Google New Products in 2011 - Inside Search


Google has launched three new features in recent event at San Francisco on June 14th 2011. Following are three new features. This event is officially named as “Google InsideSearch”. 
        1. Voice Search
        2. Instant Pages
        3. Search by Image


Google has announced voice Search for desktop computers. At present Google users are typing keywords to get the relevant information on search results. Now users can speak words so that Google will understand the word and display relevant search results. According to the survey, Google is able to recognize 80% of the words and displaying relevant results.


This is another great feature which will improve the visitor usability a lot. Usually 40% of the Google visitors will click on the 1st link, so it will take little time to load respective site and visitors have to wait. With new feature “Instant Pages”, visitor will able to see the site instantly. Reason behind this is technique is Google will load it already in the backend and displays it instantly when user clicks it.


Initially people used to search images by name and getting relevant images. Search engines inserted few other features for user convenience.  One feature i.e. “Search similar images” that we always use this feature to find out the right image with desired quality and size. Now Google went a step forward and made an awesome feature live. Visitors can drop image file on Google search bar, so that it will display all similar images with different resolutions and sizes.  This feature would be helpful in finding out your personal images at other public places posted by someone else.

Basic Features for SEO


Behind the scenes, there are a lot of components that keep a website up and running. It’s possible, and maybe even practical (depending on your business situation), to launch and run your website without many features enabled. Doing so will give you a functioning website, but it won’t give you an optimal one. Here are just a few examples of features you should be using on your site for SEO:
XML Sitemap: Take a look at any well-optimized site, and you won’t have to look far to find a sitemap. It’s one of the most basic features you can add to your site for optimization. The sitemap let’s search engine bots crawl your site more easily by providing a list of available URLs. Making your site easier to index helps it rank better. If you run a large website that updates frequently, you will want to make sure that your CMS is set to automatically update the sitemap when new content is posted.
Robots.txt: You’ll want a robots.txt file for identical reasons as the XML sitemap – to help crawlers do their job more efficiently. Google places a limit on the number of pages it will scan for your site. This can be problematic if you are running a large site – Google will never look at some of your pages. Furthermore, you can not tell Google which pages to index. You can, however, tell them which pages to ignore by using a robots.txt file. This increases the chances that Google will index only the important pages of your site.
Google Analytics: Although not necessary for the operation of your site, a Google Analytics account is necessary from a marketing perspective. If you want to manage your growth and impact on the Internet, or the success of a campaign – the best way is through analytics. Furthermore, the sooner you set up an account, the sooner you can begin collecting data to refer back to when running future campaigns.

Search Engineering at Google


I’m always a fan of Googlers doing more communication and more videos, so when some fellow search quality folks made a video about working at Google, I said I’d be happy to post it:
You can find out more info and apply to be a search engineer at Google if you’re interested.

8 SEO Tips in a Panda World


In this Panda world I’ve been taking courses and doing some serious research and study on how to get/keep top Google rankings.
SEO has changed a lot, although some things never change – good onsite optimization means you don’t have to worry about every little update – your site will be solid.
The Panda update did make everyone step up their game, though, especially in Google Places and link building. I spent 2 solid months researching, studying and revising my SEO methods to conform to the Panda world.

Here are my Top SEO Tips after Panda

Onsite SEO

  1. Increase the content of your pages and posts. At least 500 words, and 700 if possible. Make sure you use good grammar and check your spelling. Points off if you don’t do a good job there, just like in English class.
  2. If you don’t have videos on your site, add them. You can get videos from YouTube about anything at all. Better yet, make your own. You can do that easily by converting a PowerPoint into a video. The one on this page was put together very quickly using these instructions. It’s not the best but I wanted to show you what you can do using free products.
  3. If your business is local, create and upload locations.kml  and geositemap.xml files to your root folder. Here’s a handy dandy geositemap generator. It also explains what to do once they’re created.

Google Places SEO

  1. If you have a local business then you need to get busy if you expect to compete. I seriously suggest having an SEO specialist do this for you. There are many details within a Google Places listing that can help you rank well, or kill your listing. On top of that, what worked before doesn’t work now.
  2. Make certain you hire someone who is experienced and can show proof of ranking businesses…there are a lot of people who claim to be SEO experts but are not. Don’t waste your money or worse, your chance to be competitive.

