Google PageRank Update November 2012

So, Google PageRank has been updated again this week, just as expected. And so far, the update does not seem to be a major one - but then again, give it some time. The last update took place in August 2012, and the one before that on May 2012. So it's pretty obvious that Google is now rolling out these updates quarterly, i.e. after every three months. So the next update is expected in the first 10 days of February 2013. We congratulate everyone whose PR didn't drop. And for those whose did, there's a few things you can do which we will mention. And again, keep in mind that Google PR should not a priority for you - read on to see why.

What does PageRank do?

As most of you might already know, PageRank is Google's way of assigning a grade to a website from 0 to 10. Google rates itself at PR 9, so that drops the ceiling somewhat. And for blogs with little or no investment (such as this one), the maximum PR achieved yet is 6. Blogs such as TechCrunch, Mashable, Search Engine Land etc are corporate websites, run by an organization. They have multiple authors, as well as marketers and managers who manage and promote the website at the back-end - all of which requires investment. So for a low-investment blog, the target should be 6.

As to the question of what PR actually does, well it's just a way of rating websites. Website with a high PR get crawled and indexed more frequently. For example, a PR 7 website might get crawled several times in a minute, whereas a PR 4 or 5 website might be crawled just once per minute.

PR is also one of the factors advertisers look for in a blog, but is by no means the ONLY factor. There are a lot of other factors they look at first.

What to do?

Has your PR dropped? Don't worry. You can pick it up still. Lots of people think hundreds of backlinks is the way to go. That couldn't be further from the truth. Instead of having hundreds of backlinks, it's better to just concentrate on having just a few very high quality backlinks (PR 4 or higher). So stop wasting your time commenting on low PR blogs for backlinks. Rather, write a good guest post on a high PR blog. Adopt this practice, and you'll see your PR increase in the next update.

Besides that, you should concentrate on the quality of your page, as well as some of the basic SEO, so that Google recognizes your efforts. Here is a list of some of the best SEO tips you should follow.

What should your priority be?

As mentioned earlier, PR is just ONE of the factors advertisers look for in a blog. But there are other more important factors as well. The first thing they look for is your readership, i.e. whether you have an active community of followers who participate on your blog. Then comes social media fan following, and even though such stats could be inflated (by buying likes), it is the activity about your blog that counts.

What is Black Hat SEO?

Black hat SEO is deemed as immoral procedures employed by search engine optimizers to get websites augmented visibility in search engines. black hat SEO is a widespread phrase acknowledged by search engine optimizers.In order to make certain that the search engines like Yahoo and Google etc are showing desired results to their end users, black hat SEO is always in process by these optimizers.

Most employ Black hat SEO users, who employing techniques to get their websites to roll up in the web pages of search results; normally will not provide you the data you wanted. For instance, if a Webmaster, using a black hat SEO, desires to craft cash with the help of Google Ad-sense, they position some keyword content on a particular webpage anticipating that when somebody comes across that webpage, they will hit on a poster or any ad for the reason that the material on that particular webpage is not valuable. In response, the Webmaster who planted such stuff by using black hat SEO, will earn for that click. Such black hat SEO practice exploited by the Webmaster to trick the hunt engines into thinking that the webpage was related to the rummage around, but outcome is normally poor. This is precisely what, now a day, search engines are attempting to cope with this black hat SEO.

All and sundry looks to be getting results using black hat SEO. Perhaps it’s occasion to seize a few black hat SEO tips to be familiar with the boundaries of optimization and the paybacks of performing in the grey area. Let’s observe what black hat SEO do to dig up traffic:

* To create legitimate doorways and entrances webpage is an enormous black hat SEO technique for link structuring and in fact receiving clients while your website is not standing at superior ranking. Squidoo.com is very influential website with plenty of link juice is a fine case in this point of black hat SEO. This webpage allow you generate web pages on about any topic. Begin by forming a dozen of web pages with exclusive keywords on different theme those counterparts your website and then set an assortment of we blinks to your website on the Squidoo.com web pages you have fashioned. In black hat SEO technique, at this moment, consider of further authoritative websites on which you can locate your writing stuff like WordPress.com Google Base, Blogger, Live space and many more.

