Monday, June 30, 2008

Significance of Page Rank

One of the most significant factors that have been put into practice within the search engine algorithms is the emergence of the Google Page Rank parameter to gauge the significance of the indexed web pages. The PR of a webpage is the web page’s overall internet popularity where the search engine algorithm count the number of websites that link to a page and assign it a score on a scale of 1-10. Search engine optimization involves careful deliberate incorporation of keywords and phrases in a web page to boost its ranking and making it important from the search engine’s perspective. The search engines index these Web pages in its database and rank them according to the keyword frequency, density, placement and its "Internet popularity." In clear cut terms it is a bullying factor that is not easy to break down. One of the reasons that make it hard to put PR in plain words is because of its analogous aspect. It is something webmasters work for all the time without thinking about it. With the emergence of PR tool, ranking has increased for lower ranked sites while it has decreased for previously higher ranked sites, which has made it a debatable issue. There is something to PageRank that even the SEO industry aficionados don’t always agree on. This has resulted in the conclusion that PageRank doesn’t hold much of importance for your site, as it holds for other sites linking to your site. In more clear terms, it means if a highly ranked and reliable site links to yours, you get more credibility. PageRank is judged primarily on a website's link volume, link age, and link value.

Google uses link popularity to gauge the PR of a web page because many webmasters cloak their web pages to showcase one version of a page to one visitor and another version to others. This sneaky process is simply against the Google guidelines. PageRank depends on the number and quality of inbound links. Though the quantity of inbound links alone does not give an authentic estimation of the page' significance because it ignores link importance. However, it gives an estimate of page popularity. At one time the boom of PR caught such an interpretation that the webmasters to promote their services/products readily agreed to buy the popular links to increase their website’s internet popularity. But of lately, the craze of buying the links has plummeted because of the emergence of other SEO marketing tools such as forums and blogs. These tools have enormously impact the listing and ranking of websites. Due to the google’s ever-changing algorithms many higher-ranked websites are seeing a drop in PageRank, particularly those which are on importance score of PR5-PR8. PR8's and PR9's have become the untouchable score, as even the number of PR7’s has also declined overall. The fluctuations are seen because Google wants to put a damper on the acquisition of links based strictly on the Toolbar PR value. For us, the green little line in the PR tool is a good pointer of a website's online value, but the need of the time is to stay updated and taking good consultation in the area of traditional best SEO practices.

With the recent launch of Google's Bigdaddy datacenter no data center will make 100% of people happy. For every URL that moves into the top 10, another URL moves out. Googler Matt expects that Bigdaddy’s results, which are still experimental at this stage, will become the default for Google later on (possibly in a few months). It’s no wonder that PageRank fluctuation would also be on rise.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Building PR the right way

Page Rank is a score that Google assigns to each web page on every site that is within the Google database. The PR of a page is based on external and internal linking of a site, as well as on-page standard of the web page which is being linked to as well as the web page being linked from. Not only Google but also other search engines like Yahoo, MSN etc. place a weighting factor on each link. Some search engines won't even crawl into the websites that do not have links directing to them. And to enhance the PR, it should be ensured that big majority of links you exchange are relevant to the content of your website. To build the right PR there should not be any kind of discrepancy between the subject-matter and the link pointed to it. The concept is link popularity is highly regarded because it is a kind of recommendation or guarantee for search engines that a site is worth.

Building the links for a particular website is a complex process because there are plenty of sites that can go to any extent to obstruct there outgoing links from the search engines. The page ranking raises with number of links, but if the links are directed from the websites with relevant content that page rank goes up higher. Building PR the right way requires some deliberate course of actions.

  • Writing a great testimonial for a site whose services you have availed and including your sites link. This can give your site some credibility.
  • Posting your articles in forums that are ranked well in the search engines and are industry specific. Make sure the forums you have chosen use a mod-rewrite so that your postings could be read in the search engines.
  • Creating a web blog with well written keyword-rich content about your industry and posts. It is important to have well written content and include at least 3 links on each blog pointing back to your site. But please at any cost do not spam others blogs with your sites links, your blog link will be added automatically.
  • Submit your web pages in web directories. The content should be keyword rich.
  • Sign up for the link exchange directories. Make sure that the category names are specified so that you don't dwell on tiresome repetition of the content.
  • If you are a webmaster to sites then try triangular or 3 way linking. Ask someone to link to your main site and in return you will link to their site from your other site.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

How to prevent the loss of traffic caused due to spelling variants

Misspellings are a great way to gain search traffic that is less competitive. Since the evolution of English language plenty of variations could be seen in English language in terms of its usage, vocabulary and spellings, none of these ways could be termed as wrong. This linguist habit of people can also be seen while searching for a particular stuff in search engines. As already presumed most of the people never accept the correction suggested by Google or Yahoo! taking an awfsome lot of searches somewhere. Some of the Most Commonly Misspelled Words are:

definately --> definitely

"There" for "their" or "they're",
"advise" for "advice"
"than" against "then"
"It's" for "its"
loose against lose
accommodation, accommodation, accommodation, acomodation affect and effect

