Confused About Google's Index, Link Dampening, & No. of Links?

by: Glenn Murray

I recently received another 'please help' email from a gentleman named Ian who runs an adventure company in Tanzania (http://www.betheladventure.co.uk ). Ian was concerned about the effect of a variety of issues including indexing and link dampening, and was desperate for help. Unfortunately, he had read some fairly misleading articles in the past, so he had a somewhat mixed up understanding of the factors at play. Because I suspect he's not alone in his concern and confusion, I decided to publish the details of our discussion.

Ian's email consisted of several questions. I've listed each separately below, followed by my response.

Q: When I search for the number of backlinks to my site using "link:www.betheladventure.co.uk", I see only 23 results. It appears that only 23 of our backlinks have survived Google's dampening link filter. Is there a time delay before they are credited to a site? "

A: Firstly, I think you may have the dampening link filter a little confused. According to the dampening link filter theory, your links are found and recognized by Google, you just don't get the full benefit from them until a given period of time has elapsed. The dampening link filter (if it exists) doesn't stop links from appearing in Google's results when you search for them. (The only reason your backlinks might not appear in a Google search is if Google hasn't yet indexed the pages containing the links.) Also, don't worry too much about things like the dampening link filter. For a start, it's far from established / accepted fact. Many well regarded SEO experts don't believe in it at all. Furthermore, even if it does exist, it only affects those businesses with the budget to generate the huge numbers (hundreds or thousands probably) of links reputedly required to trigger it. If your number of backlinks suddenly increases by 20, that's no problem.

And secondly, don't believe everything Google tells you. By searching for "link:www.betheladventure.co.uk", you generally only see a small percentage of actual links to your site. The best way to search for links is to search for just the URL "www.bethaladventure.co.uk" , then on the page that displays next, select "Find web pages that contain the term "www.bethaladventure.co.uk" ". When you do it this way, you'll see all the pages that contain your URL. In most cases, the URL will be an active link (or at least it should be, and you should ask them to make it so). When you do this search, you'll see that your site has about 169 links, not 23.

Q: Another question is about indexed pages (using site:www.betheladventure.co.uk). I understand this is a record of pages that have been changed. I had 32, it went down to 28 and now this morning it is down to 26. Do they only keep the pages for a month or is there more to the indexed pages than I realized?

A: The number of indexed pages is simply the number of pages on your website that Google 'knows about'. Theoretically, the only time the age of a page comes into play is when the page is too young*, i.e. Google spiders haven't visited it yet, or Google hasn't updated its index. As to why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing, I suspect it's just a temporary shift. The number of results in Google's searches varies pretty much constantly.

*Actually, technically speaking, it has been suggested that Google is not capable of indexing all 11.5 billion pages currently believed to be online (and the 10 million more that are added every day), and that as it indexes new pages, old pages are pushed out of the index. (This is a very rough description of the theory - if it's happening at all, it's likely to be far more complicated than this.) If this is happening, it may explain why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing. Although I think it's a long shot, a good way to deal with it is to maintain high quality content, to keep increasing it, to keep generating backlinks, and to generate a Google sitemap. To find out more about sitemaps, go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login . To download a free - and very useful - tool for generating a sitemap, go to http://johannesmueller.com/gs/ .


I know there's a lot of confusion surrounding these issues, so I hope you've found this exchange helpful.

Happy indexing

Google Page Rank Is Dead -

by: Martin Lemieux

By: Martin Lemieux

HELP! My PR page rank is grey, call the development doctor. As the world of Google is turning a mile a minute these days, some really big changes are happening. This weekend, marketers all around the world don't believe what they are seeing... Google's Page Ranking system is dead.

Is it really dead?

In an online forum post from WebProWorld.com (A discussion on Google), people from all over are speculating about what is going on. In fact, one member was quick to point out that the last big shift Google had, we saw the PR system go down as well. This begs the question...

Are we on the verge of a BIG PR shift? or,
Are we seeing a Google marketing scheme just to shake people up?

In many ways, Google needs to be improved upon their "broken down PR system". There are so many areas if they payed attention to forums and blogs all around the world, they would have more than enough feedback about their PR system to fix this growing PR issue.

Page ranking is a potentially a great system. It CAN be a great system if it directly ranks websites properly by content, relevance, and not simply by the number of links pointing to an individual website.

