Search Business Analysis

Google Sitelink Update 2011

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 12:50:45 +0000

Google has taken another step towards better user search experience, now user can see important category pages from search results itself and would results in less bounce rate and better navigation of website from user perspective.

Now Webmasters can take a deeper look into website categories level and accordingly re arrange their staraergy based on user begaviour.

Till now there is no clear indication that what Google taken into account before showing sitelinks from a website, Yet using Google Webmaster, Webmaster can block some of the links appearing as sitelinks, but what they want to show as sitelinks, and what to do to show a particular page a sitelinks in results have certain doubts.

The Google Sitelinks help page explains with good information for Webmasters.

” The links shown below some sites in our search results, called sitelinks, are meant to help users navigate your site. Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they’re looking for.

We only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them. “

Earlier the sitelinks shows the webpages with plain texts without any description or URL associated with it. The below screenshot shows the New Sitelinks Format On Testing.

Google Sitelinks update August 2011

Sitelinks Update August 2011

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Google new reading level filter

admin — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 13:22:08 +0000

You might have read or noticed that Google has implemented a new feature in their search engine. You can now filter search results on ‘reading level’. I’m not quite sure how exactly this reading level is calculated, I believe Aizu might be able to shed some light on that though.

It’s probably based on the difficulty of the language used, and not so much the difficulty of the content it explains. But I’m really not sure, heh.

Source: https://thunked.org/general/google-s-new-reading-level-filter-t101.html

Google Reading Level

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32 Benefits of Outsourcing

admin — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:14:40 +0000

By outsourcing, you can:
1. Reduce overheads, free up resources
2. Minimize capital expenditure
3. Eliminate investment in fixed infrastructure
4. Offload non-core functions
5. Redirect energy and personnel into the core business
6. Free your executive team from day-to-day process problems
7. Focus scarce resources on mission-critical projects
8. Get access to specialized skills
9. Reduce need for internal commitment of specialists
10. Save on manpower and training costs
11. Control operating costs
12. Improve efficiencies through economies of scale
13. Improve speed and service
14. Level out cyclical or seasonal fluctuations
15. Eliminate peak staffing problems
16. Provide the best quality services, products and people
17. Be reliable and innovative
18. Provide value-added services
19. Increase customer satisfaction
20. Establish long-term, strategic relationships with world-class service providers to gain a competitive edge
21. Enhance tactical and strategic advantages
22. Focus on strategic thinking, process reengineering and managing trading partner relationships
23. Benefit from the provider’s expertise in solving problems for a variety of clients with similar requirements.
24. Obtain needed project management and implementation consulting expertise
25. Acquire access to best practices and proven methodologies
26. Spread your risks
27. Avoid the cost of chasing technology
28. Leverage the provider’s extensive investments in technology, methodologies and people
29. Reduce the risk of technological obsolescence
30. Increase efficiency by consolidating and centralizing functions
31. Keep pace and minimize the impact of rapid changes in technology without changing your infrastructure
32. Reduce the overall management burden while retaining control of strategic decision making.

Source: http://www.mdfsystems.com/artman/publish/article_19.shtml

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In web analytics, everything is relative !!

admin — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:39:06 +0000

Web Analytics FAQ

What’s a good bounce rate for my web site?

I get that kind of question a lot. What’s a ‘good’ bounce rate? A ‘good’ time on site?

The answer, I’m afraid, is: Better than your current bounce rate. Better than your current time on site.

In web analytics, it’s best to focus on your own data and on improving. Use yourself as the benchmark. This is your best strategy for two reasons:
Lack of accurate benchmarks

Accurate, internet- or industry-wide data on keyword searches, or competitors, or just about anything else, is scarce. Non-existent, really.

1. ‘Panel’-based statistics like Compete.com (which I love) and Alexa (which I’m starting to like again) sweep in an incredibly wide range of web sites. The bounce rate on your online bike shop won’t compare to, say, the bounce rate on the New York Times web site.

