Mar
29
Google Acquires Urchin Software
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Google announced yesterday that it has agreed to acquire Urchin Software Corporation, a San Diego, California based web analytics company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Thousands of Internet sites use products from San Diego-based Urchin to help better understand their users’ experiences and track the performance of advertisements and other aspects of visits to Web sites. Google expects the service will help Web sites increase their advertising returns.
"This technology will be a valuable addition to Google’s suite of advertising and publishing products," Jonathan Rosenberg, Google’s vice president of product management said in a statement announcing the deal.
Mountain View-based Google said it anticipates the deal will close by the end of April.
Google’s new acquisition is being discussed on several SEO forums such as SEOChat , Webmaster World and SearchEngineWatch .
Mar
18
Is there a Google PR update coming soon? There have been many discussions on different SEO forums.
I have checked all of my sites with SEOChat Future PR Tool and couldn’t see any updates. I have also visited PageRank Watch Site to check for any updates but it seems like all data centers are stable.
On DigitalPoint Forums, user "Josh" has seen some PR movement with his new site, and he’s posted it on this topic. His new site shows PR 5 on many data centers.
And on SEOChat Forums, there’s a discussion about upcoming Google PR update, and some predictions of the members, here at this topic.
After reviewing all the discussions, and movements in different data centers, I believe we’re getting very close to the next PR update, and my prediction is we’ll see the PR update either last week of March, or first week of April.
We will both wait and see, and I hope everybody will have higher PR’s.
Mar
3
Google Backlink Update
Filed Under Google, SEO | Leave a Comment
I have seen some differences on my Google Backlinks last night, and this morning after checking with several Google Data Centers, I can officially say that, there’s a Google Backlink Update. Go to McDar SEO Tools and click "Data Center Quick Check", enter your URL and click "Check for Google Backlink/PR Update" and you will see most of the data centers are already updated.
I have spoken to some SEO experts this morning and there’s a discussion about if a new PR update is coming very soon or not. Let’s cross the fingers and wait. I hope your websites have gained new backlinks with this new Google Backlink Update. Majority of my websites gained links, and a few have lost some backlinks. This new backlink update shows that I have to work more on link building. I will be writing about link building this week.
Mar
2
Keyword Analysis - Choosing the Right Keywords
Filed Under Tutorials, SEO | 5 Comments
Are you taking the advantage of search engines to bring new visitors to your site? When designing a new page do you do a technical keyword analysis, and build the page for targeted keywords? I will be teaching you how to do proper Keyword Analysis for your web pages. Keyword analysis is much easier than it sounds, and it will help your site to increase its targeted visitors. Let’s start step by step.
Pick the Top-Level Keyword for your page
This is the smartest approach. Before getting into details, choose your most general, top-level keyword. Let’s choose a random topic website, and use the examples from that website for our article. Let’s say we have have decided to build an auction site similar to eBay. In this case, our top-leve keyword is "Auction" or "Auctions". Remember search engines treat singular and plural words seperately. So you have to have seperate plans for singular and plural keywords. There is not a tool in the market to help you to choose the top-level keyword. For very general topics like auctions, it is easy to define the top-level keyword, for more specific topics, try to choose the most general keyword as your top-level keyword. Ok, we have chosen our top-level keyword, and we are ready to start our analysis. Let’s start with vertical and lateral keyword analysis.
Vertical and Lateral Keyword Analysis
Vertical Keyword Analysis
Vertical Keyword Analysis generates all forms of the top-level keyword (singular, plural) including all the popular variations. Vertical Analysis needs a good combination of statistical data. You can always guess, and go with trial-erro method, but it is much easier to do your analysis with a tool. Wordtracker is the most popular keyword analysis tool for SEO in the market. If you visit their website http://www.wordtracker.com/ you can use the online trial version whenever you want. Trial version has limited results, and it analyzes less data than the professional version, but it would work pretty good for small websites. Another great and free tool is offered by Overture, you can simply type your top-level keyword and Overture Keyword Tool generates all the vertical keywords associated with your top-level keyword along with the number of searches done. You can use Overture Keyword Selector Tool for free. I use both Overture and Digitalpoint keyword suggestion tools. Digital Point Keyword Suggestion Tool gives you results both from Wordtracker and Overture.
Ok, let’s go back to our top-level keyword. We chose "auctions" and using the tools we’ve mentioned above, I’ve a list of vertical keyword suggestions. Below is the "Vertical Keywords" for top-level keyword "auction" generated by Digital Point Keyword Suggestion Tool.
Read more
Mar
1
Hyphens or Underscores in URL
Filed Under Tutorials, SEO | 2 Comments
What is a more optimized URL structure, Hyphens or Underscores ?
Google treats hyphen as a divider, but this is not the same case when it comes to underscore. This has been a long time discussion within SEO community, and majority of SEO experts believe using hyphens to seperate words in your URL is the best solution.
Here’s a URL example with Hyphens :
http:// www.domain.com/blue-widgets.htm
Here’s a URL example with Underscores :
http:// www.domain.com/blue_widgets.htm
I have conducted several URL structure tests including hyphens, underscores, and slashes in the URL. My conclusion from my experiments and experiences; "The best solution for your URL structure is using hyphens". But remember, over optimized sites will always lose in the long run, so be careful when choosing your URL structure. Never stuff your URL with too many keywords, and never use the same one word keyword more than two times in your URL.
