!
 

It's called the Term Target Tool!... Before anybody starts up with jokes about the south, hear me out.
Even though the term target tool is still using the same ole button, under the hood it's a got a brand new engine (we had it parked up in the yard on cinder blocks and everything). We felt that "targeting terms" didn't really fit the bill as to what the old tool really did.

The old tool was used mainly to "extract" terms, i.e. users would input a a url and get back a list of keywords that appear to be targeted at search engines. This is why we have rebranded it as the Term Extractor Tool (which, non-coincidently, rhymes with tractor). You can access the old tool by clicking on its shiny new button:
 

Now that I've covered the switcharoo we've pulled, I think I should take a moment to explain what the new tool does.

Have you ever wondered how your web page would perform if it had to take a midterm? We sure have! Now you can have a report card of how well your page is doing with keyword visibility. No need to feed your page "study pills" to get ahead.  Instead feed the tool your page (along with the keyword you're targeting) and you'll get a banana sticker, like the one below!
 

You'll also be treated to a brief critique of the what, the where, and the why your page either excelled or fell behind.

Things are beginning to move very fast here at the Mozplex (from breakneck to light speed).  With each new feature we roll out, our library of tools will grow exponentially.  This is why it's very important that if you happen to find a bug or problem with any of the new stuff, you report it to our development team via [email protected]

I'm looking forward to doing some really cool stuff here in the future and even taking the time to explain how we're doing it.  As of now, I'm still living in the present, so I have to get back to work on making that future happen.  If anybody has any questions or comments between now and then, by all means, let us know :)

UPDATE: Thanks to all our astute readers who pointed out some areas of the term targeting that needed some polishing.  We have just rolled out a number of bug fixes and are now grading on a curve ;)  If anyone runs into any other problems or has anything constructive to offer, please let us know.  -Mel