Link Building

  1. Article marketing is still good, but make certain your content is valuable and not just rehashed crap. Also, longer is better. Ezine requires 400 and sometimes 600 words in an article. I suggest at least 700 if possible.
  2. Videos videos videos. Google loves them. You don’t have to show your face in them either, so if that part bothers you like it did me, just provide information.
  3. Social media is becoming ever more important. You need to have the following for your business: Facebook, Twitter, Linked In. Blog posts or articles should go to FB and Linked In, as well as Tweeted. There are tools you can use to automate this.
Google is asking us to provide more quality information in a variety of communication methods. This actually should not be too hard if your website is a business, because there are always plenty of things to talk about, explain, announce, demonstrate, and offer. Think of who, what, when, where and why.
If you’re an IM’er you have to provide more content and be smarter about your back linking. You need a plan; just winging it won’t get you far at all.
It’s time to take Internet marketing seriously. Local businesses need to cancel their yellow pages ads and put that money into their websites and online marketing efforts. The competition already has.

Google Panda Update Again (November 2011)


Google has updated their search algorithm once again on November 3rd 2011 and this time 35% of search results will be changed according to the Google official blog. This new Google panda update will mainly concentrate on the fresh results.
If you search any product price or event information, then most of the time you will end up in getting old results, some of the search results are even 1 or 2 years older, so to get latest results this update has been made. Most of the tech, news, price blogs will be affected by this Google panda update.
We completed our Caffeine web indexing system last year, which allows us to crawl and index the web for fresh content quickly on an enormous scale. Building upon the momentum from Caffeine, today we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that impacts roughly 35 percent of searches and better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness.
FAQ’s related to this panda update:
After this update will Google show results in order of update?
No, if that was the case even spam and low quality blogs will update frequently to get higher ranking. The results will be normal but only some of the results which are more older (may be a year old) will be shown down in rankings.
This update means time is important that quality?
No, not at all.. Quality always comes first. For example consider two blog which update same news details, but one will get higher ranking due to quality post and other which has low content/quality will get lower rankings. If there are two quality blogs, then time comes into account and the one which is recently updates may get higher ranking than other.
Then our older posts will now get lower rankings?
Yes and No
Yes, you will get lower ranking if the post is something like “Top 5 cheap android mobile phones“, because they keep on changing as there are hundred of mobiles released every month, so you have to update to maintain the rankings.
No, your rankings will not be changed if you have post something like “How does a mobile phone work“, because this is not time based post and its evergreen.
How does this effect on our overall traffic?
It depends on your niche and posts, if your blog is having more time based posts then your overall traffic may decrease.


Read more: http://www.methods2earn.com/blogging/1478/google-panda-update-2011.html#ixzz1etYLoTN5

Is Your Blog Too “Nice”?


