Google vs Bing

Posted in: SEO by Jazz on August 21, 2009 | Comments Off

Bada Bing Bada Bing!

So Bing has been getting a lot of momentum/PR and now reports are showing that market share is increasing for Bing. I know of Google and Yahoo users who are switching.

Lets look at few reasons why:

1. Bing is  “decision engine” rather than traditional search engines. Instead of relying on keywords, Bing organizes data in a way designed to increase relevance.

Lets look at some examples:

Say you are interested in food ingredients and searching for nutrition facts . Both Search Engines show results, but Google clutters with News results, products, and even same website some times 2-3 times. Where as Bing is now more cleaner, simple relevant results.

Lets say you want to buy tickets for Disney in Orlando and you search for Disney Tickets Again both engines return some similar websites but Google shows a lot of un-necessary information.

So whats going on:

1. Google started out simple look. That was one reason why we all fell in love with it. Now they are adding and adding. Experimenting but its getting cluttering.

2. We all love google because it gives us the best and relevant results. But whats happening is that if you are searching for tickets, you maybe searching to buy or research tickets. Some how you results that come up, have to help you do that.  If google starts showing sites that dont sell tickets then its wasting your time. So the results side track you and you waste time.

3. Old outdated sites: showing a craigslist or a forum link from 6 months or 2 years which is no longer relevant is no no.

4. While showing News, Products is great, it should not take away from relevant sites. It looks like Google is experimenting and you will see different results as compared day to day, time to time.

I am not ready to switch to Bing yet, all the hype, keeps bringing me back to check it out.

Caffeine google answer to bing

Posted in: SEO by Jazz on August 14, 2009 | Comments Off

We all need Coffee or Tea in the morning to give us a kick by Caffeine. So thats what Google is doing to its search.

Caffeine is a internal code name for  secret upgrade to Google’s search algorithms, one the company says is designed to help users scour the Web faster, while returning more results with greater accuracy and comprehensiveness.

According to a post on the Google Webmaster Central blog, the new upgrades sit “under the hood” of the Google search engine, so most users won’t immediately notice a big difference in their search results.

So you are and will be seeing changes to site results.

So of the recent changes seen with search results

• News results
• Product results

While this is good, it can be terrible for sites with ranking of 8,9,10 as it takes their pages to page 2.

So if you are site with products, you need to get them on google index. Contact me on how to do so.

Jazz

What is a Page Rank

Posted in: SEO FAQ by Jazz on | Comments Off

What is a Page Rank / PageRank / Page Ranking / PR ?

Simply put: Search Engines need to know which page/site is better than the other.
They have a mathematical way to do so, which we dont need to get into. Google uses a patented way “PR” to do so.

So each site and its pages have a PR. The higher the better. It starts from 1.
A way to check sites PR is using Google tool bar or websites like prchecker.com

Factors that influence page rank

1. Back links – how many sites back link to the page

Note: any sites such as linkfarms or blackhat sites are discounted. Google understands that you may not be able to control who links to you, but it can remove them from calculation.

2. How many  sites you link to.
So try not to link out to too many sites.

Detailed Explanation – http://www.webworkshop.net/pagerank.html

How Important is SEO Today

Posted in: SEO by naba on August 10, 2009 | Comments Off

The advent of Google and other search engine giants like Yahoo and MSN has changed the Internet forever. What was used to be a mere library of information, is now a hot selling marketplace with millions competing for the top ten ranking positions in search engine result pages (SERPs). A slight variant or drop in your keyword ranking position can keep you away from thousands of potential visitors. In order to address your keywords ranking challenges and to keep your website visible in the search engines it is very essential to take SEO (Search Engine Optimization) help.

SEO is an important process driven website optimization technique intended to give maximum visibility in major search engines through high ranking keywords. It enables you to receive more traffic and finally more conversions, thus fulfilling your business objective. Effective SEO implementations require careful and continuous planning and detail up-to-date understanding of the search engine algorithm, including the rules and regulations specific to each search engine.

A typical SEO process consists of the following important on- page and off- page optimization steps:

• Website Analysis: Website analysis is the first step to any strategic SEO approach. This step involves end to end analysis of client’s website performance (past and present, the contents and navigation structure, current keyword rankings if any, and all the factors that directly or indirectly affect the search engines guidelines for SEO friendly websites.

• Keyword Assessment: Keywords form the core part of any SEO plan. The entire SEO process revolves around the targeted keywords. So it is top concern for the SEO team to analyze, and identify the right keywords to ensure successful SEO campaign.

• Copy Writing: Unless the content you are providing is search engine friendly and consist the targeted keywords your SEO goal remains incomplete. While writing contents for SEO one should be very careful in maintaining a clean keyword reach and meaningful copy. The copy should reflect the interest of both the search engine and readers. Search engines should able to index it cleanly, while readers should find the contents interesting and worth reading.

• Meta Tag Writing: Meta Tags help search engine to better understand the intent of the projected page. While creating Meta tags one should be very careful in selecting the right contents and keywords. Also one should strictly adhere to the specifications laid out for Meta Tags by each search engines. Though some search engines stop supporting Meta tags now a days, but Meta tags namely the description tag, keywords tag, robots tag etc still find an important place n major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

• HTML code refining: Search engines give more importance to pages with clean HTML codes that comply with the standards set by W3 consortium. While creating the HTML codes one should be very careful about the syntax used, versions, DTD (Document Type Declaration), broken links etc.

• Directory Submission: Submitting your website to relevant, SEO friendly directories is a vital SEO step in enhancing the visibility. A good ethical way to do it is to follow ethical, manual submission process.

• Link Building: Link building is one of the most important, continuous off-page optimization steps. There are various ways to approach a successful link building campaign like one-way linking, two-way linking, and three-way linking.

• Tracking and Maintenance: Tracking SEO performance and improving the same periodically is very important to meet the strategic SEO goals. Comparing performance reports through Google Analytics and other advanced tracking tools will help identify necessary changes and modification for improved performance level.

WordPress Upgrade Failed – message “The service is unavailable.”

Posted in: Coding Tips by Jazz on August 8, 2009 | Comments Off

If you try to upgrade wordpress automatically by clicking on “Please update now”

and it fails, you may be stuck as browser will show a message – The service is unavailable.

If you have ftp access

goto wp-content folder and delete or rename UPGRADE folder upgrade-bak

and your site should be back up

Free Social Media Icons – digg, delicious, facebook, twitter

Posted in: Web Design by Jazz on | Comments Off

Are you looking for icons, here is a link with many styles and 100′s of free icons

http://speckyboy.com/2009/07/20/50-social-service-and-bookmarking-icon-sets-for-bloggers/

Enjoy!

Free Icons

Posted in: Web Design by Jazz on August 5, 2009 | Comments Off

Designing websites and looking for cool web 2.0 icons

http://wefunction.com/2008/07/function-free-icon-set/

Free WordPress Theme:

http://wefunction.com/2008/07/free-theme-outdoorsy/

Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude.

Posted in: Daily Quote by Jazz on August 3, 2009 | Comments Off

“Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.”

Henri Frederic Amiel