Ways To Increase Your Blog's Crawl Rate In Google

One of the biggest deterrent factors over the pace at which your SEO campaign can move ahead, is how fast the changes carried out over your website are indexed. This is usually true while working with websites which are seen with some established rankings and to which you may want to carry out some small changes at times.

If your website is not getting crawled once at several weeks' time, it can really hamper the process. Fortunately, you can carry out several things to boost your site crawl rate and in return, reap positive effects of the crawl along with good rankings. Google crawl rate is all about frequency with which the Google robot visits your site or blog. The following are some of the tips to increase your blog's crawl rate in Google.


Update your blog on frequent basis

The search engine crawlers simply love the blogs which carry updated blogs. This renders the search engine crawlers something new and fresh over your blog every time the bots enter your blog in the crawling process. In order to boost the crawl speed, you are supposed to update your blog on a daily basis. You can even think of adding some RSS Feed widget, Facebook widget, Twitter comment widget, and Google group widget. This will help you in increasing the crawl speed.


Boost your Pagerank

Links play a good role in increasing the rankings along with boosting your Pagerank of your site or blog. Most of the search engine crawl patterns are directed by Pagerank with high amount of PR pages usually when it crawls on a regular basis. However, at the same time you need to do a couple of other things rather than merely building up links to increase your PR.


Optimize the load time

The crawlers simply work on a budget. If they consume too much of their time crawling inside big size images or your Java scripts, they will not have sufficient time to visit other pages on your website. Hence it is recommended to avoid having big size scripts or images over your blogs which consumes more time to load. Put some small size images which can load instantly so that more amounts of web pages would be crawled in less time duration.


Add a sitemap

If you still encounter difficult time getting the search engine crawlers to find a couple of your web pages in smaller duration, you can certainly think of assisting the Google bots by adding up a sitemap in your blog or at the webmaster tools. Sitemap plays a key role in increasing the crawling speed of the search engine crawlers in your different blog posts.


Say no to duplicate content

All the major search engines simply love to hate plagiarism. They can penalize your blogs or website by banning your blog or site and even can bring down your search engine ranking. As per the new Google Algorithm updates, duplicate content over blogs and sites are considered as the most fatal errors in search results. If you have any duplicate content over your blog, it is always recommended to get rid of these and replace with some original and unique content.


Wrapping up

By implementing these tips, you could easily help in increasing your blog's crawl rate in Google. These changes would therefore help the crawlers to visit regularly and thus make your blog a favorite place by all the major search engines.


About The Author: Margaret Jules is an internet marketer and blogger. She loves travelling, meeting new people and writing.

Did you find this article helpful? Please let Margaret and myself know by leaving us your valued comments below.


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SEO Tips After Google Panda Update

SEO industry has changed drastically since the onset of 2012; the Google has penalized low quality links and has taken a strong stand against spam. The tricks of the trade that were once popular to help increase page rank has changed dramatically.

Many blogs have been adversely affected by the algorithm change. Many bloggers who were dependent on online revenue as they had constant traffic have seen a loss of almost 90%. Google has changed its algorithm and the impacts are seen almost immediately in the results that they show. Low quality optimization links and article marketing are soon losing their charm and to stay up in the competitive market, we have to follow the Google new standards.

The new rules have changed and one has to learn the new ways to rank well in the search engines. Websites that offer valuable information to the readers and have quality content only will sustain the blow. The websites whose rankings dropped were mainly those which had bad HTML, poor SEO and broken links.

Optimize the site accordingly is the first step; follow the norm that you have high quality links that index to the home page.

1. High quality website content: After the Panda update, many website with high rankings, found that the rankings had dropped like a stone. It seems Google is trying to reward websites which are high in quality over the countless junk sites. Good quality content will please visitors and have spin-off benefits. The older method of just writing articles, to index your site will no longer work; concentrate on the core ingredient data. When a visitor attends the site he should be glued by the content and not distracted, have related videos, pictures and related high quality information.
   