2. Statistics within your own industry will include outliers at both end of the spectrum: At one end are the companies that have invested 100x your budget to become the shining pinnacle of conversion rate optimization. At the other, you’ll be comparing yourself to the sites designed according to 1992 best practices. Even if you can narrow down the data in #1, it’ll be inaccurate..

3. Keyword data from Google is about as trustworthy as a credit default swap.

4. Keyword data from other sources may be more trustworthy, but shows you a tiny sliver of total search traffic.

Numbers lie

Even if you could get accurate benchmarks, they still lie. Your business isn’t like your competitors’, no matter how similar they seem. Competitor A just fired his head of sales, so conversion rates tanked for a month. Competitor B happened to get on Channel 5 News. Her traffic tripled, lowering her conversion rate, too – but her sales skyrocketed.

Unless you’ve got the whole story, the numbers will lie. And you can’t get the whole story.
Focus on improvement

So, if you’re trying to figure out how many visitors you should be getting for ’slobber knocker’, the answer is? More than you get right now.

If you’re trying to figure out where your conversion rate should be? Yep. Better than what you’re getting right now.

That’s what web analytics are for: Helping you improve. Which, as it happens, is also how you beat your competitors.

Resource: Web Analytics FAQ

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Google Places Result in Search Results

admin — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:46:24 +0000

Google-Places-Results-SERP

Google Places Result in Search Results

Sometimes Google Provide expended results on search result page.

SEO Updates | Google Webmaster Analytics Update 2010

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WHEN YOUR PERSONAL BRAND IS BIGGER THAN YOUR BUSINESS

admin — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:52:25 +0000

Recently John Warrilow came out with thought provoking idea. Leadership is a cool branding. You as a leader branding your organization or branding your selves.?
What is a most important brand?
If you own a company you’d like to sell one day, should you build your personal brand or your business brand?
Take Oprah Winfrey and her production company, Harpo, as an example of a personal brand overwhelming the business brand.
The Oprah Winfrey Show has 75,000 followers on Twitter; Oprah’s magazine, O, has 106,000 followers; Oprah Radio has 25,000 followers. Oprah, the person, has 4,250,000+ followers.
So are people loyal to Oprah or her business? Will the value of Harpo be discounted because Oprah, the person, is “bigger”?
For an answer to the brand-your-company-versus-brand-yourself debate, turned to Gary Vaynerchuk, one of the most prolific personally branded entrepreneurs on the planet.

Vaynerchuk got his start working for his dad’s liquor store. He noticed an opportunity to sell wine to novices and, among other things, created a video blog called Wine Library TV. Vaynerchuk promoted his new show through sites like Facebook and Twitter and ultimately became one of the first entrepreneurs to capitalize on the economic potential of social media. He then wrote the book Crush It! to reveal some of his social media wisdom. It became a New York Times bestseller.

Vaynerchuk decided to promote his personal brand ahead of his company. His 850,000+ Twitter followers learn more about Vaynerchuk’s dreams (he wants to own the New York Jets), his no. 1 rule (“take care of your family”), and what pisses him off (lazy people) than about his company.

So should company builders brand themselves ahead of their company? Here’s our exchange:

Warrillow: You’ve built an amazing personal brand, but was it a mistake to promote yourself over your company?

Vaynerchuk: I know if I stopped hosting Wine Library TV, we’d probably lose 75 percent of our audience, but the remaining 25 percent is still a big number.

Warrillow: I think business owners reading this would be horrified at the thought of losing 75 percent of their customers.

Vaynerchuk: I understand, but look at the numbers. The average liquor retailer in the United States sells for 30 cents for every dollar in revenue, so a $10-million liquor retailer is worth around $3.5 million. I’ve been offered two dollars per dollar of revenue for my business, so I’m confident the value of my personal brand is accruing to my business, as well.