These days, you see a website with 15 "medium relevant" links pointing to it while its front page holds a PR of 7-8 out of 10. How do you justify that?

What will it mean if Google's PR systems stays down?

I believe it will mean a big shift to online marketing. Many newbies out there that are barely legal when it comes to SEO have an opportunity to measure everything they do. In turn, the newbies may even sound professional to their clients. Take away these tools and you are left with true marketing gurus that have stood the test of time and can deliver results for themselves and their clients.

The internet is vastly growing into a pool of professional fakes and scammers. This is really giving the internet marketing community a bad name. Without the Google PR, many people won't be able to prove their results nor will they have that "fake respect" that you get from having a website with PR 7/10.

What about MSN & Yahoo?

In growing efforts to keep up with MSN & Yahoo's strong and growing marketing campaign, Google may be feeling left out these days. Many people think that their PR system is simply a gimmick; a gimmick that attracts a lot of attention. By disabeling this system, you create mass fear and confusion. Bad publicity is still publicity neverless?

So, is Google trying to create a buzz?

This could be possible and it could be possible that everything will be back to normal within a couple of days. We won't know until time catches up with us.

Until then, take this "dark saga" moment and find other ways to build your business online. Don't worry about what Google is doing, worry about what you are doing to improve your internet marketing campaign.

Buy Traffic – Successfully Buy from Traffic Brokers.

by: Charles Nevery

Buy traffic - There is one fast way to deliver traffic by the thousands to your website within 24 hours. Buy traffic from traffic brokers. Most traffic brokers show your website as a full page pop-under without the internet explorer bar on selected type of geo targeting and category. Today the standard website traffic categories are –


Untargeted – Untargeted traffic is usually a source of the fastest traffic and it has no Geo targeting or category. Untargeted traffic is good for sites that are not a specific niche. Such traffic is good for joke websites or dating websites.


Targeted traffic – Targeted traffic is not Geo targeted but it usually consist of a wide range of categories witch can be found here for example -
http://www.prosubmit-traffic.com/programs.html

USA Targeted – US targeted traffic is from servers that host websites in the US and target a broad range of targeted audience. S o if your website is in English and is once again like a joke website or retail website than this would be a good choice.


USA Category Targeted – US category targeted traffic in my opinion is by far the best. You can target the US geography and pick your website to show as a full page pop-under on a category specific range of websites. A wide range of categories witch can be found here for example -

Are You Getting Nuked By Google Lately?

Are You Getting Nuked By Google Lately?

by: Martin Lemieux

By: Martin Lemieux

Since the last Google update, there have been many instances and examples of the Google Nuke Bot! This is what I call it anyway. Have you visited a favorite website lately only to realize they've been nuked by Google?

More and more we are seeing internet marketing / SEO companies getting nuked, by Google completely removing them from their data banks. I am not going to mention any names because I'm sure the owners of the once populated websites already know and are embarrassed from this development.

Since the word went out on WebPositionGold getting banned from Google for automatic queries sent to Google, we are noticing other related websites going down for the count as well.

For the info on WebPositionGold, go here:
http://www.socialpatterns.com/search-engine-marketing/webposition-banned/

The things is, we already know about Webpositiongold, what about other sites that are getting hit hard? Has your site been nuked?

It seems as though, some sites that had thousands of links pointing from Google are getting hit the hardest. It seems like Google is cracking down on "spam tactics", "submission tactics", and anything related to unethical SEO practices.

Is Google Making An Effort To Uphold Their Webmaster Guidelines?

Will it come to a point where if we don't uphold the Google guidelines, we cannot be successful online? This thought is ridiculous but almost scary to think it could happen! What about website's that still hide text through same background colours? Hidden div layers? and mirror pages? Why hasn't Google attacked those issues first?

You can almost make the assumption that by Google nuking websites that send automatic ranking & link popularity queries to their data base, this may be a huge effort to relieve the strain on the query servers in order to free up some memory.

How Does Getting Your Website Nuked From Google Affect Your Credibility?

An event like this could ultimately ruin your reputation online. People who have come to trust your knowledge and judgment on Google rankings may never look at your company the same ever again. People might think to themselves "I don't want to get nuked like they did!".

How Can You Tell You've Been Nuked?

* Your Google Page Rank is now 0-2/10 and should be at least 5/10
* You have zero backlinks listing in Google anymore
* You have zero internal website listings within Google by doing (site:www.yoursite.com)
* Google's cache of your website is no longer to be found

For newer websites, don't be confused between this nuking process and your own evolution online. Getting and maintaining a high PR level takes a lot of work.