   
2. Use natural on-page SEO: The link building strategy also has to be reworked; the one that is within the original content should be natural. In the eyes of Google, the content should be of quality and no way spam in nature. Having content was always important, now it is important that you have good SEO. When you are building a link, contained within the original content, then it should be to a related topic to seem natural. This way Google will not treat it as spam. Even today, it is relevant to have your content with good SEO. Panda and the later SEO has forced the website owner to rethink his ways and creating quality content which matches the SEO, then you will not face any problem with your ranking.
   
   
3. Avoid exact-match anchor text links: This has been advised by the Google forums time and again, as the same link leading to the home page for more than 60% have seen a severe drop in rankings. It is your prerogative as a writer to offer content that offers value to the visitor. Write what you would like to read, from a SEO perspective it will only help increase PR. It is strongly recommended by the experts that varying the anchor text with your links to include the business or domain name. You should also include a number of long-tail variations of the keywords.

Times change and people who transform to the changing times are always successful. As webmasters a little hard work will help you in the long run. Every new change does cause panic, nevertheless the right ways of building the site will benefit in increasing traffic and sales.


About The Author: Mary Smith has been freelancing as the guest writer for a few years. "I like to share my opinions and connect with like minded individuals online about various topics." Mary is passionate about finance, real estate, writing and home and garden.

Do you like this article by Mary Smith? Was your website/blog effected by the Google Panda update? Please let Mary and myself know by leaving us your valued comments below.

Related articles:
How Often Should You Do SEO Rank Checker On Your Site
You Don't Have To Be An SEO Whizz To Improve Your Search Engine Rankings!
10 Easy Steps To Boost Your SEO
Top SEO Do's And Don'ts
How To Improve Your SEO With Backlinks
The Seven Deadly SEO Sins
The 10 Week SEO Diet


If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to +1 or share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/DereksHomeAndBusinessBlog

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Until my next post on Tuesday, have a fabulous weekend!

How Often Should You Do SEO Rank Checker On Your Site

Success in the online world hinges on many factors, one of the biggest being SEO. While it's not nearly as important as it used to be thanks to tools which both emphasize and enhance the democratic nature of the Internet, it's vital for maintaining a steady flow of new traffic from people who otherwise wouldn't stumble across your links.

Despite being rooted in algorithms and predictable computer behavior, attaining the coveted top spots on search engines like Google is as much of an art as it is a science. Think of it like cooking; gathering and preparing the materials in proper quantities is only half of it. It also requires patience, a keen sense of smell, and an intuitive grasp of which spices mesh well together and which ones don't.

You can make a good dish by following the instructions in a cookbook, but in order to create great dish, you need an extra something that may be hard to define.

Likewise, movements in the online world require more than an understanding of the technology which drives search engines; it also requires the ability to adapt quickly to changes in keyword rankings, and to create viable long-term strategies that return profit regardless of the ups and downs along the way.


How Search Engines Determine Your Rank

Google uses a complex algorithm known as PageRank which accounts for numerous factors ranging from the number of links pointing to your site to the actual quality of your content. It updates its index multiple times throughout the day so if you checked hourly your site could have a different rank every time. Location is also relevant as Google utilizes many data centers to determine its results, so if you perform a search while a colleague performs the same search from a different IP address the results could very well differ.

If for some reason you did check hourly, the daily shifts wouldn't tell you much about the bigger picture. The Internet moves quickly but not to the extent that fortunes are made or lost in an afternoon. What's more likely is that your ranking will constantly shift within a particular range and what you should try to do is trend up as opposed to staying rock-solid at a given rank.


When You Should Check Your Rank

There's no reason to check your rank more than once a week. Not only are day-to-day changes fairly insignificant in the bigger scheme of things, search engine dances are becoming more common and it's easier to gauge the results looking back at them than it is trying to keep up as they're happening.

What is a search engine dance? It's when several different things change at once, including but not limited to the search engine algorithm, domain rankings, and the discovery of invalid backlinks. It usually doesn't take very long for a sense of order to be restored, but for the internet businessman wanting to keep sane it's better to time check-ins so that these occur in-between and the long-term effects can be charted immediately.

Even if you check your rank while it's happening, it's better to stay calm and wait to check again one week later than it is to try and get on top of it because playing the long game is almost always the best strategy.