Why do most blogs struggle with traffic? A little bit has to do with improper on page SEO and link building. But much less than you’d think. The world’s most popular bloggers don’t know squat about keyword research or page rank. What they do know about is how to get people intersted in their content and talking about it.
The phrase “nice guys finish last” can apply to dating, business, and to blogging. I’m not talking about confident bloggers who provide helpful information to their readers. Im talking about “nice” guys (and gals). What does “nice” mean?
Really, “nice” means boring and unoriginal.
And that’s why you may be struggling with traffic. Not because of any technical search engine related problem, but because of the tone and positionality of your content. Most new bloggers either haven’t developed an original voice, or are so concerned with being “liked” by their readers that their content comes out very, very soggy. You may attract readers through SEO or a couple of Facebook referals, but why should they keep reading your material?
There are millions of blogs and articles out on the internet today. It’s worse than flipping radio stations. For whatever topic you are blogging about, there are thousands of other people trying to get your reader’s attention. What do you have to offer that is different?
Here’s some counterintuitive advice: challenge your readers. Write something they don’t expect. Be edgy. Be a little controversial. And even risk ticking them off. Don’t do it to be combative, do it to “stir the pot”.
This may be tough for a lot of bloggers, because we want readers to come to our blogs and like what they are reading. It’s the same problem a lot of actors face when trying to find their starring role. Or lots of guys face when trying to land a first date.
There’s a story about Ed Norton, the famous actor. The legend goes that during a casting call for “Primal Fear”, where he was auditioning for the role of a dual personality psychopath, he actually grabbed the casting director by the neck during the scene. And he got the role.
We’ve all heard that “nice guys finish last”. And we’ve all heard of the irresistible attraction of the “bad boy”. There’s a reason for that. The bad boys of the world are dangerous, exciting, and interesting. Nice guys are boring.
This isn’t to suggest you write anything vulgar or annoying. But try getting your readers attention. Imagine what your reader may be feeling when they are searching for information on the topic of your blog. What don’t they want to hear?
Studies have proven that negative headlines get more clicks and traffic than positive ones. You don’t have to become a tabloid journalist, but go ahead and be real with your readers. You can be funny while doing it.
All it takes is one blog post that resonates with readers to go viral, and then it takes on a life its own on the web. We don’t often think about this, but nothing unoriginal goes viral.
Try to imagine all the blogs or videos or articles you’ve shared with your friends. Imagine what it is that compelled you to mention it to someone else. Then look at your own blog posts and ask yourself if you’d honestly think to menton it to someone else. So many blog posts (especially about SEO) have the same info you could find elsewhere. Can you find an original way to convey it? Chances are people aren’t going to go nuts over an article titled “5 Tips on Better SEO”.
People love it when you say things everyone else is thinking or wants to say but won’t. Get some emotion into your blog posts, don’t be afraid to raise some eyebrows, and express your true voice, and you will find yourself drawing in readers with more regularity than just focusing on rote SEO techniques.
Seth Jared is an Internet Marketer who writes about blogging, filmmaking, and design. He also runs a cool website on how to design your own t-shirt. Be sure to check out all the other cool t-shirts there too.

Best Social Bookmarking


Social bookmarking is a great way to share links to your, and your clients sites with others who might not already be aware of your site.
When you’re running an Internet business then choosing a blogger for your site can offer more information about items and providers. Sharing with your visitors and consumers by social bookmarking can get you that much needed traffic that you might be missing out on now.

Benefits of Bookmarking
Bookmarking is easy to do and you can view your bookmarks from any computer when using a service.
Tagging will help organize as well. Some Internet marking and SEO people I know have 1000s of links they are in control of. Could you imagine having to sort through all of those without a proper way to quickly search them all? Blah.
If you share others links, they will usually reciprocate and share you link on their site. Win, win for both parties.
Many people still say that the most important part of SEO is gathering up backlinks to your site. Social bookmarking on the right sites can help with this, however read my tips below to learn more about this.
Social bookmarking allows you to organize your web pages better for the sites you visit more often too because you can jump to that site, usually in 1-2 clicks.
It’s just good marketing. Posting and sharing your links on other bookmarking sites allows others to find you easily.
Some Top Bookmarking Sites:
This list seems to be the one I find on all the other sites out there so I decided to share it here with you. Make sure you read my tips below to see which I have personally used.
  1. Digg
  2. Stumbleupon
  3. TweetMeme
  4. Reddit
  5. Delicious
  6. Mixx
  7. Bizzsugar
  8. Propeller
  9. Newsvine
  10. Fark
  11. Slashdot
  12. Twine
  13. Clipmarks
  14. Faves
  15. Blinklist

My Thoughts and Tips

1. Social bookmarking sites that dofollow can increase the amount of inbound links to your site, however, most links are never even indexed by search engines.
2. Out of the list above, I can only say that I’ve used 4 of those sites for adding any kind of links so I can’t speak for the others. I used StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious, and Digg.
3. There’s a new site called Grazely.com that allows you to create groups like “SEO Sites”, and then share these groups with your peers, who can add their links to your “SEO Sites” group. Unfortunately, the site is invite only. If you need an invite, comment below. I have a couple I can give out.

Google's Freshness Update: what's the effect on websites?