If people are worried about undermining their business value by promoting their personal brand, they are not thinking big enough. Look at Oprah or Martha Stewart or even Martha Stewart’s chef, Emeril Lagasse, whose business interests (Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia) just acquired for $70 million.

Warrillow: So what’s the secret of transforming a personal brand into one that benefits your company?

Vaynerchuk: Brands mature over time, like a marriage. The bond you feel with your spouse is different than when you first met each other. Excitement and discovery are replaced by comfort and depth. Personal brands mature over time, and if you nurture the relationship you have with your audience for long enough, your personal brand will evolve to one that benefits your company.

Warrillow: Okay, so let’s say you have convinced readers to build a personal brand as well as a company brand. What advice would you give to those just starting their personal branding journey?

Vaynerchuk: Don’t be a brand whore. Do you know how many companies have wanted me to do an energy drink for them because I named my book Crush It!? It might be fun one day, but right now I think it would undermine the personal brand I’ve built.

You have to understand your own personal DNA. Don’t do things because I do them or Steve Jobs or Mark Cuban tried it. You need to know your personal brand and stay true to it.

Warrillow: The name of your media company is a derivative of your surname. Will that make it tricky if the Vayner in Vaynermedia ever wants to sell it?

Vaynerchuk: Having your personal name in your company name is not right for everyone. Again, I think you have to know your DNA. I know how to make a brand larger than life, and I have no plans to sell Vaynermedia, so the name makes sense to me. Plus I get a little extra respect in meetings since my surname is on the door.

Author: Dr. Shailesh Thaker

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SEO friendly website development

admin — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:17:20 +0000

Suggested Points to keep in mind during the website development stage:

· Neat and clean coding with all the scripts as externalized.

· Make your text readable: Make your text readable: standard size (Web standard is 12).

· Text based navigation should be on top & left which is good from SEO perspective, make your navigation clear: making your site hierarchy clear and consistent.

· URLs rewriting should to be been done on the website so they are search engine friendly.

· Web site must have an article/blog section as well.

· Images should be sized so they don’t bump up load time

· Website should have download section, from where visitor can download the related information.

· Website has text based headings structure, which is considered good from SEO perspective.

· Almost every page has relevant title tag and Meta description tag (Fields in Back End)

· Text Sitemap and Google XML sitemap need to be dynamically created, which is good from SEO perspective.

· The site should be quite bigger in terms of number of pages and most of the pages are very well indexed in the search engines.

· Site must contain Header tags (H1,H2….H6), where H1 should be product name.

· Webpage should contain all the information parameters required for Google base feed generation. A cron job or scheduler should be setup for feed update.

· RSS feed must be implemented on website.

· Breadcrumb must be implemented on website to navigate user and spider through the website in friendlier manner (Personally I recommend breadcrumb font size of 8- 10).

· Images should contain proper naming convention with ALT tags(Image Name should be Product Name).

· Contact Us Page should contain all the required info for Map Listing in Google, Yahoo, and Bing(Link to Google Map).

· Inline coding must handled via CSS.

· Move all style sheet in HEADER, moving style sheets to the document HEAD makes pages appear to be loading faster, Put all the scripts at the bottom of webpage, will make web pages load faster.

· Make JavaScript and CSS External

· Images must be optimized towards high performance. I would suggest o use www.smushit.com/ysmush.it/ to optimize images weight.

· Website footer should contain Google places friendly location address in footer (In Text Format).

· Website CMS should contain facility to run static as well as dynamic Meta tags.

· Website should contain social media icons above the scroll to make website more sociable.

And Many More…..Required Your help to complete the list.