Keep in mind that checking your rank isn't going to improve it. The three things which always work to your advantage is quality content, new content, and strong backlinks. Doing things right is time consuming, so the most important factors in your site's growth will take at least a week or more to impact your rank, and once they do you'll hit a new median where you won't go much higher or lower than that regardless of anything else that happens.


The Bottom Line

It's easy to forget that a slow and steady approach pays off regardless of the business you're in as long as you can quickly adapt to new circumstances. You need to check your SEO rank if you want to stay at the top of your game but it's a tool; it can only tell you how well you're doing everything else that's involved in maintaining an online presence. It provides invaluable feedback for how to improve your operation, and if it's used correctly you'll be able to keep your sanity, too.


About The Author: Evelyn Haywood is a freelance writer and a proud resident of the state of Texas.

Do you like this article by Evelyn Haywood? Please let Evelyn and myself know by leaving us your valued comments.

Related articles:
You Don't Have To Be An SEO Whizz To Improve Your Search Engine Rankings!
10 Easy Steps To Boost Your SEO
Top SEO Do's And Don'ts
How To Improve Your SEO With Backlinks
The Seven Deadly SEO Sins
The 10 Week SEO Diet


If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to +1 or share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on NetworkedBlogs, via Email (maximum of one email per day), on Facebook and Google+ or by subscribing to our blog feed at:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DereksHomeAndBusinessBlog

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Until my next post, enjoy the rest of the week!

How To Improve Your SEO With Backlinks

With being so busy lately, it's been quite a while since I've done a featured article on the blog. So for all of you who are interested in SEO, here's a great article by Kristina Weis of AboutUs.org with information and additional articles on getting valuable inbound links to your website...


How To Get Backlinks, The #1 SEO Ranking Factor

Links from other sites to yours - also called backlinks - continue to be the most important ranking factor that search engines look at when deciding where to rank a web page in search results. Also, links to a web page are the one and only factor contributing to the page's PageRank (not to be confused with your web page's rank in Google).

Backlinks are the most valuable and perhaps least easy way to improve your SEO. But seriously, they're worth it.

You don't have direct control over your backlinks the way you do over your title tags or other website content. So how can you get these magical backlinks to help your SEO?

• First, create great content on your site that people would want to link to.
• Ask. Contact site owners personally - don't use an automated system or send the same email to everyone. Give people a good reason to link to you, like a blog post you think would help their visitors.
• Keep an eye out for sites that mention you without a link, or use not-so-valuable anchor text (like "click here" or your website name). Then ask them nicely.
• Include your keywords and links in press releases, and submit them to press release sites. They'll be republished, complete with the links to your site.
• Tip: Make sure links you get are DoFollow (not NoFollow) and anchor text.
• If you haven't already, build a nice page for your site on AboutUs.org and ask us to make its links to your site DoFollow. (more info)

For more details on getting valuable inbound links, check out these articles:

• 35 Local Link Opportunities
• Get Good Backlinks
• Keep Track of Inbound Links
• Build Links with Press Releases

Things to avoid:

• Paying for links or getting links from "iffy" sites. You could be penalized by Google.
• Focusing on quantity over quality. A few good links from popular, relevant sites will help your SEO more than many links from random sites.
• Link exchanges, link wheels, or other link schemes. These provide marginal value, and could hurt you.
• Leaving generic or spammy comments on blogs. Links in blog comments are usually NoFollow anyway, so they won't help your SEO. However, leaving meaningful comments is a good way to build your brand and get direct visitors.
• Common website issues that can dilute or throw away your "link juice". For more information, read Quick SEO Fixes for Links.

Do you like this featured article? Please let me know by using the comments section below.

Note: If you're new to SEO, visit SEO in Practice for free, easy to understand tutorials and tips on search engine optimisation.