Once Nuked, Does Google Still Come Back?

The question I have for websites that have been nuked: Can you still see Google in your stat log files for your site? If so, I wonder if Google is still keeping an eye on you and watching your every move?

In Conclusion:

Stay away from programs that generate automatic queries into Google. Don't check your link popularity 3 times a week and especially don't check your search engine rankings twice a day. Just simply promote your website and measure your success through your internal website stats and monthly profits. Google doesn't appreciate websites that consistently draw their power in order to measure their success, just simply take that out of your daily actions.

Cheers to your online success!

Automatic Website Submissions Beware

by: daniel chow

Submitting your website to search engines is the first and the most basic step a webmaster takes to get the word out about his/her new website. There was a time when this was a very long and tedious process, where one had to go through many different search engines, and submit their websites manually, but now there are many services, which promise that they will automatically submit your website, for a low cost, thereby saving you a lot of time and hassle. So are their claims genuine? Should you go with them? Or is it better to do this boring and tedious job manually? This article aims to answer these questions.

¡§We will submit your website to 10,000 search engines for only $30¡¨, ¡§Get listed in 1000 search engines for only $15¡¨, these are the sort of claims you would have probably read on many websites, offering search engine submission services. It is strictly advised against using such services, due to many reasons, discussed below.

Firstly, there are at the most 10 major search engines, which send 95% of the traffic to all websites, and the other 5% are usually free for all (FFA) search engines, which just take in submissions, and may rank your site at the top for a short period, and will lower your position as soon as a new load of submissions come in. Even if they do send you little traffic it is likely to be untargeted. It is also to be noted that most FFA search engines are topic specific. Another danger with these types of search engines is that your email address is most likely to be sold to third parties and ultimately your inbox filled with spam, and when you are going for a 1000 submissions, there is no way to find out which search engine actually sold your email address.

There are some other services which actually claim to submit your website free to these search engines, now as the saying goes ¡§there is no free lunch¡¨, they purely work with the sole intention of obtaining your email addresses for spam purposes.

Another claim made by some search engine submission services is ¡§we can get you high rankings in major search engines¡¨. This is totally untrue, and impossible. Search engine submission by these services is done by using automatic software, which opens up the site submission page, fills up the form with the help of information provided and submits it. This process has nothing to do with optimizing your website for better rankings. Some of these services also claim that they can get your entire site indexed in only a day. Once again, this is not possible as most search engines have limits on the number of pages that can be submitted to them, in a day. For e.g. with Google you can submit a maximum of five pages per day

Driving your website through Google Sandbox

by: Monia Hassan

What is Google Sandbox?

Google Sandbox is applied on new websites, it determines the timing of site inclusion as well as ranking in Google search engine results (SERPS).
This process could take up to 6-8 months, which could be against your plans causing frustration to webmasters.

The question is what is to be done during the time in which websites are in Google Sandbox?

Do not waste time on checking your website listings in results page instead emphasize on SEO methods to accelerate your listings & improve status of ranking results.
Also make efforts to appear on other major search engines such as MSN & Yahoo since they do not have sandbox like Google, this will help drive traffic to your website while waiting for Googlebot to index your pages.

Link building strategy is another important issue not only will it improve ranking but also it will help Googlebot spider to find your pages easier while it’s in the sandbox instead of repeatedly submitting your website every time.

Content is king

Main part for ongoing development of your website is to add new content on continuous basis since the most thing search engines are after is good quality websites with relevant content.

Conclusion at the end is that waiting for Google Sandbox is nothing but a waste of your precious time; instead do some useful efforts on developing your website with relevant content & adding inbound links as a part of your linking strategy to make Google happy with what it sees as well as your target visitor.

Get a top 10 ranking without paying a cent

Get a top 10 ranking without paying a cent

by: Glenn Murray

If there's one thing that Google loves, it's content. Done right, a content rich website is almost guaranteed to rank highly. But how to get that content? You can write it yourself, but that takes a lot of time. You can pay an SEO copywriter to write it for you, but that takes a lot of money. If only there was another option...

