Google Planning Changes to Search Algorithm
Google is planning to make changes to its search engine ranking algorithm. Few activities of black hat SEO spammers seems to force Google to make these changes.
We often find links of malicious web pages in the top search results of Google. According to insider sources, the proposes changes are meant to fight these spate of links. Black Hat SEOs have been using techniques to manipulate search rankings during the past few months. They were successful to a certain level find top search queries and create targeted webpages to drive web traffic. Google Trends was being used for the success of this activity.
They became very disturbing during the last few months and this helped Google to decide on making changes to its algorithm. Sources at Google indicated that a ranking change is pending that tackles spam of this kind. Once the change goes live, users shouldn’t see it “nearly as often.”
Google's response to this issue looks like an admission of how difficult it is to provide fresh, timely search results and combating spammers at the same time. As Google have no control over the content appearing in its search results, these spammy websites have no issues to intrude into the top results. World wide web had become more dynamic during the last few years and this is a challenge for all search engines and search engine optimization specialists across the globe.
It is not evident from the statements at Google about the changes and consequences precisely. In order to understand this properly, we will have to keep a watch on Google's search results for the coming days.
SEO is gaining much more importance at this point. Let us hope for the best and keep a close look to the updates.
Labels: google, google trends, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, seo
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Merging Social Media Marketing with SEO
Social media marketing and search engine optimization have become buddies of each other. If you analyze the search results of Google, you will come to know about the influence of social media on search engine results.
When you search for any keyword in search engines, you will find few links like YouTube, Wikipedia, Blogs and Social media sharing sites like Digg, Reddit or Slideshare. Hence, social media marketing has become inevitable when we perform asearch engine optimization campaign. Especially, when someone search for your brand name, all the top search results need to be that of your company itself. If not, it may mislead the potential client/customer.
Social media and SEO are each other's half. The success of social media means making a buzz with people linking back to your website and writing content about you, your company, its products or related services. SEO's success lies in relevancy with content what people are looking for and getting backlinks or people talking about you.
Search results often overflow with social media content. Search engines look for websites with genuine, fresh and unique content. Latest addition to the list of social media sites along with Wikipedia, YouTube and others is that of Twitter. There is an opportunity of ranking better for tough terms using social media websites.
People try to find answer for questions like where to share the content to make their websites popular. This can often be done by merging social media marketing with search engine optimization.
Do share your comments!
Labels: google, search engine optimization, search engines, seo, social media marketing, twitter
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Happy Birthday Gmail!
5 years ago, on an April Fool's Day, Gmail was officially launched. The official press release from Google titled 'Google Gets the Message, Launches Gmail' came out with the below content:
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - April 1, 2004 UTC - Amidst rampant media speculation, Google Inc. today announced it is testing a preview release of Gmail – a free search-based webmail service with a storage capacity of up to eight billion bits of information, the equivalent of 500,000 pages of email. Per user.
At that time, a typical webmail was able to store only 5 megabytes of mail using Hotmail, Yahoo or other mail accounts. It's not easy to compare those days data transfer as compared to today. We are able to send 20 megabyte as an attachment itself, which is four times than the size of an entire web mail account.
Lot had changed in course of time. If it was the size of mail account (which accounted to 1 GB) which attracted people to Gmail initially, it's the features that draws attention of masses to Gmail now. There is so much in particular for that typical email experience today. It includes search, labels, integrated Gtalk, strong spam protection and so on.
This all started as internal email for Google employees and is now used by tens of millions of people in 52 languages and more than a million companies. The issues in email is totally different that of which we used to face before five years. If we consider the scenario of web browsers itself, it had changed dramatically as compared to 2004. They have become faster with great functionalities. Our email accounts have already become a suite of videos, chat, social networking and so on.
Google might consider subject or content in mails for ranking websites in their search results. Pay per click might get more vulnerable with its integration with mail accounts. Anything is possible. This will make SEO experts to work hard and come up with innovative strategies. :)
This was the case for last few years, we should get excited how this will be after 5 years. Let us hope for the best in the coming days.
Do share your comments!
Labels: email accounts, gmail, google, pay per click, ppc, search engine optimization, seo
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Personal and Business Reputation Online
Someone, somewhere is thinking or discussing about you, your company, products, services or something related to you. It may take months or rather years for a company or an individual to build themselves as a brand recognized by all. This is not the case when we consider destroying the reputation of a brand.
