New Blog

MusingsFromTheLane
MusingsFromTheLane

Random thoughts from the country written by a recovering urbanite.

Buy GOOG. There is no stopping them!

New product feature

Personalized Search Help (Beta)

As a My Search History user, you've been storing a history of your searches and the search results you've clicked on. Personalized Search now uses that history and orders your search results based on what's most relevant to you. Early on, you may not notice a huge impact on your search results, but as you build up your search history, your personalized search results will continue to improve.

If you don’t want Personalized Search, click here to remove it entirely.

About Personalized Search

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why would I want to use Personalized Search?
2. How can I view my search history?
3. What is a Google Account?
4. How is my search history stored?
5. How do I get personalized search results from other computers?
6. How can I stop getting personalized search results?
7. How can I stop storing my search history?
8. How do I remove items from my search history?
9. What about my privacy?
10. Where's the "Sign in" or "Search History" link I used to see on the Google homepage?
11. Does Personalized Search work for other Google products like Google Image Search or Froogle?
12. Sometimes I see no result clicks in my history, wrong times associated with results and other unexpected behavior. Why is that?
13. Where can I send feedback?

About Personalized Search

Personalized Search is an improvement to Google search that orders your search results based on what's most relevant to you. The Search History feature of Personalized Search lets you view and manage your history of searches and search results you've clicked on; this information then personalizes your future search results by bringing results closer to the top when it's clear they're most relevant to you. Early on, you may not notice a huge impact on your search results, but as you build up your search history, your personalized search results will continue to improve.

Want to give it a try? Sign up for Personalized Search.
Frequently Asked Q

A Personal Note

South Beach Diet™ Online

We are about to start on the South Beach Diet. Have the book and have been beginning to study and track food items. In a simple calorie limitation diet, I have lost a few pounds and brought blood sugar levels way down.

My diet profile today:


Get ready to shed your extra pounds!
Current Weight: 237
Healthy weight range: 140 - 190
Current BMI: 31.3
Ideal BMI: 18.5 - 25

Richard in NY has been raving about the SBD (Sotuh Beach Diet) and how it eliminates the carborhydrate cravings. That is the hardest part to someone who has become addicted to carbs like me.



A calorie chart index is here to look up caloric values.

Cool National Security Blog

Outside the Beltway

Whereas, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, has vigorously supported the United States in the disarmament of Iraq;

Whereas, the United Kingdom is a strong and loyal ally to the United States;

Whereas, Prime Minister Tony Blair has committed substantial military forces of the United Kingdom to the current action in Iraq;

The American people extend their heartfelt thanks to Prime Minister Tony Blair for his courage and leadership; and

Extend their deep appreciation to the United Kingdom and the men and women of its armed forces.

Great filter for appellate material

How Appealing - Legal Affairs
The Web's first blog devoted to appellate litigation

"Justices Split on Decalogue Displays; Religious Intent Is Cited In Texas, Kentucky Cases Over Ten Commandments": Jess Bravin will have this article (pass-through link) Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal.
Posted at 11:24 PM by Howard Bashman


"'Thou shalts' polarize court; 5-4 ruling, bitter words reflect rift among justices": This article will appear Tuesday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Posted at 10:28 PM by Howard Bashman


"Groups Gear Up for Supreme Court Battle": FOXNews.com provides this report, along with a related report headlined "No Retirement News."
Posted at 10:24 PM by Howard Bashman


"Divided Supreme Court splits Ten Commandments rulings": Jan Crawford Greenburg will have this article Tuesday in The Chicago Tribune.

And Tuesday in The Dallas Morning News, Allen Pusey will report that "Texas wins Ten Commandments case; Capitol marker OK, but framed copies in Kentucky are not."
Posted at 10:15 PM by Howard Bashman


In Tuesday's issue of The Washington Post: Charles Lane will have a front page article headlined "Justices Disallow Ten Commandments in Courthouses; In Separate Decision, Court Upholds Displays on Government Land."

And in other news, "Cable Firms Don't Have to Share Networks, Court Rules."
Posted at 10:10 PM by Howard Bashman


"Rehnquist still on the bench": Newsday provides this news update.
Posted at 10:05 PM by Howard Bashman


"Don't Stop Grokkin'; Apparent MGM v. Grokster slamdunk is really a mixed bag" Mike Godwin has this essay online today at Reason.
Posted at 09:55 PM by Howard Bashman


In Tuesday's edition of The New York Times: Linda Greenhouse will report that "Justices Allow a Commandments Display, Bar Others" and "Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone."