Would you like your article to be featured on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Related articles:
SEO Benefits of Blogging
The Seven Deadly SEO Sins
9 Questions To Ask After A Site Links To You
The 10 Week SEO Diet
5 Steps To A Great SEO Campaign


If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to +1 or share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on NetworkedBlogs, via Email (maximum of one email per day) or by subscribing to our blog feed at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DereksHomeAndBusinessBlog

You can also follow me on Twitter @djones1509, Google+ and on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/djones1509
http://www.facebook.com/DereksHomeandBusinessBlog

Until my next post, have a wonderful week!

Rankings Dropped? 9 Possible Reasons And 9 Ways Out

Has your search engine rankings dropped but you don't know the reasons why? This week's featured article is by Alesya Krush, a marketing manager at Link-Assistant.com which gives 9 possible reasons as to why your rankings may have dropped with solutions to putting it right...


Rankings Dropped? 9 Possible Reasons And 9 Ways Out

Sometimes SEOs and site owners encounter the problem of their sites suddenly going down in the search engine results pages for no particular reason, it seems. When this happens, it is often hard to figure out why your rankings nosedived.

So, let's consider possible reasons for and solutions to the problem. I arranged them by relevance, starting with the most common ones.


1. Your Site Got Penalized for Using Black-Hat SEO Techniques

Google has Webmaster Guidelines by which all SEOs and webmasters must abide. If Google finds out (or your site gets reported) that you are not playing by the rules, your rankings may drop substantially, or your site may get removed from Google's index altogether.

As stated in Google Webmaster Guidelines, one must not "participate in link schemes" (buying/selling links is basically meant here), create "doorway pages", or use "hidden text" on a site. These are considered illegitimate (Black-Hat) SEO practices and may incur Google's wrath.

The Way Out

Well, if your site does get penalized, find out what might have caused this. Re-read Google's Webmaster Guidelines and remove whatever is in violation from your site - then file a reconsideration request.


2. The Search Engine Algorithm Has Changed

On the one hand, search engines are trying to keep their search results as relevant and SPAM-free as possible. On the other hand, there are people who are trying to game the system or just take advantage of the existing loopholes. And, with the ever increasing number of websites on the Internet today, search engines are forced to tweak their search algos every once in a while to keep spammers at bay.

For example, Google's latest big algorithm update known as Panda (or Farmer) was intended to do away with sites that provide poor-quality content and, as a result, provide poor user experience. However, it also affected groups of sites that have significant duplicate content by nature, such as e-commerce sites, online directories, etc.

The Way Out

First of all, if you are doing SEO and you really mean it, you should be informed about what's new in the Search Engine Land at all times. The online resources to keep an eye on are Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Land [http://searchengineland.com] (yes, I did it on purpose :) ) , the official Google Blog (http://googleblog.blogspot.com), and the inside-Google Matt Cutts' blog (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/).

If the rules change, and there is no way you can continue using the same SEO techniques you've been using before the algorithm update - you have to change your ways then. However, if you think your site was not supposed to get affected by the algo change but it did - you can write about it on Google Webmaster Forum - that often solves the problem.


3. Your Website's Content Got "Scraped"

If your rankings suddenly deteriorate, that could be because someone has stolen (or "scraped") the content from your site and posted it somewhere else on the Web. In this case, search engines sometimes lower both sites' rankings - then look deeper into the matter. Eventually, they are likely to start ranking your site as high as they used to before the incident, once they realize who copied whose content. However, this may take some time.

The Way Out

Dealing with content thieves normally involves locating the site that posted your content, contacting their webmaster, emailing their host, filing a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) request or taking the matter to court - whatever helps. It's recommended to start with contacting the scrapers. If this does not help - take the other measures mentioned here.


4. Your Site Got Penalized for Copyright Infringement

For various reasons, this may happen as well. It can be that your in-house SEO or a third-party firm you hired to promote your site used somebody else's content to boost your site's rankings in which case the owner of the content may have filed a DMCA request (the request is normally filed in written form) or reported your site to Google for copyright infringement.

The Way Out

Remove the duplicate content, hire a new SEO or an SEO services provider and submit your site for re-inclusion (just follow the same procedure that's described in way out 1 of this post)
(http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35843)


5. Competitors Beat You in the SERPs

Sometimes your rankings may go down just because a competing site (or sites) manages to boost their rankings to a substantial degree.