It takes only few hours for anyone to destroy a brand's reputation in todays world. This is due to the reach and popularity of Internet and services like Blogs, Tweets, Message Boards, Forums, Social Networks and so on.
A new company, product or service will take months of TV commercials, print advertisements for making their presence felt to the people. The competitors or ex-employees can harm the reputation of a company using their blogs or activity online. This is a major concern in todays competitive world where SEO is of utmost importance. We need to employ innovative ways to monitor reputation of our companies as well as personal lives to manage this situation. This situation has enabled developing a branch of online reputation management alongside Social Media Management.
Each year there will be many challenges of importance to the CEOs or top decision makers and online reputation is considered one of the factors today. A research by Dr. Leslie Gaines Ross and Weber Shandwick team suggests that company executives are well aware of the importance of a spotless reputation and how easily they can personally screw it up!
Of the 703 senior executives polled a whopping 100% of CEOs admit to frequently thinking about their company’s reputation–although only 38% of executives seem to care about their personal reputation (Source: Hill & Knowlton).
Companies who follow ethical or professional ways of acquiring business will not employ these kind of black hat techniques of harming their competitors as it is not healthy for the business as a whole. Moreover, as explained by Matt Cutts (of Google), Google won't remove the page that you don't like from its search listings. Hence, it is important for each company or individual to take care of their reputation by themselves with the help of experienced hands in this emerging field.
Companies who ignore this crucial aspect of safeguarding their brand and trade names will have to face difficulties in the coming years.
I would appreciate sharing your comments on this!
Labels: blogs, brand reputation, branding, business reputation, matt cutts, online reputation, personal reputation, seo, smo
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Branding - A Key Factor for Google Rankings
This is one of the hot discussions happening in the search marketing industry. It started with Google CEO Eric Schmidt commenting on cleaning up Internet which is a Cesspool referring to the content quality and abundant false information that is existing in it.
He clarified that “Brands are the solution, not the problem...Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.” It is no more the hype that need to be ranked, but if you need to increase the rank, you should improve on the relevance of your content.
Referring to this, it is now Aaron Wall of SEO Book who had come up with a detailed analysis with his own experience since he got into Search Marketing and SEO. He is explaining various aspects right from Florida update and using various findings in the past.
It is not possible to build a brand at once, as the process of brand building is quite time consuming. Other factors that can come into play include use of longtail keywords, relevancy of content and so on. It might be due to the fact that brands will retain unique content, Google is considering branding as the important factor for better search rankings.
Let us research on more aspects of search rankings by giving due consideration to pioneers in search marketing like Eric Schmidt, Aaron Wall and others.
Please share your comments!
Labels: aaron wall, branding, content writing, eric schmidt, google, google ceo, keywords, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, search marketing, seo, seo book
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Are you in LOVE with Google?
I have always wondered to find an answer to this question. I have asked the same with many of my friends. I think more or less the answer from all of us will be 'Yes'.
If you need to know if you are in love with someone, you need to know how much you miss him or her when he/she is away from you. Can you ever think of waking up on a morning and accessing the web without Google? In this case, I am sure, you will miss Google badly.
This explains our love for Google. We can't imagine to live without it. Google has become a path of life for most of the people across the globe. At this time of financial crisis, not only individuals, even small and big companies are loving Google. SEO and search marketing is getting popularity and becoming one of the best alternatives for any kind of business affected by recession. Google is adding fuel to their need for more business and SEO experts are helping them out to achieve their objectives.
We are glad to know about few updates from Google. Personalized search is getting more and more better. New features are getting updated for all Google products on a regular basis. Google is getting into many more functional areas and getting ready to rule the world.
There might come a situation, when youngsters are asked about their valentine and their answer will be Google. In this context, let us celebrate this Valentine's Day!
Labels: google, personalized search, search engine optimization, search marketing, seo, valentine, valentine's day
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Rise of Personalized Search
We have seen the ups and downs of technology and businesses. The experience of modern Internet and information technology has gained much importance during the last decade and is still continuing to rule the world.
It was the era of web 2.0 that dominated over online marketing during the past few years. This is modern day revolution with rapid changes and the latest buzzword is personalized search. The search engines are transforming themselves into more user friendly, targeted and interactive than ever before. The rise of personalized search is very relevant in this context.
