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Showing posts from February, 2011

Google Changes Search Algorithm to Combat Content Farming

Google is probably making one of its biggest moves of the year to ensure that its search results do not contain low quality articles from content farms. Google has announced that it will be making a big adjustment in terms of search algorithms so as to reduce the rankings of these low quality sites. Its aim is to provide high ranking for those sites that contain original information and content, and even those sites that contain detailed reports, research and analysis. These changes will reportedly impact nearly 11.8% of the search queries it receives. However, Google does not specifically say that content farms are the main target, but it does mention that it will be penalizing all the low quality sites. Low quality sites can be defined as any site that provides low value information to users, or sites that copy content from other sites, and sites that are not at all useful. However, Google has also specifically referred to such low quality sites as content farms in the past. Nearly a

Google’s War against Paid Links continues

As recently as last week, it was J.C. Penny who was making headlines for falling drastically in Google’s rankings for nearly every area from curtains to area rugs. It turned out that the retail site had a number of suspicious looking links pointing towards it and that could all be traced back to a paid link network, which intended to manipulate the ranking algorithms set by Google. In order to protect their unpaid search goal, Google provides some of the most relevant results for browsers. This is why Google has begun hunting down these types of manipulations and knocks down the rankings of the sites belonging to the guilty parties. After the J.C. Penney case, then came the Forbes.com case. Forbes ran afoul in Google’s eyes with regards to the guidelines. Forbes was found to be selling links on their site in order to manipulate the PageRanks. Now, in a recent announcement, it was found that Overstock.com also has lost out on rankings for using other types of links that Google views as

Google News helps firms with SEO

Businesses that are looking to improve the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns should strive to get accepted into Google News, which is a great way of increasing click through rates. Horst Jopen of Econsultancy says that producing great and unique content for a website and based on this content being able to get yourself to ranking on Google News is a great way to generate traffic to your web pages. What’s more, he also suggests that businesses should regularly update their website with the latest updates and news, as Google is constantly on the lookout for fresh and relevant content and stories. Very recently, Sam Tilston, the CEO of Awesome Resources said that almost every company and business is willing to speng large sums of money on improving their SEO campaigns. However, Mr. Horst Jopen also added that news on a website can help businesses get increased click through rates, thus generating more traffic for them. One of the first things that Google tracks is whether a site

Want to Win $5,000? Enter Google’s Latest Competition

If you are great at creating infographics, then Google’s latest contest should interest you! Google has recently announced that it will be offering $5,000 to the winner of its Data Viz Challenge, which is basically a contest to find the best person who can offer the best visualization of data about where exactly your tax money goes. The contest was announced today and is largely based on a website called www.whatwepayfor.com, which was started by Andrew Johnson and Lewis Garcia, two developers. Impressed with this website, Google’s staff came up with an idea of having their own “interactive data visualization” or simply, infographics. However, infographics does have its own set of limitations. So, taking up this challenge, Google has teamed up with Eyebeam, a non-profit art and technology center. Those who are interested can participate in this competition.

Google has a New Navigation Tool Bar

Trustworthy reports have shown that Google has rolled out a new navigation bar to the public after nearly 6 months of rigorous testing. This navigation bar could help improve the overall efficiency of the news content marketing services, as it helps to move relevant articles higher up in the search engine rankings, which in turn leads to increased traffic, increased sales and increased effectiveness of the search engine optimization techniques. This navigation bar is shorter than the one before and has more graphics and color in its interface. It also helps to efficiently remove clutter by grouping all the extra links in a menu. The bar has reportedly been inspire by Google Chrome and also helps by removing link underlining and replaces it with a colored bar that allows for more spacing between the links. What’s more, the site also boasts of having an extra gear icon that provides more options and preferences for the user accounts. Google has tested the new navigation top bar last week

Chrome Beta 10: Delivering the Best

The new Chrome Beta Version 10 released by Google includes a wide variety of features like hardware-accelerated video, which has the capacity to cut the overall CPU usage by as much as 80% when running on full screen. Yes, Google has recently released its latest Beta version of Chrome, and I’m telling you guys – this version comes with some of the most dynamic features ever! It is said that Chrome’s version 10 now runs scripts at least 66% faster than any previous version. This new version also has features like hardware-accelerated videos which can cut your overall CPU usage by nearly 80% when running on full screen. This in turn helps to assist in overall performance as well as in extending your battery life. And what’s even more interesting is the settings interface that now appears as a tab instead of a dialog box. This comes with a search box as well, in case you do not find a particular option, then all you have to do is enter a related keyword and it will display anything relate