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local search Google Places ranking factors

admin — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 12:55:27 +0000

Local Map/Places Ranking Factors

Local SEO – Importance of General Signals

Claiming Place Page / Local Listing (4.40) (↑ 0.55)
Off-Page / Off-Listing Criteria (3.35)(↓ 0.15)
Customer Reviews (3.35) (↑ 0.08)
On-Page Criteria (2.36) (↓ 0.62)

Local SEO – Most Positive Factors

General Importance of Claiming Place Page / Local Listing (+4.40)
Business Address in City of Search (+4.16)
Associating Place Page with Proper Categories (+3.91)
Volume of Citations from Major Data Providers + IYP Portals (+3.53)
General Importance of Off-Page / Off-Listing Criteria (+3.35)

Local SEO – Most Harmful Factors

Multiple Place Pages with Same Phone Number (-2.75)
Not Showing Address on Your Place Page (-2.48)
Multiple Place Pages with Same Address (-2.33)
Listing PO Box on Website without a Physical Address (-1.61)
Multiple Place Pages with Same Business Title (-1.35)

Local SEO – Highest Agreement

Business Address in City of Search (+4.16)
WHOIS Record Associated with Your Domain (+0.60)
Volume of Location Service Check-ins (+0.75)
General Importance of Claiming Place Page / Local Listing (+4.40)
Participation in Local PPC or Place Page Advertising (+0.43)

Local SEO – Most Controversial

Defining a Service Area for Your Place Page (+0.47)
Including Location Keywords in Place Page Categories (-0.14)
Location Keyword in Place Page Business Title (1.82)
Choosing List of Areas Served for Your Place Page (1.00)
Not Showing Address on Your Place Page (-2.48)

Local SEO – More Helpful Than in 2009

Associating Photos with Your Place Page (0.56)
General Importance of Claiming Place Page / Local Listing (0.55)
Volume of MyMaps on which Your Business Is Included (0.54)
Age of Place Page (0.49)
Associating Local Area Code as Primary Place Page Phone Number (0.29)

Local SEO – Less Helpful Than in 2009

Including Full Address on Places Landing Page (↓1.08)
Location Keyword in Place Page Description (↓0.99)
Listing Information for Multiple Locations on Places Landing Page (↓0.93)
Multiple Place Pages with Same Phone Number (↓0.89)
Location Keywords in Inbound Links to Website (↓0.83)

Source : http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

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Google 200 Algorithm Parameters Guess

admin — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:32:28 +0000

Domain: 13 factors

1. Domain age;
2. Length of domain registration;
3. Domain registration information hidden/anonymous;
4. Site top level domain (geographical focus, e.g. com versus co.uk);
5. Site top level domain (e.g. .com versus .info);
6. Sub domain or root domain?
7. Domain past records (how often it changed IP);
8. Domain past owners (how often the owner was changed)
9. Keywords in the domain;
10. Domain IP;
11. Domain IP neighbors;
12. Domain external mentions (non-linked)
13. Geo-targeting settings in Google Webmaster Tools

Server-side: 2 factors

1. Server geographical location;
2. Server reliability / uptime

Architecture: 8 factors

1. URL structure;
2. HTML structure;
3. Semantic structure;
4. Use of external CSS / JS files;
5. Website structure accessibility (use of inaccessible navigation, JavaScript, etc);
6. Use of canonical URLs;
7. “Correct” HTML code (?);
8. Cookies usage;

Content: 14 factors

1. Content language
2. Content uniqueness;
3. Amount of content (text versus HTML);
4. Unlinked content density (links versus text);
5. Pure text content ratio (without links, images, code, etc)
6. Content topicality / timeliness (for seasonal searches for example);
7. Semantic information (phrase-based indexing and co-occurring phrase indicators)
8. Content flag for general category (transactional, informational, navigational)
9. Content / market niche
10. Flagged keywords usage (gambling, dating vocabulary)
11. Text in images (?)
12. Malicious content (possibly added by hackers);
13. Rampant mis-spelling of words, bad grammar, and 10,000 word screeds without punctuation;
14. Use of absolutely unique /new phrases.