It is not just Google this time. Yahoo also joins the bandwagon of personalization. Google's personalized search is already out to the public from the labs and Yahoo with their 'Search Builder'. Yahoo's move gives much competition to search startups like Eurekster, Rollyo and so on, as it gives options to customize the search engines.
Google's personalized search reorders the SERP (search engine results page) based on the history of previous searches, giving more weight to content that is of interest to the user. However you need to sign in with your Gmail account to make use of this.
As the search engines are becoming more competent in finding the right results for its users, it is the user who is on the winning edge. However, it is SEO experts who are in the mode gearing up with more powerful or proactive ways of optimization. On one hand, they benefit from the fact that the users will get multiple results and will ensure quality business. They'll need to get more broad and will have to switch between personalized, local and universal search.
It is nice time coming up for the web enthusiasts, as web world is getting more interesting and focused.
Please do share your comments!
Labels: gmail, google, local search, personalized search, search builder, search engine rankings, seo, SERP, universal search, yahoo
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Removing site from Google search results
Some webmasters might be wondering if it is possible to remove the content of another website from the search listings of Google. However, this is not the case always.
Google allows the webmasters to solve the issue by consensus or mutual understanding. They ask the webmaster questioning the listing to contact the webmaster of the site which is in question.
To the contrary, Google might consider a removal request of the website from its listings in case there exist certain conditions.
The conditions in which they are problem sites or problem content can be listed as below:
- If the site is engaged in spam
- If the site is engaged in buying or selling links that pass PageRank
- If the content need to be removed from Google's index because of a copyright infringement which will need a DMCA takedown request
- If the site is infected with malware or malicious software
- If the webmaster does not make the changes after you request and the page contains your personal or private information
In all these cases you may contact Google through their URL removal tool.
We should inform Google about a URL or content from the search results, if we find any unethical SEO technique being used by the webmaster. This will ensure that all the sites in the web get equal treatment and follow professional as well as ethical methods.
Hats off to all SEO folks who follow White Hat techniques for optimization!!
Labels: google, search engine rankings, search engines, seo, SERP, webmasters
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Increase in demand for SEO
Search engine optimization is becoming the hope in the hard times of economic financial crisis. In spite of recession across industries and verticals globally, SEO industry is experiencing tremendous increase in demand. The demand for SEO assistance have shifted from training and consulting to website changes as well as link building.
Clients are looking for ways to maximize their marketing dollars and search engine optimization has already made a mark in improving business for them. If SEO firms and professionals were struggling to get business for themselves previously, recession has increased their business at an astonishing rate. Due to too much business, some of the SEO professionals have started to decline any projects as they are unable to manage additional work load.
Hence, it is already proven that SEO is the one marketing method that is giving a higher ROI as compared to any other marketing model. This also give a message to the clients looking for SEO services that they need to be more keen to know the skills, knowledge and expertise of the service provider. Moreover, it is important for all SEO service providers to treat each client as different and showcase competitive work ethics and productivity.
Is your business progressing with SEO, share your comments!
Labels: search engine optimization, search marketing, seo, seo services
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RSS Feeds and its relevance on SEO
RSS (Really Simple Syndication and/or Rich Site Summary) Feed is a defined standard based on XML which is used for content distribution. As far as a
website or
blog is concerned, we will look forward to repeat visitors or regular readers for it. In order to facilitate this and to make the repeat visitors aware of the changes in the website or blog, RSS feeds are used.
RSS feed is basically an XML document with information such as headlines, product descriptions and other forms of fresh content. When the feed is updated, users who have subscribed to it can view the change in their browser without even visiting the website. They can read the changed article from their Feed Reader.
RSS is free and provides an easy way to promote a website or blog and in syndicating content. As fresh content is a key to spider intimacy, these RSS or XML feeds plays a significant role. RSS feeds play right into the basic SEO concept of themed, quality content that is updated regularly.
There are many sites offering RSS feed options nowadays. You can usually identify the feed subscription option as an orange square with a broadcast motif inviting users to subscribe.
There’s an RSS feed button 
located on the right side navigation of this blog! Feel free to use it!
Labels: blogs, rss feeds, seo, weblogs, xml feed
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Time for New Year Resolution
Its time for new year resolution. Have you identified your resolution for making the business more profitable? Is it Search Marketing? Or is it some other unique marketing technique?
If you already have search marketing efforts on for your site, do you wish to make changes to your tactics and techniques? It’s worth planning your SEO resolutions for 2009. I think we need to think out of the box to use and exploit all the available options online. It does not matter for thinking of a resolution whether it is SEO, PPC, Website Analytics, Local Search Optimization, Web Development or Content Writing Solutions.
