February 20, 2008 By

Are Your Blog Posts Listed in StumbleUpon?

With Google fully integrating data on their search pages, it’s really simple to find out what pages from your blog are already in StumbleUpon.

Simple type in the following: site:yourwebsite.com

Of course, replace “yourwebsite.com” with your actual website URL, and you’ll see something like this:

stumble-upon-google

This type of search command is useful to see what pages have been indexed in Google, but now it can also be used to see which pages (red arrows) are already being visited by users. You’ll also be able to see the main tags used for your website and the user ID of the StumbleUpon user who first discovered your website, or your individual blog pages.

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December 19, 2007 By

The Google Sandbox Effect on Your Blog SEO

Have you ever heard about the Google sandbox? The Google sandbox is a security step if you will that Google put into place around 2004 to stop spam blogs from ranking well in the search engines with non relevant terms. The Google sandbox was often called a myth and heavy discussions have evolved through this. However, it seems that the Google sandbox is a reality.

One thing that I know, is that my blog is now in the Google sandbox because I made the mistake of registering a brand new domain opposed to buying a pre-registered one at auction.

What most bloggers don’t understand (and I didn’t either until recently) is the fact that pretty much any new domain will end up in the Google sandbox. These are protection steps from Google against spammers and no matter how good your blog is, how much traffic you receive or even how little, you will be reduced to limited search engine positioning through the sandbox.

I believe that the average sandbox playtime for blogs plays out around 3 month up to nearly 18 month for some. What happens during this time is your blog will loose search engine rankings for keywords and eventually disappear.

I’ve always wondered why I managed to hit the first position on Google for a couple of days with a well place blog post in terms of keywords and then suddenly poof it disappeared without trace.

Now I know it is due to the Google sandbox effect and there is nothing I can do until the time comes when the blog will come out of it.

Once you are in the sandbox there isn’t much you can do.

But knowing this, there is one thing you can and that is to buy a pre-existing domain instead.

Hope you don’t get sand boxed!

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December 18, 2007 By

Beware of Buying Banned Sites

Buying pre-owned domains is what experienced smart marketers do instead of registering a brand new domain. By buying the right pre-owned domain we not only avoid the Google sandbox, but we can also get started on the right foot if the domain happens to have already good page rank.

This sounds all great in theory, but in reality it is a different kettle of fish since not every pre-owned domain is what it seems. A typical example is a domain that I found the other day. It had a PR 7 and was registered in 2004, which is great for not being any more in the sandbox. But then things always look a little suspect when they are too good to be true. Nobody had bid on the domain yet and I thought cool, this might be a great buy.

But then I checked a little closer and found out that the domain was both banned from Google and Yahoo. Lucky me for not falling prey to this! But what about the other bidders who have since started to bid on this domain?

They obviously don’t know that this could be the case. They probably think that since the domain is for sale from a reputable company everything else is fine too.

Well, think again, it isn’t! If you are into domain buying, please avoid paying for worthless domains that will do nothing for you because they are either banned or they are not what they appear to be.

Double and triple check your finds before you separate with your money. It can save you a lot of hassle later down the track.

Use the following SEO tools to check the domains back links and whether it is banned or not.

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December 16, 2007 By

Earn Money with Google Video Units

Google video units are a relatively new way to earn money with from your blog or website. Google partnered with YouTube to allow users to show customizable video units on their blog and earn money with targeted advertising. (Google owns YouTube, but they are still run as two independent companies).In the screen shot below you see how the Google video units look.

But what differs those units from a normal YouTube video are the two ads that are placed strategically on the top and bottom of the video window.

Google Video Untis

When you place a Google Video Unit on your site, you can choose the video content by the following strategies:

  • by content
  • by individual content providers
  • by automatic targeting to YOUR site’s content

The ads shown on the videos will be relevant to your content as well, which can result in higher click through rates. The ads aren’t intrusive to the overall look of your video screen and you can also customize the color scheme and the layout of your video.

To display and utilize this new joint venture between Google and YouTube, you’ll need to have an AdSense publisher account with Google which is free of charge to you. Most bloggers are already using AdSense in some way or another and if you haven’t got an account yet, then you can sign up now to start displaying video units on your pages.

Notes: At present, video units are only available for publishers located in the United States with English-language websites.