The Way Out

If this is the case, analyze competitors' sites and see in what way they are better than yours. Pay attention to their backlinks, keyword density, social media popularity and act accordingly, depending on what your site is missing.


6. Your Site's Structure Got Crippled

Spotless site architecture is crucial to high rankings. If there are broken links, HTML code errors or other structural discrepancies on your site, search engine bots might not be able to crawl it within a reasonable span of time, and thus, your site's rankings may deteriorate.

The Way Out

Run an audit and fix all the flaws that may hold back your site's rankings. Sometimes a site may not be visible in search results for the simple reason that the host is down and the server is not responding. A thorough site audit will show that.


7. Important Backlinks Got Removed from Your Site

Sometimes it's due to "juicy" backlinks with top Google positions pointing to your site being removed, resulting in a rankings drop for your site.

The Way Out

Check the backlinks pointing to your site. Experienced SEOs run such checkups from time to time to see whether any of the links got assigned the "nofollow" attribute, were hidden from search engines because of the robot txt file or were simply removed. If this happens, you should get these links back or get similar backlinks from other websites.


8. This is Google's QDF Algo at Work

QDF stands for "query deserves freshness" and is the algo Google uses to balance its appreciation of older content. Google applies it to trendy queries that all of a sudden become popular on the Web.

The Way Out

The way out is simple - just don't do anything. The query will eventually stop being trendy and Google will resume giving more power to older sites with time-tested content. You can always check what topics are popular/trendy at the moment at surchur.com, www.buzzfeed.com or similar sites. Let's say, your site is optimized for the word "silver spoons". All of a sudden, a hot topic about a cafe called "Silver Spoon" appears on the Web, and millions of people start looking up "silver spoon" on Google. Google will most likely decide that "query deserves freshness" and will serve users new pieces of content at the top of its search results.


9. Google Started Picking "the wrong" Canonical URL for Your Site

Sometimes, your www homepage may be ranking at position 3 on Google, while the non-www version of your homepage does not have enough link juice and may be ranking at spot 50 at most. If, because of poor canonicalization, Google decides to pick your non-www page to include into its search results, your site will end up at a substantially lower position.

The Way Out

The way out is to get your canonicalization right. Use internal linking, 301 redirects, canonical tags (not always justified) to explicitly point out your canonical URLs to Google, so that it makes no mistake.

So, these are the most widespread reasons for sudden rankings drops. Of course we could not cover all possible causes and situations - sometimes it's several reasons combined. Besides, sometimes unexpected things happen, like Google removing some 11 million co.cc domains from its index all on one day.

But, if you get armed with the advice provided in this post, it'll take you far less time to figure out the reason for the sudden rankings drop, and you'll be able to fix it much quicker.


About The Author: Alesya is a blogger and a marketing manager at Link-Assistant.Com, a Europe-based SEO software provider and the maker of the celebrated SEO PowerSuite toolset. Link-Assistant.Com's SEO tools have set industry's benchmark for automated link building and Web promotion.

Do you like this featured article? Please let me know by using the comments section below.

Would you like your article to be featured on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).


If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to +1 or share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on Facebook or subscribe to our feed at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DereksHomeAndBusinessBlog

You can also follow me on Twitter @djones1509, Google+ and on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/djones1509
http://www.facebook.com/DereksHomeandBusinessBlog

Until my next post, have a wonderful weekend!

Google Plus, Facebook Chat & Blog News

It's been a busy week on the news front, what with announcements from Facebook for example. Here's a quick rundown of some of the topics that's hit the news recently and what's been happening on the blog...


Google+ Private Profiles

Google have announced that they will be deleting all private Google+ profiles after 31st July 2011. If you have your profile currently set to private, you will need to make it public before this date or it will get deleted. Here's an explanation from their help section on why they are doing this:

"The purpose of Google Profiles is to enable you to manage your online identity. Today, nearly all Google Profiles are public. We believe that using Google Profiles to help people find and connect with you online is how the product is best used. Private profiles don't allow this, so we have decided to make it a requirement that all profiles are public.