Google has revealed that its latest algorithm update, the Freshness Update, will impact around 35% of searches.  But which sites are affected and how?
The thinking behind this update is that for many queries, searchers are actually looking for the latest, freshest content about a topic rather than older web pages.
One obvious example is if you type ‘Olympics’ into Google right now, you are more likely to be satisfied if you get results about London 2012 than older results about the games.
To get a better overview of the impact of the update on the google.com (ie Google US) index, I analysed our search analytics data right after the update.
The metric we focus on is SEO Visibility, an estimate for how visible a web page is on Google in a specific country, which is based on analysing search results for millions of keywords.
The findings of the main 'winners' are listed below. As you might expect, the update seems to have favoured news sites, broadcast sites, video portals and a lot of brand sites, sites which you’d expect to regularly load fresh content, as well having high clickthrough rates (CTRs).
 DomainSEO Visibility 11/06/2011SEO Visibility 10/30/2011Percent
Brandlast.fm1.386.9081.232.11512,56
Brandoverstock.com814.747774.7525,16
Brandlonelyplanet.com412.446377.5659,24
Brandrockhall.com62.61036.38772,07
Brandmarthastewart.com170.392147.25815,71
Brandwikiquote.org315.054292.4717,72
Branddominos.com86.57265.37032,43
Brandpapajohns.com101.56181.41124,75
Brandsquidoo.com406.930386.8065,20
Brandsoundcloud.com229.032211.3318,38
Brandplaystation.com176.529159.38110,76
Brandcomcast.com187.415170.8419,70
Brandhotels.com210.944195.1538,09
Brandvzw.com54.97840.42835,99
Brandguitarcenter.com103.49089.29515,90
Brandcox.com91.86080.67913,86
Brandbuy.com163.761152.9267,09
Brandcitibank.com120.652109.8809,80
Brandscottrade.com32.89122.25747,78
Brandaim.com77.44867.75714,30
Brandsouthwestvacations.com27.98518.63250,20
Brandboostmobile.com39.99631.09228,64
Brandhawaiianair.com35.97027.07632,85
Brandnationalcar.com26.45417.58350,45
Brandskype.com97.38089.0539,35
Brandgarmin.com71.22962.91813,21
Brandsonypictures.com154.248146.0295,63
Brandopera.com50.61242.48319,13
Brandnapster.com31.72023.63234,22
Celebrity newsperezhilton.com643.042552.66016,35
Celebrity newsthehollywoodgossip.com166.931138.46620,56
Celebrity newshollywoodreporter.com219.287201.6578,74
Celebrity newshellomagazine.com34.03522.25052,97
Celebrity newsactressarchives.com57.25748.79017,35
Governmentny.gov144.173102.53640,61
Governmentbls.gov251.541223.89012,35
Newshuffingtonpost.com1.895.5621.782.0066,37
Newsdailymail.co.uk617.552587.9895,03
Newsallthingsd.com63.55842.62049,13
Newsbusinessinsider.com225.582207.6568,63
Newsnj.com210.528197.6216,53
Newsrr.com141.118128.8809,50
Newsmedicalnewstoday.com136.022125.0378,79
Newschristianpost.com49.68138.86427,83
Newssalon.com107.94897.66610,53
Tech newsengadget.com515.212472.0539,14
Tech newstechcrunch.com294.944268.4009,89
TVtvguide.com697.920663.7135,15
TVaoltv.com275.456245.54212,18
TVzap2it.com301.686282.8176,67
TVbuddytv.com224.144205.4709,09
Universitypitt.edu96.17281.63517,81
Videoyoutube.com6.942.6195.464.79827,04
Videomyspace.com2.982.1132.587.18115,26
Videometacafe.com367.335338.9928,36
Videobreak.com211.243189.39111,54
Videofunnyordie.com189.309169.58311,63
Otherfamilydoctor.org150.551122.33823,06
Otherrhapsody.com128.108107.65019,00
Otherexaminer.com97.41380.01721,74
Othertheblackfriday.com83.97866.99125,36
Otherallthelyrics.com48.34832.34249,49
Otherratemyprofessors.com120.409106.06413,52
Othercheapoair.com104.69493.71811,71
Otherapplebees.com49.46939.22126,13
Otherheavy.com38.19228.77632,72
Otherstars21.com33.68024.62436,78
Otherjava-gaming.com27.97519.15246,07
Otherscribd.com55.35446.80418,27
If you think about the 35%figure again, what it means to me is that Google assumes that around one third of search queries are related to fresh content.
For webmasters with less new/fresh content this could make it difficult to rank highly. If most of the queries you ranked for in the past are outranked by fresh content (where link popularity will be less relevant), you’ll obviously have to think about creating new content more often.