How to Add Video Units to Your Page:

  1. You need to link your YouTube account with your AdSense account
  2. Sign into your account at AdSense
  3. Select AdSense Setup tab and then navigate to video units
  4. This will redirect you to YouTube to customize your video unit. It will also ask you to login unless of course you already were.
  5. Choose a name and description for your player so you can remember it in the future.
  6. Now you can customize the colors and the layout to fit into your blog site. Feel free to play around a little.
  7. This step is probably the most important one; you’ll now need to choose the content you want displayed on the player. Remember, you have 3 choices as explained above and need to make sure it is targeted to your site.
  8. Once you are happy with the choices, click on generate code
  9. Copy and paste the code shown into your HTML source on your blog
  10. Click publish

Congratulations, you should now have your first Google video units video playing on your site.

Monika Mundell

Editor of Easy WordPress

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November 17, 2007 By

Will PPP Bloggers Receive the Next Google Slap?

Attention Pay Per Post Bloggers

You might not know it yet, but it is highly possible that you guys are next…by being on the receiving end of the next round of Google slapping.

It seems that we are up to round 4 of all the Google bashing that’s going on in the blogosphere. In this round it seems that certain PPP bloggers have lost Google PR overnight because they were abusing Google’s TOS.

The problem of which many bloggers are not aware of is that Google perceives PPP as a service who sells links. By now we should all be aware of the fact that this is a bad idea in the eye of Google. Unless those links contain a rel=”nofollow” link Google will penalize blogs that participate in such actions whether willingly or unwillingly.

image

The thing is that many bloggers do this unwillingly because they have absolutely no idea what all the fuss is about. As far as they are concerned they found a great site PPP that pays them money to review other sites.

http://seokats.com/2007/11/google-penalizes-pay-per-post-writers/

The following blog talked about this a little while ago and it seems that the writer was correct.

http://www.affiliatewatcher.com/will-google-be-the-death-blow-to-pay-per-post-companies/

http://blog.payperpost.com/

Naturally it is pretty much too late for those who got penalized already. They can choose to remove themselves from PPP, or else don’t worry about this and carry the consequences.

Google has every right to do whatever they want and you will find out why, once you read the following article.

An interesting point was made by Grizzly to day on his blog and I advise all the Google bashers to read this. It will make for an interesting read and might even result in an engaging discussion.

In the end it is my understanding that even though some bloggers choose not to care about Google, we still need them to make money on the Internet.

Your beliefs might differ totally and that’s fine. If you are an existing PPP blogger you will need to decide whether this affects you or not.

Monika

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October 28, 2007 By

Golden Tips To Get Better Google Pagerank

Google’s recent Pagerank update which is still going on has been a maniac for the whole blogosphere. Every blogger tried his best to get a better pagerank but ended up with nothing or a downfall in his previous rank.

Before I start, let us first confirm what exactly Google Pagerank is and how it works.

Google Pagerank is nothing but a complex mathematical algorithm which ranks websites and webpages according to there relevants. Things on which this algorithm works:

  • Inbound links
  • Outbound Links
  • Site Quality
  • Search Engine Ranking
  • Reputation over the web

So to increase your Pagerank, you need to work on these things but HOW? Here goes my tips to preserve your pagerank and try to get a better one too. :)

Links

Links are the base concept of the Google Pagerank algorithm. The number of incoming links to your blog and the number of outgoing links from your blog is a big pagerank factor. The more no. of incoming links you have and the less no. of outgoing links you have determine the best pagerank for you.

How To Get More Incoming Links?

This is a tough topic. If you want more incoming links and authority links, you need to follow some steps:

  1. Write content worth linking to
  2. Comment on Other Blogs to establish a better relation which then leads to link sharing
  3. Never ask for link exchanges directly
  4. Add your blog URL in your other websites and webpages
  5. Add you blog URL to your social networking site profile pages

How To Decrease Outgoing Links?

If you want to link to some product your are reviewing, it is very important to mind that you are not overlinking to the site of the product. To take care of it, here are some easy tips:

  1. Include links at the end of post with the an anchor text
  2. use URL covering
  3. Add ‘nofollow’ attribute to the links

Another thing you should be more careful about is DO NOT SELL LINKS. This is very important if you want to please the Google God.

Site Overview

This point has been always forbidden and not taken care of but it is very important and matters a lot. Your website structure is the main thing. Things like javascript errors, wrong HTMLs, errors in CSS etc. can make Google Pagerank spiders hard to crawl through your website and so your indexing is not done properly.

What Can I Do To Make My Blog Perfect For Crawlers?

To make sure that your blog is perfect for spiders and crawlers, validate your blog. Goto W3C Site validator and enter your blog URL there and check.