Also, Todd S. Purdum will have an article headlined "Anticipation of a Vacancy, but Silence Says Not Yet."
Posted at 09:50 PM by Howard Bashman

The Cure for the Invisible Site

Adopt these five essential tactics for driving traffic to your Web site.
The Cure

recent studies have shown that the majority of searchers look only at the top results. In fact, sites that appear on the first page of results may attract as much as six times the traffic and double the sales compared with lower-ranking sites. Effective search engine optimization can help you achieve higher rankings and boost your site traffic. When MarketingSherpa surveyed 3,000 marketers, they said organic clicks increased an average of 73 percent in the six months following optimization.

To raise your rankings, increase your inbound links from high-ranking referrers and sprinkle important keywords (and keyword pairs) throughout your content, page titles and tags. This is essential since rankings are generally based on the number of prominent sites that link to yours and how well the content of your pages matches the keywords used in a search. If you're targeting local traffic, sprinkle local search terms throughout your pages, and include them in your title tags and "description" and "keywords" meta tags.

Nice paint job, de Groot!

Larry, Larry, Larry McMillan

The Option Strategist -? Online Seminars


McMillan's Favorite Systems - Disclosed

Learn McMillan’s favorite trading systems.
These are the systems
Mr. McMillan personally trades!

*

Definition:
"System: a method of trading with fixed rules for entry and exit and therefore no room for interpretation."

Three systems for day trading the S&P 500 futures (applicable to any other broad-based index as well, using options or futures)

The Previous Daily Range System (S&P day trading)

T-Bonds vs. Stocks (S&P day trading)

OOPS System (Larry Williams' day trading system)

Position trading the broad market ($OEX options)

A system based on the McMillan Oscillator

Two broad market seasonal systems with phenomenal track records.

Momentum trading index and futures options

The rules for operating each system will be clearly defined.

Track records, including cumulative profit graphs, will be shown.

Important system features such as average investment, maximum drawdown, and percent of winning trades will be disclosed.

This course is priced at just $500.
"The value of these systems is easily worth the price of this seminar"

Testimonials
"What an exciting and new seminar experience! I thoroughly enjoyed "attending" from the comfort of my home, very convenient. The information well presented and all questions answered as if I was attending in person. I look forward to taking other valuable online courses."
-F. Fox

"This was by far the best seminar I have attended. I can't wait to start using the systems and making money!"
-B. Stanton

"Larry as usual, you've provided practical and readily-understood information. Adds a lot of value to my trading process. "
-C. Johnston

*

* Cancellations
Due to the valuable nature of this seminar's visual portion, once you have enrolled and received the download links for this seminar, no refunds will be permitted. You may request NOT to receive the links to preview the seminar slides if you wish to enroll but are uncertain about your schedule for the upcoming date.

For Thursday, June 23rd


This is a Portion of the FREE Weekly Commentary is a part of a comprehensive weekly posting for subscribers of The Option Strategist newsletter. Click here to receive the full commentary free via email. Click here for Testimonials.


Stock Market

The old adage is "never sell a dull market." Well, this market is about as dull as it gets. I was recently struck by the similarities among many charts: a strong advance in May and then a flat, tight range in June. The charts of the major averages look a little better than that, though, as $SPX, $OEX, and $DJX (the Dow) have all made new highs in the last week. We still expect them to challenge the yearly highs as long as the current indicator readings hold up (near 1230, basis $SPX, for example).

Equity-only put-call ratios (Figures 2 and 3) have remained uniformly bullish, as they have continued to decline. They are getting lower on the charts, which means they aren't in the favorable positions they previously were, but that's to be expected after such a long period of advance (the actual start of this rally was back in April, although the put-call ratio buy signals were generated at the May bottom -- almost exactly a month ago).

However, there is a new development, as the averages just began to curl upward. There are small circles on the charts that highlight this. Our computer projections are not saying that this slight curl upward is anything to worry about, and similar curls in the past few weeks have been meaningless. Still, we want to keep an eye on this because of the reliability of this sentiment indicator.