Keep in mind that your full name and gender are the only required information that will be displayed on your profile; you'll be able to edit or remove any other information that you don't want to share. If you currently have a private profile but you do not wish to make your profile public, you can delete your profile. Or, you can simply do nothing. All private profiles will be deleted after 31 July 2011."

Do you think this will have a negative impact on Google+ when it finally launches to the public? Let me know what you think.


Facebook Group Chat and Video Calling

Last Wednesday (6th July 2011), Facebook announced three product announcements: Video Calling, Group Chat and a new Chat Design.

The new chat design includes a sidebar that lists the people you message most, so it's now even easier to find your friends and start a conversation. The sidebar adjusts with the size of your browser window and will automatically appear when the window is wide enough. The Group Chat is an exciting feature. Within the chat window, you can easily initiate Group Chat by simply adding friends to the conversation by selecting "Add Friends to Chat".

The Video Calling feature which is powered by Skype, is built into chat. To call your friend, you simply click the video call button at the top of your chat window. Facebook have indicated that Video Calling will be available to everyone over the next few weeks in over 70 different languages. However, if you cannot wait until then, you can get it now at: http://www.facebook.com/videocalling

Do you like these new Facebook features? Let me know what you think.


Blogger's New User Interface

The popular blogging platform Blogger have just made available to all users the new user interface in draft. This new interface is clean, easy to navigate and most importantly, has good statistics reporting. If you have your blog hosted on Blogger, you can see the new interface by visiting: http://draft.blogger.com

I'm not entirely sure when this new interface will be rolled-out, but given the fact Blogger have now made the draft available to all users, it shouldn't be long before it replaces the current interface.

What's your thoughts on the new user interface? Please let me know.


Google Blocks 11 Million Websites

Google has blocked all .co.cc websites from its search results because the domain has been found to be too "spammy".

In a statement from Matt Cutts, head of Google's web spam: "We absolutely do try to be granular, but I wanted to mention that if we see a very large fraction of sites on a specific freehost be spammy or low-quality, we do reserve the right to take action on the freehost as a whole. I think most savvy search/SEO folks would understand this completely, but I figure it's better to over-communicate than under-communicate."

The .cc top-level domain (TLD), which belongs to the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and regular .cc websites are unaffected by Google's changes.

The company said in a recent post on Google's Online Security Blog: "Over the past few months, Google's systems have detected a number of bulk subdomain providers becoming targets of abuse by malware distributors. Bulk subdomain providers register a domain name, like example.com, and then sell subdomains of this domain name, like subdomain.example.com. Subdomains are often registered by the thousands at one time and are used to distribute malware and fake anti-virus products on the web. In some cases our malware scanners have found more than 50,000 malware domains from a single bulk provider.

Google's automated malware scanning systems detect sites that distribute malware. To help protect users we recently modified those systems to identify bulk subdomain services which are being abused. In some severe cases our systems may now flag the whole bulk domain."

In response to the block, the General Manager of Korea-based CO.CC, James Kim has today posted a message on Google's Webmaster Help Forum stating that the decision to block .co.cc is unfair because out of the 10 million domains that are registered, only 0.01% are malicious. He also challenged Google to block Blogger (blogspot) and Facebook pages from search results since it chose to do the same with all the .co.cc websites. You can read more on this here.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) recently released a 29-page report, "Global Phishing Survey: Trends and Domain Name Use in 2H 2010" (PDF) which revealed that the .cc top-level domain hosted 4,963 phishing attacks in the second half of 2010, almost twice the number found under any other extension.

It is unfortunate that quite a lot of innocent people are going to be seriously affected by this move...I do have some idea of how it feels. Given the fact that my blog was once hosted on a .co.cc domain and the problems I had with Facebook because of it back in February (see post: Facebook Website Blocking Update: All CO.CC Domains Blocked), it was lucky that I moved my blog to the new purchased domain (http://www.derekjones.co) before this happened.

Have you been affected by this? Please let me know.