We need to understand the trends and plan accordingly to make our business website more effective. We may decide to make our SEO efforts more fruitful with precise plan as far as the site structure is concerned. This will ensure more visibility of specific sections of the site. It will be advisable if we go for a recheck of our content and number of back links. Quality of content and back links matter a lot in today's Internet world.
We have to make use of all the available trends that of article marketing, forums, Digg, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media networks to get more exposure and visibility to the website.
As the competition is getting tougher and algorithmic loopholes of search engines are disappearing , its high time for a decision on total renovation to your marketing efforts.
What are you waiting for? Start planning right away!
Labels: ppc, search engine optimization, search engines, search marketing, seo, smo, social media optimization, web analytics
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Enjoy the Holidays, plan for New Year!!
There were no much expectations for the 2008 Holiday time before the economy tumbled. Isn't it even worse now or rather better now? However, you and your customers still have to make the best of things, so search marketing is here to help.
Companies and corporates are looking for better alternatives to tackle this situation. When times are tough, it's even more important that you spend your marketing dollars efficiently.
Search marketing companies including SalesOnlineWorld have come out with exciting offers and it has been doing great as confirmed from official sources. Free SEO and PPC offers have been giving boost to the companies current financial situation as well as to the economy as a whole. Any business would love to try out alternatives with higher ROI to overcome the recession. Why don't you give a try for these offers?
It is time to celebrate with your family and enjoy the holidays. At the same time, why don't you plan for a better 2009 with these free offers?
Anyways, enjoy the best this holiday season and plan your new year for a better tomorrow.
Greetings from me and the entire team of SalesOnlineWorld. Cheers!!!!
Labels: offers, pay per click, ppc, search engine optimization, search marketing, seo
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4 SEO Tips to beat the recession
The economic slowdown has definitely brought down the businesses across the globe. But, does that mean that people won't spend or buy? Not necessarily. Customers have just wised up and think twice before spending. They put lots of research before reaching a decision. Studies reveal that Americans conducted 12 billion searches during the last month and Google accounted to about 63% of these searches. People have turned their back on the traditional marketing methods and prefer conducting researches themselves. So, how can you guarantee your brand visibility on search engines?
Here are 4 useful tips to ensure high search engine rankings for your site.
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Give relevant page titles for your pages. Make sure that you have different titles for different pages.
Start a Blog. Blogs help your SEO work in two ways. You can keep updating your website on a daily basis. Search engines love regularly updated content. Blogs also attract links. Linking your websites to other sites is a major step towards high search engine rankings.
Use good content with high keyword density on your website.
Get started with Social Media Optimization. Make use of the immense marketing potential offered by the social media.
One of the most important things about SEO is that it is a never-ending process. Keep doing the right things and business results will be just around the corner.
Labels: google, search engine optimization, seo, smo, social media optimization
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How to weather Google storm
Reading from multitude of webmaster forums, will no doubt cause you to wonder how to forecast Google's next move. With many clients on your toe, it's but natural for you to to carry this concern about how optimization can bear fruit.
With frequent changes in Google algorithm it's not a pleasant sight to see your site dancing in the search engine results page. So, how well can you weather shield from unpredictable fluctuation in Google's algorithm.
While there are many strategies you can adopt, let's explore two simple facets:
Befriend Google
Do not consider Google as your nemesis neither try to circumvent around the Google algorithms with unethical practices. Instead, take a long term approach to ensure consistent listing on Google's SERP.
The underlying fact to achieve high ranking is to base your site with quality content, good navigation and appropriate design. The bottom line is to make the site useful for your users by providing quality information and ensure increased customer interaction using web 2.0 techniques. Make use of reliable on-page and off-page techniques to bring your site on the radar of search engines.
Avoid excesses
Webmasters often commit the mistake of flooding the websites with too many SEO tactics. Apply all techniques in moderation, whether it relates to linking, content, tags, keywords density etc. Slow and steady use of all SEO activities is the sure fire way to lead up in the charts of search engines.
Closing thoughts
As an ethical webmaster, know the boundaries of overindulgence and right mix of strategies. Keep away from the “blackhat” techniques and stay firmly with “white hat” for success.