* Blog & ping is another popular skill of black hat SEO because this is extremely effortless but a tremendously good way to get indexed prompt. Whenever you put pen to paper a new piece of writing, just visit to Pingoat.com, place the article name and the web link or URL and ping away. Immediately you will be indexed.

* Search engine optimizers often love this ‘Go for the long tail’ black hat SEO way and employ this black hat SEO method in their web pages web sites and assignments because it’s easier to position for a 4 to 6 keyword hunt that has no straight contest and competition than it is to position for a hunt keyword that has millions of results, using black hat SEO.

* Keyword stuffing is one tactic that you don’t see much of anymore, but you do occasionally see websites that in the footer have many keywords for their industry listed. This is a less obvious way to go about it as in the past it was literally just list a your keywords many times after the original content of your site. Keyword stuffed sites didn’t provide a good user experience, so Google cracked the whip and started punishing sites that did this so that other sites that are more user friendly could rank higher.

* Invisible text is a lot like keyword stuffing but less obvious to the user. Companies utilizing this method would put text in the background of websites and make the text the same color so that no one would know there was content there unless they looked at the code. Websites would have a white background with white font and it made the text invisible. As far as Google views it now it’s spam and will not give you any benefit.

What Is White Hat SEO?

White hat SEO is the exact contradictory to black hat search engine optimization. When it comes to rousing traffic to your websites, white hat SEO system pursue the search engine course of action narrowly whilst simultaneously, searching for options to catch higher page grade. Accordingly, it is broadly professed as the leading mean of internet marketing as compared to the black hat. Since, basically there are two SEO approaches as in black and white hat SEO. This piece of writing will be centering on white hat SEO.

White hat SEO method can be incredibly successful and they are as well good for your web pages in the long-standing than any other positive traffic driving means. White hat SEO can lift up your website throughout the search results grade devoid of having a harmful consequence on the value of your business and website.

Compared to black hat, white hat SEO yields steady and slow but enduring results. Thus when choosing which part you should follow, you have to regard a better picture. Apart from online promoters, those working white hat SEO consist of software developers and programmers in computer safety. As their job name means, their employment, is to upload organize & order along with protection between computer networks. It is equivalent to police preserving law & order. It is essential to assist search engines to place the content that they are hunting for when it is there on your website. By and large, white hat SEO looks after your status in internet and online businesses. If you exercise it in good manner, it will be to your benefit. People will start in on looking further at your webpage and products once it turns into matching in trustworthiness and excellence. You will also initiate to make their belief and additional dealing for yourself with this white hat SEO.

Albeit utilizing of certain dishonest methods has cause the hunt engines to decrease their reliance on Meta characters, it is still important to make proper use of this feature with the help of white hat SEO. The white hat SEO acts a vital role in the way search engines search for the top websites. It is also very essential to guarantee that you decide for the right heading and titles for your website’s page using white hat SEO. It will be regarded as envoy of the website’s content.

Use of effective keywords is also a significant white hat SEO technique. An assortment of related phrases and keywords should be employed in an ordinary run all over to your web contents. Using keywords is similar to entering into a search container, for the people who are trying to find your website. White hat SEO method will enlarge the probability that they will uncover your website. Particular multi-word search expressions, also identified as long end keywords, are the mainly helpful. You must aim two to three phrases or keywords on every page of your business website, and make sure that you also employ them in the most vital division of your page, for example in headings, titles as well as Meta descriptions. This is white hat SEO.

Link Building Techniques – Direct and Indirect

There are many ways to get inbound links. A few links to your site from reputed, high quality, authority sites are much more valuable to a search engine than hundreds of low quality links. I’d advise you to not to participate in an automated link exchange program as you’ll be automatically exchanging links with all sorts of low quality and unrelated sites. Here are some seo tips for direct link building:

1.        Directory Submission

Even those who are new to search engine optimization know that a directory submission is one of the easiest ways to build links. Directory submission involves submitting details of your website including titles and descriptions about your product/service to online directories. This helps to get links with relevant anchor texts placed under relevant categories. There are many free and paid directories available online. All you have to do is submit your link and add details about it. You will get links form relevant categories in these directories.

Tip: Try avoiding automated submissions or submission softwares as most directories have a ‘Captcha’ code which can be verified only by a human being.