Blog News

1. Blog Gets Google PageRank 3: Since the recent update, I am pleased to announce that Derek's Home and Business Blog has now got a Google PR3. It looks as though all my hard work is finally starting to pay off! Let's see if I can get it higher :)

2. Increase in Traffic: I've noticed a major increase in traffic to the blog over the past 2-3 weeks which may have something to do with my newly acquired PageRank. This is good news and therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all the new visitors to the blog.

3. Google+ Icon: I've now installed a Google+ icon on the blog which will enable you to connect with me on the new social networking platform. You can find the icon with the rest of the social icons on the top of the side-bar under the heading "Follow & Share".

4. Business Network Tab: With the creation of the new Facebook page for small business owners and affiliate marketers (see post: Introducing The Mirage Business Network), I've now added a Business Network tab to the top of the blog. This tab gives information on the new page and how to access it. If you're a business owner or affiliate marketer and have yet to advertise your business on the page, you can do so now by visiting:
http://www.facebook.com/MirageBusinessNetwork

5. Blog Directory: If you're a blog owner and have a good quality blog, you can now list your blog in the newly created directory page. Information on how to do this can be found on the Blog Directory tab above. Don't forget to also join the Bloggers Network at: http://www.facebook.com/groups/BloggersNetworkGroup

6. Guest Posting: I'm always on the lookout for good quality, informative articles to offer my readers. If you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM), I would like to hear from you. Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch.


Finally, the sun is shining here in the UK so I'm off for a long bike ride...doctor's orders :) If I take any more scenic pictures while on my travels, I'll upload them later on Facebook under the album: Bike Ride Photo Collection.


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Until my next post, have a great week!

How Google Handles Social Links

WebProNews recently looked at how Google and Bing use links on Twitter and Facebook for organic ranking, following an informative piece from Danny Sullivan on the matter. Google's Matt Cutts has now addressed the subject a bit more in a new video uploaded to Googles' Webmaster Help Channel.

"We do use Twitter and Facebook links in ranking as we always have in our web search rankings, but in addition we're also trying to figure out a little bit about the reputation of an author or creator on Twitter or Facebook," says Cutts. "I filmed a video back in May 2010 where I said that we didn't use that as a signal, and at the time, we did not use that as a signal, but now, we're taping this in December 2010, and we are using that as a signal."

Now, this doesn't mean that suddenly Twitter and Facebook links are the main ranking factor determining where your content is showing up in organic searches. If anything, Google seems to be tiptoeing into the waters in this area.

"The web search quality team has a lot of different groups in a lot of different offices, so people including the original Blog Search team, people who worked on Realtime Search...have been working on using these sorts of things as a signal," explains Cutts. "So primarily, it has been used a little bit more in the realtime sort of search, where you might see individual tweets or other links showing up, and streaming up on the page. We're studying how much sense it makes to use it a little more widely within our web search rankings."

To reiterate, you'll still see this playing more of a role in realtime search, but Google is "looking at it more broadly within web search as well," according to Cutts.

"Now, there's a few things to remember," Cutts warns. "Number one is: if we can't crawl a page (if we can't see a page), then we can't really assign PageRank to it, and it doesn't really count. So if we're able to obtain the data, then we can use it, but if for some reason a page is forbidden for us to crawl or if we're not able to obtain it somehow, then we wouldn't be able to use it within our rankings."

This would appear to mean that links within Facebook will not mean a whole lot when the user isn't sharing their updates with everyone. Many Facebook users have their privacy settings adjusted to only share with their friends. While Facebook may have far more users than Twitter, privacy settings will greatly reduce that number in terms of links that will potentially help your search rankings.

"This is something that is used relatively lightly for now, and we'll see how much we use it over time depending on how useful it is and how robust it ends up being," says Cutts. "The one thing I would caution people about is don't necessarily say to yourself, 'Ha. Now I'm going to go out and get reciprocal follows, and I'm gonna get a ton of followers,' just like people used to get a ton of links. In the same way that PageRank depends on not just the number of links, but the quality of those links, you have to think about what are the followers who mean quality. Who are the people who actually are not just bots or some software program or things like that."


Many thanks to Chris Crum, editor of WebProNews for the content of this article. If you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar) or subscribe to our feed at:
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Enjoy the rest of the week!