SEO Codes

When the Google Panda first debuted, it is expected that content farms will be greatly affected as this update targets low-quality sites that were ranking well in Google search results. Content farms are those sites with low quality content and then stuff it full of ads. One of these well-known content farms is eHow.

Well, many users thought that a lot of eHow articles were garbage. If that indicator really is the primary change in this Panda update, then we expect that eHow will be penalized for many of its shallow articles. Take note also that the Panda update incorporates information from the block feature of Google Chrome. This is one of the features of Google Chrome browser which is able to block sites from their search results. For example, if you run a search on a particular keyword and think that one of the results is irrelevant, you can tell the Google Chrome never to show any results from that site again. Many users nowadays are blocking some of eHow articles because they find it insubstantial and useless. It is apparent that eHow is more concerned with ads regardless of the quality of the article.

There are speculations that although eHow might be considered the most well-known content farm, it managed to escaped the effects of Google Panda and actually increased in many rankings. But according to Sistrix which released data on the impact of the Google Panda update on a number of popular sites months after it was introduced, eHow’s visibility on Google dropped by an enormous 66%. On the other hand, eHow responded with a public statement stating that while their search engine traffic did decrease, it wasn’t nearly as severe as what Sitrix reported. They also added that they were increasingly generating traffic from sources other than search engines and that they had many other profitable sites beside eHow.

The case of eHow is a great example showing the effects of Google Panda update on content farms. However, it is also a realization that a well ranking in Google comes with a unique and high quality content. So, if you want your site to appear on Google’s top results pages, think of such perspective.

In SEO industry nowadays, everyone is talking about the impact of Google Panda. There are a few sites who managed to escape its slap while many others are burned to the ground. According to Google’s statement regarding the Panda update, this line could be the most important to bear in mind for any webmaster:

“... In addition, it’s important for webmasters to know that low quality content on part of a site can impact a site’s ranking as a whole. ...”

That means that if a part of your site has low quality content (according to Google’s latest definition of it), the ranking of your site as a whole could suffer. From that insight, one area which is greatly affected is the ecommerce sites. Ecommerce sites run afoul on a number of things that Google might now consider low-quality content. The following point out how ecommerce sites might be penalized according to Google’s description of low quality content:

Shallow Content: This is very common to ecommerce sites which have many products with little or no product description. Usually, we see a widget having a short product description in an ecommerce site but even a descriptive sentence is not enough and might still be considered as shallow content. The ideal one is a 250-word product description for each product but if you can’t come up with that, at least, a minimum of 100 words is acceptable.

Duplicate Content: Again, most ecommerce sites violate this. If your site has the same content page after page, Google will pick just one of them to rank. For instance, if you have 10 widgets although in different sizes but have identical description, it is still considered an internal duplicate content. Although it won’t hurt the ranking of your entire site, only one of those pages will be ranked. Also, your description for every product and category as well as your meta description should be unique.

Copied Duplicate Content: This one is almost the same with internal duplicate content but your content is coming from another website. An example of this is an ecommerce site which is the site owner as well as a distributor. Typically, it will just copy the product description from the manufacturer. Now, that is considered a copied duplicate content. If you violate this, it could hurt the rankings of your entire site even if only a few pages on your site are using that copied duplicate content.

Those were the categories in which the Google Panda affects ecommerce sites. Now, we know that even if only a part of your ecommerce site has what Google sees as low quality content, the ranking of your entire site can suffer as a result.

Over time, Google realized that there are many tricks and tweaks that webmasters or site owners are practicing in order to rank their websites on search engine results pages. Thus, Google change their ranking methodology and in came Google Panda. It is the latest update which brings an entirely new way for Google to evaluate websites in its search results. Although they still consider many criteria that they have in the past, this new element of their ranking methodology can greatly affect SEO.

It is clear that Google Panda wants better quality websites in its results. This also means that signals from other websites were given less importance and the thing that really matters here is what the actual users think about the website. With this new update, Google is now equipped with automated users’ power in determining its search results. It is user-powered without the user having to do anything different about it. In so doing, Panda prevents lower quality sites from tricking Google into thinking that they are of higher quality.