2.        Article Submission

Article submission involves writing articles related to the theme of your site and submitting to article directories. By doing this, you will get permanent one-way links from these directories. In addition to that, your article will be put under the most relevant category as well. Now only will you be getting a link, you will also be reaching out to more people. Visitors of that article site will get to know about your site and may even link to you if they think you are an authority figure and like your site.

Tip: Try to keep to original articles you write yourself, the search engines can find out if the article is copied from somewhere! You’ll want to stay away from software programs designed to produce articles one after the other with little difference.

3.       Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking lets you store, organize and manage your sites of interest on a  public bookmarking site, instead of on your computer. As long as you’re logged on to the Internet, you can access and share these bookmarks from anywhere in the world. Once you bookmark with social bookmarking sites and people find your content exciting, they will save it and share it with others. Your bookmark moves to the front pages of the category or site and you’ll soon see the increase in traffic.

While some social bookmarking sites may not give you search engine friendly links, the traffic and visibility you get from these sites could result in other sites linking to you.

Tip: Participate in your social bookmarking community’s activities by posting your comments and giving suggestions. This will increase your social bookmarking credibility and help make you visible in the social bookmarking community you participate in.

4.        Forum Posting

Forum posting means visiting online forums that have topics related to your site and participating in the discussions. People usually visit forums to hold discussions with other like-minded people. Forums give you an opportunity to build relationships and build your credibility but if you start promoting your link too much and contribute little, you’ll be considered a spammer and you might be at risk of getting banned from the forum.

Tip: When you post a comment, include your link in your signature.

5.       Guest Posting in Other Blogs

Guest posting in blogs is one of the best ways to build your brand and site popularity. You get a much wider audience and get links from really powerful sites. It is also a great way to build contacts in your industry. The traffic and exposure you receive is great compared to what you can usually generate from a new site. You can get backlinks, get new readers, get offers from other blogs and increase your traffic with this.

Tip: Study the blog you want to write an article for and see what kind of articles have been successful there. Write on topics similar to the ones that have been appreciated. If you do not do your research properly, you might end up writing on topics that are of no interest to their readers… you might just end up wasting your time.

6.        Press Releases

Some people think submitting press releases is a boring old way of trying to optimize your site. However, if the release is written well, the search engine optimized press release can prove to be one of the most effective ways to deliver news of events taking place within your company or industry. Press Releases are also picked up by Google faster. Usually you’ll find press releases on top of the search engines faster than the usual articles.

Tip: Don’t use complicated jargons, but simple language that people can connect with and search engines will decipher easily.

7.      Social Networking Sites

An active Social Networking campaign such as using platforms like Twitter, Facebook  and Linkedin can serve you well in driving traffic. Sometimes, the links are ‘No follow’ but the exposure and interaction you gain with potential customers is extremely valuable. If they like what you are discussing and find your information or products interesting they can help spread your word for you. As of now, FIFA’s profile on Twitter has over 178,555 followers. Even the Facebook fan page for popular potato chip brand Pringles stands out mostly for its great use of video.

Tip: Social media marketing is all about subtlety. Try not to market yourself so much that it turns people off. Give lots of information and inject your product or service details into it.

So that’s that! These are just some of the basics under off-page optimization and link building. If you have something to add or would like to disagree with some of the points, leave your comments in the form below!

What is Off Page Optimization?

This article comes as a follow up to our previous post  On Page Optimization seo. Now that you are familiar with the basics of on-page optimization, let’s move on to the next step – Off Page Optimization Seo. This too isn’t as complicated or as difficult as you would imagine. Off-page optimization is nothing but a number of strategies that you can implement off your web page to improve your search engine ranking and increase targeted traffic to your web site.

Off-page factors should be carefully planned and implemented to achieve a higher search engine ranking. Many people think that off-page optimization is just link building and go about it in a random and unplanned manner.

However, this is not going to bring much benefit to their site. They’re just going to waste a lot of time and efforts and not get any results. They need to consider several aspects before starting off-page optimization for their site. Given below is all the information you will need to know about off-page optimization. It is one of the best SEO Strategies to be used before starting the off Page Search Engine Optimization.