Internal Cross Linking: 5 factors

1. # of internal links to page;
2. # of internal links to page with identical / targeted anchor text;
3. # of internal links to page from content (instead of navigation bar, breadcrumbs, etc);
4. # of links using “nofollow” attribute; (?)
5. Internal link density,

Website factors: 7 factors

1. Website Robots.txt file content
2. Overall site update frequency;
3. Overall site size (number of pages);
4. Age of the site since it was first discovered by Google
5. XML Sitemap;
6. On-page trust flags (Contact info ( for local search even more important), Privacy policy, TOS, and similar);
7. Website type (e.g. blog instead of informational sites in top 10)

Page-specific factors: 9 factors

1. Page meta Robots tags;
2. Page age;
3. Page freshness (Frequency of edits and
% of page effected (changed) by page edits);
4. Content duplication with other pages of the site (internal duplicate content);
5. Page content reading level; (?)
6. Page load time (many factors in here);
7. Page type (About-us page versus main content page);
8. Page internal popularity (how many internal links it has);
9. Page external popularity (how many external links it has relevant to other pages of this site);

Keywords usage and keyword prominence: 13 factors

1. Keywords in the title of a page;
2. Keywords in the beginning of page title;
3. Keywords in Alt tags;
4. Keywords in anchor text of internal links (internal anchor text);
5. Keywords in anchor text of outbound links (?);
6. Keywords in bold and italic text (?);
7. Keywords in the beginning of the body text;
8. Keywords in body text;
9. Keyword synonyms relating to theme of page/site;
10. Keywords in filenames;
11. Keywords in URL;
12. No “Randomness on purpose” (placing “keyword” in the domain, “keyword” in the filename, “keyword” starting the first word of the title, “keyword” in the first word of the first line of the description and keyword tag…)
13. The use (abuse) of keywords utilized in HTML comment tags

Outbound links: 8 factors

1. Number of outbound links (per domain);
2. Number of outbound links (per page);
3. Quality of pages the site links in;
4. Links to bad neighborhoods;
5. Relevancy of outbound links;
6. Links to 404 and other error pages.
7. Links to SEO agencies from clients site
8. Hot-linked images

Backlink profile: 21 factors

1. Relevancy of sites linking in;
2. Relevancy of pages linking in;
3. Quality of sites linking in;
4. Quality of web page linking in;
5. Backlinks within network of sites;
6. Co-citations (which sites have similar backlink sources);
7. Link profile diversity:
1. Anchor text diversity;
2. Different IP addresses of linking sites,
3. Geographical diversity,
4. Different TLDs,
5. Topical diversity,
6. Different types of linking sites (logs, directories, etc);
7. Diversity of link placements
8. Authority Link (CNN, BBC, etc) Per Inbound Link
9. Backlinks from bad neighborhoods (absence / presence of backlinks from flagged sites)
10. Reciprocal links ratio (relevant to the overall backlink profile);
11. Social media links ratio (links from social media sites versus overall backlink profile);
12. Backlinks trends and patterns (like sudden spikes or drops of backlink number)
13. Citations in Wikipedia and Dmoz;
14. Backlink profile historical records (ever caught for link buying/selling, etc);
15. Backlinks from social bookmarking sites.

Each Separate Backlink: 6 factors

1. Authority of TLD (.com versus .gov)
2. Authority of a domain linking in
3. Authority of a page linking in
4. Location of a link (footer, navigation, body text)
5. Anchor text of a link (and Alt tag of images linking)
6. Title attribute of a link (?)

Visitor Profile and Behavior: 6 factors

1. Number of visits;
2. Visitors’ demographics;
3. Bounce rate;
4. Visitors’ browsing habits (which other sites they tend to visit)
5. Visiting trends and patterns (like sudden spiked in incoming traffic)
6. How often the listing is clicked within the SERPs (relevant to other listings)

Penalties, Filters and Manipulation: 12 factors

1. Keyword over usage / Keyword stuffing;
2. Link buying flag
3. Link selling flag;
4. Spamming records (comment, forums, other link spam);
5. Cloaking;
6. Hidden Text;
7. Duplicate Content (external duplication)
8. History of past penalties for this domain
9. History of past penalties for this owner
10. History of past penalties for other properties of this owner (?)
11. Past hackers’ attacks records
12. 301 flags: double re-directs/re-direct loops, or re-directs ending in 404 error

More Factors (6):

1. Domain registration with Google Webmaster Tools;
2. Domain presence in Google News;
3. Domain presence in Google Blog Search;
4. Use of the domain in Google AdWords;
5. Use of the domain in Google Analytics;
6. Business name / brand name external mentions.