W3C validator will show you the errors in your blog structure which then you can improve and correct. If you blog is totally valid, your blog is then perfect for spiders and crawlers.

Search Engine Ranking

Pagerank affects your better SERP but it also need a better ranking to get a better pagerank. Your blog posts should get good ranking in there specified category or niche for them to get a rocking pagerank.

How To Get A Better Search Engine Ranking?

  • Use All-In-One SEO plugin
  • Use better and more specific blog post titles
  • Include more niche keywords
  • Write the post smart and in simple language

Follow these steps and you will surely get a better Search Engine Ranking.

Site Reputation

Your blog’s reputation over the web matters in your Pagerank. If you have more no. of links from authority sites then it will bring more reputation for your blog. There is no tip to increase your site’s reputation other than to play safe in the blogosphere. ;)

Other Tips

  • Try to concentrate for more incoming links on your blog homepage
  • Try to nourish the pages which already have a pagerank to maintain them
  • Try to including ‘nofollow’ attribute maximum in your blogrolls or outgoing links.
  • Interlink blog posts whenever you write posts which are related.

Hope these tips will help you get a better pagerank in the next PR update!

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October 27, 2007 By

It is Official Google Has Updated Page Rank

Google PR Updated! We can all put our speculative minds to rest, as of today Google has updated Page Rank. My blog went from a 0 – 3 and my brand new JV blog who is barely 1 month old went straight to a 2.

I bet this update will make many bloggers very happy indeed, as a lot of newer blogs are particularly favored compared to the older ones.

Don’t ask me why, as nobody except Google can answer this question and they won’t either. But not all bigger blogs have suffered. Some actually went up and increased their rankings. So finally after many month of guessing and at some stage heavy discussions we can now relax and get back to blogging, etc. with a leveled out playing field. In my eyes this is great as it makes for a more interesting playing field. Don’t you agree?

Getting a Page Rank is simply a great bonus for me personally, but it won’t stop me from doing what I do anyhow, trying to write good and related content. Meanwhile I will put my head down to think up some creative ideas on non PR related promotions.

Anyway, I congratulate those that managed to grab some PR and for all the others I’d say it is “business as usual”.

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October 21, 2007 By

Make Your WordPress Blog Compatible With Google Gears

Google recently launched its new product called Google Gears. Google Gears makes it easy to browse the Internet, or sites you have already visited so you can visit them again using an amazing cache technology. Google Gears has been started for the use of many people worldwide to read blog posts offline or take a quick look at their favorite blogs when in a flight.

But not every blog gets successfully cached by Google Gears. Now Mike have came up with a new WordPress plugin called WP-Offline which helps to make your blog easily and successfully compatible with Google Gears.

WP-Offline is based on Google Gears’ APIs which help it to download the whole WordPress blog using Google Gears’ cache technology and this makes it very easy to browse and read the blog offline.

PROs:

  • As the number of Google Gears users are increasing, this will add a new feature to your blog
  • It doesn’t do any affect the WordPress blog’s speed or loading time
  • Very simple to use, but some code editing is needed
  • Will make your blog a Google friendly blog :P

CONs:

  • It is not very compatible with the Internet Explorer browser
  • The Admin Panel Control of the plugin is not proper
  • The javascript of the plugin (which makes a download progress bar) does not work properly with all WordPress blog themes
  • The progress bar is also not very accurate

WP-Offline might have many bugs, but none of them affect the performance of your WordPress blog.

Get WP-Offline

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October 10, 2006 By

Google Buys YouTube For $1.65 Billion

It was only a matter of time before someone did, although I though Yahoo would do it. I’ve been so busy that I missed out on this news until I read it on Steven’s blog.

From Yahoo news:

The price makes YouTube Inc., a still-unprofitable startup, by far the most expensive purchase made by Google during its eight-year history. Last year, Google spent $130.5 million buying a total of 15 small companies.

Which leaves Yahoo playing catch-up:

Google’s YouTube coup may intensify the pressure on Yahoo to make its own splash by buying Facebook.com, the Internet’s second most popular social-networking site. Yahoo has reportedly offered as much as $1 billion for Palo Alto-based Facebook during months of sporadic talks.

“Yahoo really needs to step up and do something,” said Roger Aguinaldo, an investment banker who also publishes a dealmaking newsletter called the M&A Advisor. “They are becoming less relevant and looking less innovative with each passing day.”

Read full news here.

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