Google fails to Mention Facebook

Google has recently announced that its latest search engine would integrate more with social media, and has done so without even mentioning Facebook in the entire blog post! This comes as a major contrast to Microsoft’s announcement of the current Bing browser. This failing to mention Facebook on the part of Google comes as an irony to the previous claim made by Google about how its social search results are “comprehensive”. Of course the announcement did mention Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, but the announcement also kept using the sentence “and other sites” as a way to refer to and dismiss Facebook. What’s more ironical it seems is Google’s assertion about how it has given users more control on how they connect accounts, and how they have made connecting accounts a lot more convenient. Unless the search giant has changed its mind about inoperability with Facebook, you should try importing your Gmail address onto the social networking site, or perhaps vice versa. So what do you have to

Google’s Fight against Spam gets Dangerous

In its struggles to root out low-quality web pages and sites from its search results, Google has begun to resort to its own users in an attempt to fight spam online. The search engine giant has recently released an extension for its Google Chrome browser, which allows users to block certain sites in Google’s search result by simply clicking on a block button. The main idea behind this is that if a user comes across a particular low-quality site through Google, he or she can inform Google about this site by blocking it, and the site won’t show up again. When quite a sufficient amount of users block a single site, Google will finally deduce that the site in question is really a low-quality site and will permanently remove it from the search results. And as good a solution as this may be to root out low-quality websites; it can also have an unexpected side effect. It could lead to users indulging in highly biased opinions with regards to sites. This in turn transforms Google from an unbia

Google Punishes JC Penney for Advertisement Manipulations

Recently, J.C. Penney was caught in the middle of a highly manipulative search engine campaign, and Google definitely isn’t excited about this news. Yes, Google has recently cracked down on what is considered to be one of the biggest search engine ranking frauds today. While such stories aren’t essentially rare, especially when we’re talking about spamming tactics, one would expect such stunts to come from smaller and lesser known companies. But the accused party in this case is none other than retail giant – J.C. Penney! According to a recent article in the New York Times, people started getting very suspicious when it was revealed that J.C. Penney was the number 1 result for a wide variety of searches; including some searches that people wouldn’t even associate with the company! Since then, the Times requested Doug Pierce, the online search expert from Blue Fountain Media to help them understand how this could be possible, and the man came up with enough evidence to really upset Goog

Is Google losing to Bing

In the latest reports released by Experian Hitwise, the world’s biggest search engine, Google, has apparently lost some of its global search engine market share to Bing in January of this year. With Bing going all out, can Google really lose out to Bing? In the month of January of this year, it was observed that Google’s percent share had dropped down to 67.95 from 69.67 % in December of 2010. What’s more, it was also observed that Bing’s percent share rose to 12.81 from 10.6 in December, 2010. In the overall scenario, the Bing-powered search engines right from Yahoo to Bing have jumped in popularity to a 27.44% in January of this year from a 25.77% last year. Above all, it was noticed that the Bing-Yahoo search engine success rate was found to be higher. The success rate was chalked at 81 percent, whereas Google’s was marked at 65% only.

Google Celebrates Thomas Edison’s 164th Birthday!

To commemorate the world-renowned scientist, Thomas Edison, Google’s latest doodle reminds us that it is indeed his 164th birthday today! With its creatively animated logo, Google’s doodle aims to remind people from all over the world that it is the American inventor’s birthday today! This event closely follows that of Jules Verne’s birthday doodle, which was hosted earlier this week. Google’s doodles are a way to commemorate cultural, regional and scientific events that are important. Today’s doodle honors the most famous invention by Thomas Edison – the electric light bulb. The light bulb was first invented in 1879 by Edison, who wasn’t the only person attempting to invent an incandescent light bulb. Thomas Edison’s other achievements include: the motion picture camera and the modern phonograph. The doodle shows an image of a glowing electric light bulb that is possibly powered by a dynamo. The doodle however, is less flashy as compared to the Pac Man anniversary, the HTML5 bouncing

Google & Facebook in Takeover Talks with Twitter

There’s been a lot of talk doing its rounds with regards to the possible sale of Twitter. With such exceptional news reaching us today, many individuals involved in the talks have said that the sale could possibly be valued at $10 billion or more! According to some “very reliable” reports, Google and Facebook have apparently sent out executives to engage in “low level” talks with Twitter. The discussions between the various parties have estimated the value of Twitter somewhere around $8 to $10 billion. But until the matter has been finalized, it wouldn’t be prudent to get your hopes too high, because according to some sources, the talks are apparently not going to get anywhere anytime soon. Is it possible that Twitter feels that the $10 billion value is a little too low? However, in the midst of all this, Twitter seems to be getting a lot of attention, which of course works in favor of its business. Recently, the company set an all-time record for the highest number of tweets recorded