My Page is doing good in SERP’s and it’s with underscores, what should I do?
My recommendation is rename your page with hyphens, and do a permanent redirect from your former URL to your new one. Permanent redirect will carry the page rank value to the new structure, and within very short time your new URL structure will get same or most likely better rankings in SERP’s.
Old URL : http:// www.domain.com/blue_widgets.htm
Rename your page from blue_widgets.htm to blue-widgets.htm and upload your new page. Do a permanent redirect (301 redirect) from blue_widgets.htm to blue-widgets.htm . Never ever do a temporary redirect (302 redirect), you may get your site banned from Google and some other major search engines.
Today’s Quote
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself.
Galileo Galilei
Mar
1
Google Sandbox Filter Experiment
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What is the Sandbox?
Google Sandbox is a filter which places new websites on an initial probation in SERP’s (search engine results pages). Without an official start date, SEO experts believe first Google Sandbox effects took place back in March 2004. Usually new websites get pretty good results on Google first couple of weeks. But when sandbox filter starts affecting the new websites, they lose their high placements in SERP’s.
The purpose of Google Sandbox Filter is to prevent new websites from having immediate success in the search engine result pages. By this filter, Google targets to stop the search engine spam created by spammers who used to create a number of websites, and gained backlinks and good results at SERP’s overnight.
Google Sandbox Filter is not a punishment for websites, and almost all of the new websites are affected by Sandbox. Without statistical data, webmasters believe competitive keyword driven websites are affected more than the less keyword competitive keyword driven websites. Below is an example:
Website A target keywords:
Insurance, Auto Insurance, Health Insurance
Website B target keywords: Lubbock Texas Insurance Agent, Lubbock Texas Insurance Quota
In this case website A will be affected by Google Sandbox affect and stay in the sandbox more than website B. Since most spammers focus on more competitive keywords, it is also a proof that Google Sandbox Filter is going to help the honest webmasters in the long run.
I have been working on some statistical experiments about Google Sandbox Filter, and two examples below are two of my websites, and statistical data proving the Google Sandbox Effect for two different keyphrases.
Google Sandbox Experiment 1
Website : http://www.onestop-directory.com/
Keyphrase: Online Shopping Directory
Domain Registration Date: November 22, 2004
Site Launch Date: December 10, 2004
OneStop Directory was launched on december 10th and main keyphrase for the website was “Online Shopping Directory”. During 10 days the main keyphrase had an excellent place in SERP’s. Its ranking was usually around 5-10 on the first page. Then it has disappeared from the SERP’s on Google. Then the keyphrase was back in top 50 on January 15th. Approximately over one month, the site has disappeared from top 100 rankings. It took around 35 days after the launch to be back in top 50 results. “Online Shopping Directory” is a pretty competitive keyword with around 20 million search engine results in Google. As of today (March 1st) the site’s ranking is 13 on Google and has been increasing steadily as shown on the graph.
Google Sandbox Experiment 2
Website: http://www.freeauctionscripts.com/
Keyphrase: Ebay Success Stories
Domain Registration Date: August 06, 2004
Site Launch Date: August 25, 2004
FreeAuctionScripts was launched on August 25th. But the “Ebay Success Stories” page which has the target keyword was launched about a month later (around September 25th). Until December 2004, the specific page did not have any ranking on Google. It has ranked within 100 around the first week of December 2004, and with a steady increase it has number 1 ranking since February 20, 2005.
Comparison of Two Google Sandbox Experiments
We cannot compare the statistical data for two experiments. Site launch dates, targeted keywords, number of backlinks to both sites within given time period, PR (page rank) values of the sites and many other outside effects prevent us comparing the two experiments. But the goal of this experiment was to prove the effect of Google Sandbox Filter regardless of site’s launch date, total backlinks, PR value, and home page sub page difference.
Since August 2004, I have been recording the statistical data for over 100 keywords targeted by six websites. I have only given 2 examples to prove that Google Sandbox Filter occurs but the significance difference between two statistical data clearly shows that Online Shopping Directory in example 1 has gotten out of sandbox much faster than FreeAuctionScripts in example 2.
How did Experiment 1 Succeeded Faster Than Experiment 2
Now, we all agree that Google Sandbox Filter exists. But the main goal should be how can my website get out of the sandbox as fast as possible. Even though targeted keyword in the first experiment shows around 20 million results, and keyword in second experiment shows around 500.000 results on Google, we have succeeded to leave sandbox with keyword 1 faster. How did we achieve this? Here’s the answers:
- Focus on the quality of your website first.
- Gain quality, targeted backlinks with a variety of anchor keywords which includes your target keyword. In experiment 1, the target keyword is “Online Shopping Directory”, and I’ve focused on “Online Shopping”, “Online Shopping Mall”, “Shopping Directory”, “Online Shopping” mainly. They both had 1 or 2 of my main keyphrase.
- Try to avoid so many outbound links from your site to new, not-established websites. It’s always good to link to authority websites.
- Increase your content, this will end up with more indexed pages on Google, and it will speed up your site’s success.
- Get a few backlinks with your target keyword from authority websites in your field. Remember, a backlink from a related authority website is extremely important.
If your new website has quality content, and useful information for its industry, and if you keep adding quality content, it will be out of the sandbox pretty quick.
Google sandbox filter is just one effect of SEO for Google. We will talk about other filters, and SEO tactics at further articles.
Today’s Quote
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
Albert Einstein