>: "Jack Abramoff: A Portrait of Corruption

The Yellow Line: Jack Abramoff: A Portrait of Corruption

Politics might not cause corruption but it sure can lead to some amazingly crooked behavior. The most recent tale of corruption is also one of the most shockingly heartless to come out in years. And it involves Republican power-player and lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his business partner Michael Scanlon.

The tale of their alleged misdeeds is long and involved. But one of the most disgusting acts was reported last night on ABC's Nightline. Without getting into the nitty gritty, here are the details.

? Abramoff represented Indian tribe casino interests in Louisiana.

? The Louisiana tribe felt they were losing business to an El Paso, Texas tribe's casino. . ."

Good Humor invented ice cream on a stick and put the chocalatte coating on it.

Google text messages

What is Google SMS?

Been playing with this product and I am over the moon about it.
With this you can not only get stock quotes by return text message (with volume, hi, lo, last) but driving directions, pizza parlors, movie times, and more I have yet to discover.

The messages go to 46645 (GOOGL) which couldn't be easier!

This means that google is now a brand, a product that transends computer users. Anyone with a cellphone will find this essential in a short time, as we have found Google the search engine essential within three years of first using it.

It doesn't show any advertising yet and it will be interesting how they put advertising into the cellphone product. Will anyone click on something or bother to read an ad?

Perhaps they figure the pizza joint will take orders or the movie will sell tickets and pay GooG a spiff for the sale.

So the Old Fox says:

Buy Google

Words of Wisdom

source

"A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company." - Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948) American Jurist,

Reference, Facts, News ... Free and Family-friendly Resources: "THOUGHT OF THE DAY:

'We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.' - Denis Diderot "

Good Humor tricycles

Worksman Ice Cream/Water Ice Tricycles

Built sturdy and tough, Worksman Ice Cream Tricycles have been the industry standard since the beginning of the 20th century. Our standard model Trikes shown below continue to be the most popular units both with the the local street vendor and corporate client.

V-ICT

* for pre-packaged novelties
* holds 30 dozen units
* built in dry ice shelf
* built in clean out drain
* tight seal locking snap shut door-a Worksman exclusive!!
* exterior cabinet dimensions 36" x 23" x 28"
* interior space: eight cubic feet

link

Google Information for Webmasters

Webmaster Guidelines

Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site. Even if you choose not to implement any of these suggestions, we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the "Quality Guidelines," which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index. Once a site has been removed, it will no longer show up in results on Google.com or on any of Google's partner sites.

Design and Content Guidelines:

* Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
* Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
* Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
* Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
* Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
* Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.
* Check for broken links and correct HTML.
* If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
* Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

Technical Guidelines:

* Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
* Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. These . . .

Read the full item here.

Paul Drake Updated

Logicube - High speed hard disk drive hardware duplication and diagnostics - Company Profile:

"Logicube is the fastest growing company in the hard drive duplication and computer forensics techologies today. The company was founded in 1993 and offers an extensive and innovative line of hardware and software products. With its corporate headquarters located in Chatsworth, CA, the company engineers, manufactures and distributes its products around the world. "

Doctor, should I remove my clothes?

Kylie Minogue: Kylie Minogue Thanks Fans For Saving Womens Lives:

June 19, 2005, 12:07:03

Australian beauty KYLIE MINOGUE has thanked fans for supporting her through her breast cancer battle and saving women's lives by raising awareness of the disease.

The SPINNING AROUND singer underwent surgery on 21 May (05) to remove a cancerous lump, and is currently undergoing radiotherapy at a hospital near her home in Melbourne, Australia.
And she's moved to discover her illness has prompted her admirers to purchase charity bracelets, donate money towards breast cancer research and support and have regular mammograms.

She writes on her official website KYLIE.COM, 'I would just like to take a moment to say that above and beyond all your good wishes that keep flowing in and lifting my spirits I was delighted to learn that some good things have come of all this.

'I've been informed that since my diagnosis thousands of women have become more aware than ever of the risk of breast cancer. By way of example, calls to BREASTSCREEN VICTORIA from concerned women have almost doubled.

'Being 'breast aware' plays a major role in early detection so I was especially pleased to hear that younger women in particular are being more proactive with breast examination and talking to their doctors.