Labels: google, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, seo, SERP
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Google SERP changes revealed
Is SEO changing its focus point to Google? More and more posts and articles are circling around discussions about changes happening with Google. Does this mean Google have already taken monopoly and will play around with world wide web?
However, as it goes we are not left with any choice other than discussing about Google SERP changes. The current scenario or situation in the global web arena demands this.
Reports from various sources suggests that there are differences in huge numbers in results found on Google. For searches performed in the middle of the day, you may get 1 million results. Later in the day, the same search may find 2 million results. This may occur due to querying different datacenters (though that number is pretty large even to me). This might also happen due to capitalization issues.
Another important aspect that needs attention is that few of the indexed pages seems disappearing from the SERP. These pages were previously filtered 4-7 pages deep due to duplicate meta descriptions. This might come back if there are no major changes being done to the site.
Moreover, on page factors of SEO are becoming more relevant as compared to off-page factors. Looking forward to others reporting similar analysis.
Labels: google, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, search engines, seo, SERP
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Significance of Link Building
How can you channel quality visitors from other websites to your websites? One quick way in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), to bring in prospects is through Link building.
Search engine values those links that come to your site from other websites. It’s a sure fire way to fetch high ranking and importance in the eye of major search engines. Meaning, you should be working hard to attain quality links from other sites that have high page rank and is trusted by high quality sites.
So, how do you solicit links from other sites?
Make your web site rich with informative content and value source for users. This would result in repeated visits and more time in your site from online visitors. Your efforts must focus on providing relevant and updated information for your website.On the other hand, other websites too will note the traffic and wealth of quality info in your site and take steps to link with your site.
Now what are you waiting for? Start working to make your site in the way your users would like to see and you could see more links from other sites.
Labels: link building, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, search engines, seo
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Selecting More Specific Keywords - For Better Search Engine Ranking and Targeted Visitors
In the process of Search Engine Optimization, keyword analysis and choosing right keywords plays vital role to get more targeted visitors and better search engine ranking. So when you are on the process of keyword selection always try more specific keywords which describe your business better and particularly what your target audience can type in search box to find your product or service.
If you are selecting more business related keywords your Key Word Effectiveness Index (KEI) will be high, in other words search volume will be good and your competitor will be less in comparison to generic keywords.
For instance if you are selecting keyword for your old car sailing site always it is better to target keywords like used cars, used cars for sale, second hand cars, second hand cars for sale or give particular geographical location like San Francisco, Florida or New York instead of targeting the generic keyword like Cars or Cars for sale.
Instead of going for high search volume keyword it is always better to choose such a key phrase, which represent not only your service or product better but also your search engine ranking will be higher. It is always better to drive 100 visitors per day and to get 75 conversions instead of driving 1000 visitors per day and no conversion.
Labels: keywords, search engine optimization, search engine rankings, seo
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SEO Vs PPC
All of you must have heard about SEO and PPC. Though they are spoken of in the same breath, they are entirely different. I will try and explain the differences here.
SEO
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website via natural or organic search results for targeted keywords on search engines. SEO is a continuous process and takes lot of time and effort. You can learn the process and do it yourself. It won’t cost you much and will bring in better results in the longer run.
PPC
PPC or Pay Per Click is an advertising model used on search engines, advertising websites and other content related websites, where advertisers pay only when a user clicks on the ad. It is a one-time process and will bring in instant results. The process will cost you more than SEO but loses out to SEO in the long run.
Labels: keywords, pay per click, ppc, search engine optimization, search engines, seo
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SEO Process in a glance
SEO has emerged as one of the best search marketing tools available. It is cost effective and if managed diligently brings in solid results. It’s a long process and needs time and efforts. Let’s take a peek at the SEO process.
Website Analysis
The first step to SEO or Search Engine Optimization is to analyze your website. The target audience and the business goals are taken into consideration while analyzing the website.
Find apt keywords
Finding the keywords relevant to your industry is the most important part of SEO. You can form a list of keywords that the prospects will use while searching for your products and services. If you can find a unique keyword that works, it will work wonders for your business. It is also vital to find the right keyword density.
Title Tags, Meta Tags and Alt Tags
SEO is not just about stuffing the website with keywords. You have to craft the right title tags, meta tags and alt tags to target your prospects.
Keep working
SEO is not a one-time process. You need to keep working diligently to get optimum results. The web content has to be updated regularly. SEO is a continuous process and it will bring in solid results in the longer run.
Labels: search engine optimization, search engines, seo, seo services
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