On the other hand, Panda factors various user signals in order to help Google determine the quality of a website. For example, it examines "Time on Site" as a way to determine how quality of an experience the user is having on a given site. It also considers the bounce rate, which is a measure of the percentage of people that leave a site without doing anything. Social signals such as shares and +1's were given importance too in order to see if people are recommending a certain webpage. To see how people are navigating through a particular site, page views per visit were also given attention. Moreover, Google Panda rewards Branded Search Traffic or the amount of people that are specifically looking for a given site. For example, if your music site is called "Blues Around the Corner" and there is an increasing amount of people searching for "Blues Around the Corner" to get to your website, Google will then recognize that your site is being enjoyed by many users.

All in all, the Panda update utilizes usage metrics which signal Google how users value a certain webpage or website. This is also their way to determine if the content that the reader lands on is truly high in quality. If before, you are more concerned with unique content in order to rank well in Google, with this update, you should change your perspective for a unique content that is also of high quality.

Link building is a very effective way to improve the website ranking. With the introduction of Google Panda, your links must be from trusted domains and from quality pages, or else your efforts will be useless. One great strategy is to diversify your link profile. This article will discuss a number of tips about link diversity.

Take note that Google prefers natural link profiles. These are backlink profiles of sites that include backlinks from several different root domains with various keywords, or none at all, to various pages on your website. For instance, a particular website with 100 links from 100 domains is better than the one with 100 links from one domain. This looks natural as well. Now, the question is what contributes to your link profile diversity?

First is the number of linking domains. Although quantity should not be your main concentration, you can’t deny that it is an important factor. Remember that having new root domains that link to you significantly increase your website ranking.

You should also consider the types of linking domains. Here, we mean the different type of sites such as website directories, article directories, blogging websites, blogs, government or educational sites, ecommerce sites, wiki sites, social networks, etc. Links from various types of website may mean that your website is loved by various types of websites, making it link diversity rich.

Another one is the topics of linking domains. Relevancy or connection of topics is a very important factor. For example, a gambling website is more related to a sports website than from a movie review website. However, most websites will always have a few stray links and you should not worry about it as it adds to the diversity. But it is still best if you concentrate on related topics to your website.

Meanwhile, anchor text is also a very important factor that can add to link diversity of your website’s link profile. Keywords are important for rankings, but using only keywords for links look unnatural to search engines. The reality is that people usually link to you with either the exact URL or the title of the post. With these, you can mix-up your anchor texts and that will help your website look as bigger authority to search engines.

There are also many cases that your viewer find a great post on your website and they are not going to link to your homepage. Instead, they will link to that particular page. Yes, deep links are important and another reason for it is the link diversity. With links throughout the website, it will look more natural and that strengthens your link profile.

The above-mentioned points can be your great strategy to diversify your link profile. Just remember that search engines love sites which are high on link diversity factor. They often equate this with authority and trust, and index them frequently.
                                                                                                                                                                     

Nowadays, the number of social media sites is increasing. Many people use these in their marketing strategy. However, you can also utilize the social media sites in link building. One of the letdowns with social media links is the fact that many are nofollow. A dofollow social media link is highly unlikely and if there is, it might be outdated. Although most social networking sites are nofollow, you can still use them for link building.

First is to utilize profile links. Almost every social networking profile allows you to add a link to your website. Try to look at integrating links on your profile with anchor text when allowed. As many individual profile pages carry PR, build up the PR of your social profile. You can do this by commenting on blogs with a link back to your profile, putting badges on your site with links back to your social profile, or through other link building techniques. While the links are nofollow, a high PR nofollow link does carry some weight.

Another tip is to Import your blog whenever possible. For example, Facebook’s import your blog feature populates into the notes section of your page. When contextual links in the original blog post are imported, it can be utilized to build links. Again, the links are nofollow, but provides a little added benefit from a strong domain.