'I know that many of my fans have purchased the pink bracelets or pink ribbons and have made donations towards breast cancer support and research, and even cashing in Showgirl concert tickets as a donation, and I thank you. I have been overwhelmed by your show of generosity and understanding. Just what the doctor(s) ordered.'

Google, shmoogle!

Shmoogle: Randomizing Google Results To Show Good Stuff Beyond Top 10
Thanks to Philipp over at Google Blogoscoped for pointing out a new site called Shmoogle.
This new service takes Google results and shows them in a random order. Why? The sites creator, Tasila Hassine, is trying to make a point. She writes:

This tool touches upon several crucial issues on the web such as Search Engine Optimization. Shmoogle instantly neutralizes Page rank and the whole SEO industry induced by it. Yet it addresses other fundamental issues such as retrievability vs. visibility. While all pages on the net are equally retrievable, they are certainly not equally visible.

Hassine has a good point and one that I make quite a bit in my presentations and classes to both librarians and the general public.

Just because it's 'on the web' and has been crawled by a web engine doesn't mean that it's easily retrievable/visible. As I've said before, the Invisible or Deep Web in 2005 is every result beyond number 6 or 7. (-:

Why is this an issue? Here are just a few reasons that come to mind:

++ Keywords Selected
You use the term 'pop' but the perfect result uses the word 'soda.'

++ Number of Keywords Used by the Searcher

++ Effort and Time
Searcher takes what they find during the first search and does nothing else to possibly improve their results. They also want it 'all' in just a few seconds.

++ Lack of Searching Skills
Like I've said many times, people don't use most of the tools engines offer to create more precise results. I'm not just talking about advanced search resources but also the fact that many of the large engines offer specialty tools like image, news, and discussion search. Most of the engines will tell you t. . .

nOT gOOD

40 million credit cards exposed

McMillan

Stock Market
The stock market continues to work its way higher, albeit at a maddeningly slow pace. Our technical indicators remain bullish, though, so we continue to go with the bullish flow. The charts of the major indices have all improved, and that is good. $SPX, $DJX (the Dow), and $OEX (barely) have all made new highs for this move and are thus trading at their highest prices since March. We continue to feel that they will assault the yearly highs soon.

Equity-only put-call ratios have continued to remain strongly on buy signals. Yet, they really aren't overbought. You can see from Figures 2 and 3 that the ratios have room to move lower before encountering the bottom of the chart -- at which point one might judge them overbought. But at their current levels, they are just fine -- and bullish.

During this past week, especially, breadth has been very positive. To a large extent, it's reflective of the strength in the small-cap indices, such as Value Line ($VLE).which is already approaching its yearly highs. When the small cap indices do well, breadth is always expansive (i.e., advances lead declines by a wide margin), since there are so many stocks in these small-cap indices.

Finally, volatility has continued to decline. $VXO, the index that measures the implied volatility of $OEX options, closed at its lowest level since December, 1995 -- nine and half years ago. $VIX wasn't far behind, as the next day (today), it too closed at a 9-1/2 year low. As long as $VIX languishes at these low levels, it's supportive of the bullish case. We would become concerned if $VIX rose more than 3 points from these levels -- which would be slightly above 14. But with the way the market is acting, it appears that volatility is on track to make a low sometime in early July -- in line with its historic seasonal low. Hence the market should be able to continue rising during that time, at least. Overall, we have no sell signals from our indicators and thus we remain bullish.

To receive the complete commentary plus reccomendations visit here: http://www.optionstrategist.com/offers/strategist.htm

Note: Use the following link to view this week's charts: http://www.optionstrategist.com/products/advisories/hotline/charts.asp

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Pretty Cool Site

SearchViews: LexisNexis Launches Taxonomy Initiative: "SearchViews
Dispatches and Discussions on the Search Engine Industry. Brought to you by Reprise Media"

LexisNexis Launches Taxonomy Initiative


LexisNexis not only has all the data you need, it can help you organize it too.

Earlier this week the news and business information services provider announced the launch of a taxonomy program aimed at helping companies organize unstructured content. Teams of "expert consultants" will be on hand to help firms "centralize, classify, and organize" their information.