I. Factors to Consider Before Building Links

It’s not enough to get just any websites to link to you, the quality of inbound links is also very important. You may get 100 links but may not see any difference in your results if you don’t consider the following points:

1.       Inbound Links from Authority Sites

Authority sites are popular sites that people frequent, get linked to on the basis of their merit, or are referred by many when they need to check up on the subject. Getting links from known websites is priceless while doing off-page optimization for your website. It’s like a certificate from an authoritative figure who has acknowledged the quality of your page. For example, if your site is about current events or news, and CNN.com links to you, consider it as the best bonus ever!

Tip: Make your website as professional and informative as possible. If you give reliable and valuable information, it will instantly impress people. This will also increase the chances of getting linked by other such authority sites.

2.       Anchor Text of Inbound Link

Anchor text is the actual word or phrase of your link. It is important to have anchor text targeting your keywords because the search engines will notice this as a relevant link for your site. As you start getting more and more links with your targeted anchor text, your rankings for those terms will start to improve.

For example, if your site was about selling or renting houses then you should use your keywords in the titles: such as ‘Houses for sale’, ‘Houses for rent’, ‘Homes for sale’, ‘Homes for rent’, ‘Buy a house’, ‘Rent a house’ etc.

The most common anchor text is ‘Click Here’. Sometimes, it is not possible to choose the anchor text for your links from other pages, but for those sites where you can, you need to get it right. Some places where you can enter your own anchor text are online web directories and social bookmarking sites. However, for those sites which do not, you could try sending a request asking if the anchor text can be modified to make it more relevant for your site. You’ll be surprised to see many of them would make the necessary changes.

Tip: Try to include your keywords in your anchor text. Decide what keywords you want to rank for and include them in your anchor text. However, be careful because your anchor text should not read like a string of keywords, it should make sense as well.

3.       PageRank of Incoming Links

Google Page Rank is a tool developed by Google to determine the importance of a website or a webpage based on clearly defined set of algorithms. It is ranked on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest. Whenever you link out to another website, you pass on some of your page rank value. Similarly, if you get a link form a high PR page, your site will also benefit from a fraction of the PR value of that page.

PageRank is based on incoming links, but not just on the number of them – relevance and quality are also important (in terms of the PageRank of sites, which link to a given site). However, not all links weigh the same when it comes to PR. If you had a web page with a PR8 and had 1 link on it, the site linked to would get a fair amount of PR value. But, if you had 100 links on that page, each individual link would only get a fraction of the value.

Tip: While links from high PR sites may be beneficial to your PR, do not restrict your off-page link building activities just on the basis of PR.

4.       Placement of Link in Web Page

The position of your link from another website says a lot about it to search engines. Links can be placed in the footer, header, sidebar or inside the content. With so many people selling links in their sidebar or footer, search engines might possibly give these links slightly lesser value. The ones placed as a part of the content (contextual links) could be considered more valuable than the sidebar or footer links.  There is a growing amount of importance of placing links on a page in a natural manner.

Tip: Try to get links from a page which does not have too many other links. The page you are getting a link from should not be one which makes it obvious that they sell links.

5.       Get Links from Relevant/Related Sites

It doesn’t make much sense when an astrology site links to a website that deals with cars. The topics are niche and completely irrelevant to each other! The audience you are looking at can’t be any more different (unless you want to ask the psychic if the car’s registration number will bring you luck!) This type of linking is not only worthless but if you have exchanged links to get that link, you’re also putting your page at risk. The search engines will smell something fishy and suspect a link trade because the sites aren’t related in any way. So, always try to get links from websites that are related to your topic.

Tip: As mentioned above get the majority of links from sites that have similar topics. Even if you are getting it from general sites like online directories or social bookmarking sites, your link should be placed under the correct category.

In The next post we will discuss about Link Building Techniques.

What is a Search Engine ?

Basically, a search engine is a software program that searches for sites based on the words that you designate as search terms. Search engines look through their own databases of information in order to find what it is that you are looking for.The term "search engine" often is used interchangeably. Search engines automatically create web site listings by using spiders that "crawl" web pages, index their information, and optimally follows that site's links to other pages. Spiders return to already-crawled sites on a pretty regular basis in order to check for updates or changes, and everything that these spiders find goes into the search engine database.