Source : http://www.dosurfin.com/200-algorithm-parameters-of-google-just-guess/

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New Website SEO Checklist Latest

admin — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:30:09 +0000

There are many things that developers and marketers must keep in mind when they are about to launch a brand new website, but you may not necessarily have an actual checklist of to-do items. For this reason, this new website checklist has been compiled for your convenience. It may not be definitive, but it will help you get the fundamentals of your site right so that your website start’s life with its best foot forward.

1. Meaningful & Logical Structure

It is important to maintain a relevant relationship between the title of your pages and the content thereof. Keep in mind that search engines prefer URLs separated using hyphens instead of underscores. Use a flat architecture with economical use of directories so that content is as few clicks away from the root as possible.

2. Relevant, Unique Page Titles for Every Page

This is one aspect of development that can be easy to overlook, and it won’t make competition any easier for your website. Pages without custom titles look unprofessional and are a huge missed opportunity; Firefox will simply display your page as “Mozilla Firefox” and Internet Explorer will title it as your URL. At the time of writing, there are millions of indexed pages with “Untitled Document” as their title – don’t let your site be one of them!

3. Unique Meta Descriptions for Every Page

Considered useless by many, search engines do show meta descriptions in their search engine results page. If this is missing, then copy from the page will be used instead. If you are interested in having boosting your CTR from SERPs, it would be wise to create a unique meta description for each and every page. Think of the meta description like an advertisement to be read by users scanning the list of results, so make it stand out from the crowd!

4. Valid XHTML and CSS

It is always important to ensure your CSS and XHTML are valid without any issues, lest your website break in a browser. Always check that your website will work with a wide range of browsers to avoid usability problems for users and robots.

5. Externalize JavaScript

Using inline JavaScript is lazy because it is impossible for the browser to cache inline JavaScript, effectively adding weight into the page. Always keep JavaScript in a separate, external file. Additionally, externalize your CSS so that it isn’t included at the top of each page.

6. Use Includes for Footers, Headers and Navigation

It’s a hundred times easier to tweak your copyright date or your logo if you separate these commonly accessed files and turn them into includes. Anything that’s a common element on every page should be an include – it’s such a massive time saver!

7. Changeable Text Sizes for Better Usability

For the purposes of accessibility, this is definitely a must. Browsers will allow resizing of text if you specify their default size via ems or percentages. Constraints will be made when you use fixed pixel sizes, so avoid this unless absolutely necessary. It is much better not to force your readers to view content at one fixed size when you do not have to.

8. Sitemaps

Sitemaps help a search engine to crawl your website and are a really useful tool in your SEO belt. Ideally you will have a sitemap (typically linked to from the footer) that users can consult if they get lost and another version optimized for crawlers.

9. Reserve User Names on Social Networks

The importance of social media both for branding, community building and driving traffic to your website cannot be emphasised enough. As people spend increasingly more time on websites like Facebook and Twitter, it becomes even more essential that you go to where the users are. When you’re reserving your domain name, check that it is possible to set up a profile using the same name on the most important social networks so that your branding is consistent.

10. Write a Privacy Policy

If you are collecting data from a user in any way, there is a data protection act that requires you employ a privacy policy into your website. Not only should you have this available on your website, but it would be wise to include your company’s contact details and make them publicly available on your website.

This post was contributed by James Adams, a full time in-house analyst and product reviewer who currently works at a leading print cartridge supplier offering franking machine ink to businesses across the United Kingdom.