In the common misspellings of the domain some sites appear to exist solely from the profit derived from the already established site. For example gogle.com, googel.com and goolge.com are all redirected to the Google's home page, but few of the variations that are missed out by Google are redirect to the sites that totally proliferate due to the profit from the Google brand. Most of the times the web sites that contain the right spellings do not get listed in the search engines instead the web sites containing the misspelled variation come on the search pages. This way the authentic sites, suffer the ironic fault of being right. Misspellings can also be incorporated into the content of pages because it is it is fairly easy to come up in search rankings with misspellings for your target keywords. From an intellectual web user's perspective misspellings in the body of content is embarrassing, but from an SEO perspective it is a way of generating traffic. But it is also having its flaw, if your web site does not contain the variant of the term the user typed in for getting information in the search engines; you stand the chance of losing your potential traffic. One can’t always predict the ignorance of visitor to spell certain word or words in the right manner.

To curb the loss of traffic that these spelling variants causes, the proper incorporation of Meta Tags is compulsory, although Google doesn’t consider indexing Meta Tags, but they are detrimental for other search engines. Camouflaging the keywords in the web pages capitalizing on the visual effect of color also came into existence, but the profits derived by it were short-lived because search engines are smart enough to cognize the tactics that try to befool them. In that case, it is wise to use the misspelled words but only in moderation. Using all variant spellings and misspelling on the page can work wonders for your site only if incorporated with a sense of judgment and priority. For that after determining the crucial keywords on a specific page use the possible variants of the keywords. Using faulty spellings in image ALT tags is also an alternative option but only after objectively assessing its advantages against its very disadvantages. Using the spelling variations in the image ALT tags has the advantage of being getting indexed in Google.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

How to discover keywords that nobody else is bidding on

The webmasters look for the highest paying keywords in the market so that they can build the most profitable content to feed the Search Engines. When a site is optimized, it is mainly optimized for some specific keywords that are often targeted. Selecting effective keywords is imperative to any search engine optimization campaign. Discovering those not yet so explored effective keywords could be an easy process but executing them in a site is calls for some diplomacy. The PPC advertisers often bid for cheap keywords to generate inexpensive traffic. They try to search ignored, yet significant keywords using Overture (Yahoo! Search Marketing) and Google AdWords tool. The phrases that most exactly describe definite aspects of a website capitulate the highest gain. The keyword analysis and their subsequent search yield the highest return on investment. The most general keywords incorporated from a users insight are the most widely searched.

After compiling a list of a thousand or so keyword suggestions and analyzing their competitiveness in the web market, the most relative keywords that can define your site can be integrated. Now you might be thinking how to analyze the competitiveness of a keyword. By following the simple steps you can discover the keywords that nobody else is bidding on:

  • Select keyword that search engine looks
  • Right selection of keywords
  • Making a separate list of key phrases that describe your site
  • Keywords should be modern
  • Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) Analysis is an important step
  • Spelling mistake should be avoided. In the hope of piggy-backing off other people's SEO efforts there should no deliberate attempt to change the formation of a word since Search Engine Optimization is all about tricking the search engines and not deteriorating the flow of English language.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Domain name: The center of your Internet Identity

If you are running your online business with a vague domain name, probably you would be losing thousands of dollars on daily basis. Your domain name is your identity and your identity builds up your credibility. An authentic identity is likely to have more traffic because more people will return as they can remember your address. Another advantage of having a proper domain name for your site is that you can employ custom error pages to prevent your visitors from overlooking your site because of broken links and other miscellaneous errors.
Some pointers that will help you in choosing your identity on the web are:
1. Keep it short and easy to remember: Try to register the shortest name that your customers and visitors will associate with your Website. The thumb rule is, keep it under seven characters if possible excluding the suffix.
2. Choosing brand name rather then generic: A domain name that matches the brand name yield more traffic. This way all your off-line branding will pay off online as Internet users should be able to guess your domain name from your business name.
3. Trademarked names never sell: Tardemarked names never sell but they get you involved in lawsuits.
4. Register Your Domain as soon as possible: Just get out there and register before you loose the opportunity to get the name you really want
5. Choosing an extension: .com suffix is the first extension that most people try when searching for a Website. .com also shows that your business has been around for a while and that you have a well-established presence on the Web.
6. Domain names can only use letters, numbers, and dashes. The static symbols leave unfathomable possibilities for the spiders.
7. Don’t spend large amounts: There are companies that sell domain names, which has lowered the costs of buying a domain name dramatically.