Today, search engines are caching and ranking individual tweets. If you are using a short URL that 301 redirects your links, then, Twitter is good way to build links to your site. Try to customize the text in your short URL that includes your keyword or keyword phrase. Remember that Google look at keywords in a tweet to rank them. Thus, place your keywords in the tweet.

Most of all, try to get people excited about a piece of link worthy content. With this, you’ll realize that they’ll be drawn to link back to you. Such organic links will increase the likelihood of receiving high PR dofollow links from strong domains.

All in all, link building through social media may not be the best technique but it can provide you with valuable backlinks.
                                                                                                                                                                     

If you have just launched a new website, a good linking strategy is very important in order for it to be indexed and to place it in front of the audience. This article presents some useful tips on how to get those important first few links pointing to your website to help the indexing process.

First is to submit a press release. It can provide links to your site for the Search Engines to follow as well as to get the word out about your new website. It may cost a little to submit to some of the better solutions but you can quickly find your website mentioned on a few pages of the web with this method. An example of this is the http://www.prweb.com/.

Meanwhile, the company that designed or developed your website might already have a well-indexed site. You can provide them with a testimonial and in return, they might be willing to write a case study with a link to your site.

Another important tip is to create a directory listing. Take note that the majority of “general” directories are not worth the effort of submission. However, there are still a few that will push users and search engines alike to your website. Examples of these are Yahoo & DMOZ.

On the other hand, a Google Local Business Central Listing can be a quick and easy way to get to the top of the search engines. The good thing is it is free to submit. So, add/claim your listing as soon as possible.

The next tip involves some of the most well-known social networking sites and may even be a part of your daily routine. I’m talking about sites like Facebook and Twitter. You probably have a few hundred friends on these sites. You can use them to spread the word about your new website. Just update your status with the website link and try to ask them to do the same. You can also set up a Facebook page for longer term traction.

Lastly, try to secure your brand across social networks. Register yourself with the major social networks in order to stop the competition muscling in on your territory. Most of these have profile pages that allow links to your site. You can also use the service of http://knowem.com. It will register your brand name across hundreds of networks on your behalf for a certain fee.

The above linking strategies can help your new website off on a good footing. With these, along with the continuous building of links and developing your online presence, you can then see a gradual improvement in your rankings.

In SEO, backlinks play a very important role. Backlinks or also known as inbound links, are the links that are directed towards your website. The number of backlinks is an indication of the popularity of a particular website. It is very important because some search engines, especially Google, will give more credit to those websites that have a good number of quality backlinks. As a result, the search engines will consider such websites more relevant than others in their results pages for a search query.

You can have a great content but remember that if you have no links, no one will find you. It is comparable to a hotel built in the desert with no roads to it. Meanwhile, Link Building and Content Writing are still the key points when it comes to SEO ranking. Thus, see to it that these two factors must be given attention. Below are the major sources of backlinks:

• Directories – For this one, try to find those that at the least have captcha requirements. You can use the page rank as a basic guide for the value of that directory at a particular point of time. Also dig into the directory site according to your category and find what the PR is there. For example, if the PR is 1 and the page you are optimising is 0, then, it’s still worth it.

• Blogs – Blog commenting still works nowadays. But tread carefully and don’t annoy the blog owners for your comment to be approved. There are some blogs though that automatically posts your comment and do not require permission from the owner.

• Partners / Current Clients – Another way to get backlinks is to get your partners or clients to link to you especially if they leave a testimonial or if you deal with them often.

• Paid Links – This might cost you a little bit but there is no harm doing this in moderation. An example of this is the Yahoo’s Directory Listing which is a paid listing. You can also approach other sites that have historical value and keep their value for months or even years on end.

• Associations and Organisations in your field – This might require some digging but it might be a good strategy.

• Social Media Profiles – This is a very effective way to get backlinks and let others know about your webpage. However, just be careful and don’t go spamming on sites like Twitter or Facebook.

There are still other ways to get backlinks. But the above-mentioned sources are the most commonly used and proven to be effective by many of those who are on the task of search engine optimization.