The firm estimates that poor classification of enterprise data can cost a 10,000 member organization approximately $10 million annually, while security experts say that storing identity data with LexisNexis could cost significantly more (just kidding guys).

Seriously though, this is an example a company realizing of the enormous monetary potential in tagging and taxonomy creation, even if it is more corporate and structured than free form and user-controlled.


Posted by RM at June 9, 2005 10:57 AM

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Friday, June 10, 2005
Baker & McKenzie's KM Report Card

Part 1 (Part 2 in tomorrow's blog)

In this month's Managing Partner issue, Jason Marty, Global Director of KM at Baker & McKenzie, discusses his firm's unmet and miscalculated KM goals. Marty admits that some of Bakers' KM goals were either too ambitious or too limited.

Marty admits candidly: "we had not fully demonstrated to the firm that our investment in KM at the global level was yielding positive results. Simply put, our lawyers did not, on the whole, feel that their work was being directly supported by our knowledge initiatives. . . .

Stock Market
In a market that is becoming ever duller as each day passes, the bulls remain in charge. Declines have been minor and there has been a steady plethora of advances over declines on most days. Consider the $SPX chart in Figure 1. It has now moved above 1200 for the first time since March. The other major indices also stand at their highest levels in nearly three months. There really isn't much resistance between these levels and the yearly highs (above 1220 for $SPX). These charts will retain a positive picture unless they violate the weekly lows -- about 1190 as far as $SPX is concerned.

The charts are not the only positive indicators, however. Equity- only put-call ratios have remained steadfastly bullish since rolling over to buy signals a few weeks ago. Figures 2 and 3 show the steep decline in these ratios. They are bullish as long as that line is declining. It is also worth noting that these ratios have plenty of room to move lower before they would be considered 'overbought.'

Market breadth has perhaps been the most impressive bullish indicator recently. On this past Tuesday -- the first day after a 3-day weekend -- the major averages suffered something of a setback, with the Dow losing 75 points, although $SPX only lost 7. While that was happening, NYSE breadth was actually positive -- a most unusual occurrence, although it was aided by a strong bond market (as you should know, there are many interest-rate sensitive issues listed on the NYSE -- issues that are not stocks). Perhaps just as impressive, though, was the fact that 'stocks only' breadth was only modestly negative that day. The next day saw a rather strong rally, as a Fed governor inferred that the Fed's interest rate increases might be coming to an end. Breadth was superlative, but is now overbought. It is bullish for breadth to be overbought while the market is making new relative highs, especially for the intermediate term (although these overbought conditions do make the market subject to sharp, but short-lived, corrections).

Finally, volatility ($VIX) has remained subdued and that is bullish as well. As long as $VIX stays below 14 (it is nearly down to 12 now), that should remain a positive influence for the market. Only if $VIX were to rise sharply for three or more days would we become concerned about what it is 'saying.'

Overall, then, we remain bullish. Those with profits in existing long positions might want to take some partial profits, just in case there is a short-lived correction, but intermediate-term traders can stay long unless actual sell signals arise from our indicators.


To receive the complete commentary plus reccomendations visit here: http://www.optionstrategist.com/offers/strategist.htm

Hospital rejects Kylie criticism

By Danny Rose
June 03, 2005
CABRINI Hospital has rejected criticism over its accommodation of pop princess Kylie Minogue, and says tight security was needed given the "underhand tactics" of the international media.

The private hospital in Melbourne, where Minogue had surgery to remove a breast tumour last month, said no patients were moved from their rooms to accommodate the Australian-born star.

Calling the claims a "disappointing attack on the integrity of our hospital and staff", Cabrini chief executive Roger Greenman also said today that Minogue's admission was not the cause of a diversion of emergency-case ambulances from the hospital.

It comes after families of Cabrini patients complained publicly this week of being turned away from loved ones by Minogue's security, and of areas of the hospital being sealed off with black plastic.

Concerns also were raised by an unnamed doctor, and some staff, over Minogue's admission, saying its had unduly affected the hospital's day-to-day operations.









Mr Greenman said that security had been tightened for the star's treatment, but he said it was necessary and he rejected claims it had hindered hospital staff.

"Extra security measures were put in place to protect our patients and staff," he said.