Google’s Mobile Ads

Google only makes about $1 billion in mobile advertising revenues each year, out of an overall revenue of $29 billion. But the mobile market, especially the Smartphone sector, is very promising. On an average, mobile searches are said to increase by nearly 50 times if a user shits over to a Smartphone device. This week Google is looking to make good on its promise. Karim Temsamani, the new head of mobile advertising, has recently given a number of interviews and written on the Google blog in an attempt to promote mobile advertising. Before this, the team at Google got started with releasing data on mobile advertising. Head of mobile sales, Michael Slinger, who focuses mainly on search and click-to-call aspects has said ads are now being optimized for mobile phones and can be done so by either customizing them for a mobile audience or by moving on to more mobile-based content. Such ads have been reported to get an average of 11.5 percent increase in click-through rates. Simply put, peop

Google Celebrates Jules Verne’s 183rd Birthday with a new Doodle!

Google does it again! With the latest interactive doodle that went live today, Google celebrates the 183rd birthday of Jules Verne – the famous author of the novel, “20,000 Leagues under the Sea”. In honor of Verne’s famous novel, Google’s doodle for today is a submarine with all its portholes. A driving panel will allow users to take on the role of Captain Nemo and will allow users to take the submarine to new found depths of the virtual ocean where giant squid and shipwrecks dwell. The doodle also duplicates the gentle swaying of the sea. Verne was born on this day in the year 1828 and was known for high highly provocative science fiction novels that detailed some of the major scientific advancements long before they even came into being. From submarines and airplanes to landing on the moon, Verne predicted it all! The doodle went live this morning across the world. Google is always trying to achieve what most other search engines cannot. With its popularity on the rise, Google’s Doo

‘Google Shopper’ – The Latest iPhone Application to come out of Google

Looking for the latest iPhone application? Access Google! The Google Shopper is an application that will assist you in finding millions and millions of products. It helps by identifying products through bar code, cover art, text search and even voice search. If you’re looking to find the local as well as online prices for products, then Google Shopper can help you. If you’re looking for videos, reviews and specifications, then Google Shopper will help you make the right buying decision. The application has long since been offered for all Android phones. Once a user clicks on a product result, his or her next step will be to compare prices amongst various retailers, and this can be indexed as well by the application. Users can even find where they can get a product nearby, and this is extremely useful for last-minute shoppers. What’s more, Google even offers inventory information for a wide number of retailers. In this way, you will be able to see if a retail outlet has the item that yo

Google Instant has not affected SEO

The introduction to Google Instant search has not changed search engine optimization. This interpretation was made by Jake Hird who is a senior research analyst at Econsultancy. Econsultancy is a digital marketing community. Hird believes that Google Instant was introduced for improving user experience, not altering the algorithm for listing pages. This essentially means that companies can maintain their methods for promoting their online business. Also, they can continue placing their keywords in stories in order to make them more relevant to the web browsers. Google, the search engine giant, completely dominates the search engine market. A study, carried out earlier this month, revealed that more than 66.6 per cent of all the searches that are conducted on the World Wide Web were done through Google in the month of December. According to Hird, extremely little has changed in the search engine optimization world after the introduction of Google Instant. “We just put out our SEO [searc

Google’s Latest Art Project

With the onset of the New Year, Google has come with a new cultural venture – the Google Art Project. This particular project has taken Google’s Street View technology to art galleries. This project aims to allow users to take a virtual tour around the halls of some of the most famous museums in the world. With just a few clicks of the mouse, you can now take a closer look at the Freer Gallery in Washington or you can traipse around the halls of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence to check out the Birth of Venus by Botticelli. Every art gallery that you’ve ever wanted to visit can now be visited and every painting that you’ve ever wanted to see can now be viewed in stunning detail. There are 17 well known museums listed on the site and you can now visit any of them right from the Van Gogh Museum to the Metropolitan Museum. The Google Art Project allows you to view up to 385 gallery rooms and has a total of 1,000+ high-resolution images.

High Quality Content is the Key to Smart Website Marketing

Many a times, we see that new companies tend to miss out on a few, important steps when it comes to marketing their website products and services. If the site lacks in SEO follow up and Google AdWords campaign, all the money invested in the construction of the site would prove to be a complete waste. Also, another important thing the site must contain is original and quality content. Without these things, the site is sure to end up in a bad state. Being in the search engine optimization market, all of us are aware of how content is king. Website and SEO marketing need good quality content for effective website promotion. All SEO marketing strategies are applied to make the website get recognized by the search engines. If that does not happen, your website will just sit in the web arena and do nothing. Therefore, it is important to use good content for promotion strategies like article marketing, blog postings and the like. This allows the website to gain traffic and, in the long run, c