He said the measures were necessary to protect Minogue " ... from the intrusive attention of international media representatives, many of whom used underhand tactics to attempt to get access to the hospital during Ms Minogue's stay".

Mr Greenman would not be drawn on the tactics but it is understood, in at least one case, a reporter called the hospital posing as a diagnostic expert seeking a routine transfer of Minogue's files.

Staff also were offered cash to provide photographs of Minogue in her room, it is understood.

"We are happy that out staff and patients were fully protected at all times, and we do not believe that they were hindered of inconvenienced by the extra security," Mr Greenman said.

He also confirmed today that Minogue's stay had used a number of rooms in the hospital's Coronary Care Unit which, he said, had "spare capacity".

"The only patients who were moved at this time were either booked to be discharged or transferred to another ward in the normal manner because of their improving condition," Mr Greenman said.

He said Minogue's visit had also coincided with his hospital's busiest period for emergency cases so far this year – a point also confirmed by the ambulance service.

"Ambulance bypass was necessary to ensure that the ED (emergency department) could appropriately treat patients who had already presented," Mr Greenman said.

"If the rooms occupied by Ms Minogue had been available, they would not have alleviated the pressure on our ED staff."

Mr Greenman also rejected media claims that Minogue's room had been painted pink, reportedly to boost her recovery, and that staff treating her were asked to sign confidentiality agreements.

© The Australian

Google Financial Information: GOOG

AP
Google Shares Rise on New Price Target
Wednesday June 1, 5:34 pm ET
By Lauren Villagran, AP Business Writer
Google Jumps on Highest-Ever Price Target, Investors Speculate Google May Make S&P 500

NEW YORK (AP) -- Google Inc. shares gained nearly 4 percent Wednesday after Credit Suisse First Boston lifted its price target on the stock to $350.

There was also speculation that Google may soon be included in the S&P 500.

CSFB analyst Heath Terry raised Google's target price to $350 from $275 after the company exceeded that level on Tuesday. Thinkequity Partners had set an earlier target ceiling of $330.

In a research note, Terry said the valuation is not out of step with other Internet stocks such as eBay Inc. or Yahoo Inc. -- Google is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 42, while Yahoo is trading at 55 times earnings and eBay at a ratio of 37.

Shares of Google rose $10.38, or 3.7 percent, to $287.65 on the Nasdaq. Yahoo also was higher by $1.24, or 3.3 percent, at $38.44 and shares of eBay climbed $1.11, or 2.9 percent, to $39.11 on the Nasdaq.

"We believe shares have further to go given the momentum in the company's core advertising business, the growing impact of new business like Gmail, Froogle and Local and a valuation that -- relative to the company's growth rate -- is far from stretched," Terry said of Google in the note.

The new, higher price target may not be Google's only booster, said Janco Partners analyst Martin Pyykkonen. There is talk that Standard & Poor's may include Google in its 500 index, he said.

"I think a lot of the real momentum is related to the S&P 500 speculation," he said. "Once it's in, you have a multitude of index funds that literally have to buy the stock. I think it's a foregone conclusion. It will go in."

It may just be a matter of when.

But Standard & Poor's isn't saying.

The S&P requires companies in its 500-index to meet certain criteria: The company must be based in the United States, post positive earnings for four consecutive quarters, trade with adequate liquidity and have a market capitalization of $4 billion, among other characteristics.

S&P Index Committee Chairman David Blitzer said Google meets all of the requirements but he declined to say whether the company would be included.

Google went public in August and by November its shares were trading just shy of $200. In May, Google shares opened the month trading at about $180 and closed Tuesday at $277.21 for a monthly gain of 54 percent.

Derek Brown, an analyst with Pacific Growth Equities, said Google's success may be due to larger marketing trends that favor online advertising companies.

Brown cited a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, an online-advertising industry trade group, that put total advertising revenue for 2004 at $9.6 billion -- up 33 percent from $7.3 billion in 2003.

Pyykkonen cautioned that although some analysts see Google as an even better value than Yahoo, the next-year earnings guidance for the company varies widely.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expect earnings per share of $6.59, but that is the median of a range of $5.67 to $7.44.

"Google's entire business today is based on you and me and millions of others clicking on those right-of-the-page ads," Pyykkonen said. "Putting all your eggs in one basket is great when things are rocking, but it's risky."