What if you could get your content for free? And not just a little bit of content; a lot! What if you could get an almost unlimited supply of keyword rich, expertly written content, specific to your subject matter, absolutely free of charge? Would you snap it up and upload to your site in an instant? Of course you would! Well here's the good news: you can! Read on to find out how you can get a top ten ranking in the search engines without paying a single cent...

Yes, content gives you a great ranking

Content is king. This is widely acknowledged as fact, but if you need further convincing, consider the following two points:

Point 1 - In Google's own words, one of the keys to a high ranking is to "create a useful, information-rich site" (from “Google Information for Webmasters” - http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html).

Point 2 - Google insider, codenamed 'Google Guy', advocates a list 26 steps to building a high ranking site. Step 5 of the list says, "build one page of content and put online per day at 200-500 words" (from Brett Tabke's "26 steps to 15k a Day" - http://www.searchengineworld.com/misc/guide.htm, advocated by Google Guy in a WebMasterWorld QA session - http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/29727-6-10.htm).

But why does content give you a great ranking?

I won't go into any further detail about IF Google loves content. I will, however, briefly explain WHY. Google's love affair with content is based on two key attractions:

1) Google loves sites with a lot of content because it assumes they provide a lot of useful information. And remember, that's the whole reason Google exists - to help people find useful information. The more helpful Google's results, the more traffic (and revenue) it gets.

2) Google loves sites that have a lot of links pointing to them because this means other webmasters hold your site in high regard, and Google assumes this means the content is useful. And naturally, if you create a useful site, other webmasters will link to it because this makes them useful to their visitors (thereby developing site loyalty), and they gain credibility and authority because they're associated with you.

So how can you get free content for your website?

Three words: 'free reprint articles'. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there writing high quality, helpful, informative articles on virtually every topic imaginable, then giving these article away to any webmaster who wants to publish them on a website. In exchange for the article, the author asks only that you retain the author bio at the end, complete with all links (e.g. "Glenn Murray is an SEO Copywriter and Article Submission Specialist...).

To find free content for your website, simply visit any one of hundreds of 'article banks' on the Internet such as http://www.ezinearticles.com, http://www.goarticles.com, or http://www.articleblast.com. Browse or search for the subject you're interested in, then take the article(s) for free. There is absolutely no charge. Some of these sites will even send a regular stream of articles direct to your website (using RSS).

Alternatively, you can sign up to any number of article distribution lists and get articles delivered direct to your email inbox. Again, it's absolutely free! Some of the better known distribution lists include http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce, http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Content, and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Reprint-Articles.

TIP: The article banks and distribution lists mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds more - just do a search for "free reprint articles", "article submission", "article submission site", "submit article", "article submit site", "free articles", or "free content". You may even find a site or list which only deals in articles relating to your particular subject matter.

Why is it free?

Why are these authors giving their articles away? Because it helps the author's own search engine ranking. It's a promotional activity known as 'article PR'. As explained above, Google loves sites with lots of links pointing to them. Every time their article submission is published, the author gets another link to their website. In fact, if the article is really good, it may be published hundreds of times. And each time, it's another link to the author's website. Put simply, article submission is a writer's free pass to the top of the search engines. (In this sense, the "PR" in article PR stands for PageRank.)

Furthermore, like traditional public relations, article PR also conveys a sense of authority because your articles are widely published. And because you're proving your expertise and freely dispensing knowledge, your readers will trust you and will be more likely to remain loyal to you. (In this sense, the "PR" in article PR stands for Public Relations.)

How do I know if the quality is good?

It's a process of natural selection. The better the article submission, the more often it will be published, so it's in the author's interest to write and submit articles of the highest quality. Of course, this doesn't always happen, but in most cases, you'll be reviewing the articles before you post them anyway, so if you discover one that's not up to scratch, don't use it.

In time, you'll become familiar with the authors who consistently put out good quality content - you may even find enough of them that you don't need to go looking for content from anyone else...

Where do I put the free content?

Most people put the articles in an 'Articles' or 'Resources' section on their website, but you can put them anywhere you like.

How much free content should I use?

As much as you want or as little as you want. It all depends on your needs and the needs of your audience. If your audience expects that at least some of your site is original content, then give it to them.

But what about the duplicate content issue?

It's not an issue!

There's a lot of a talk about how Google penalizes duplicate content. The theory is that when the majority of the content on two separate webpages (on different sites) is the same, the one with the higher PR will be shown and the other one will not.

Whether or not this theory is true is still a hot topic in search engine circles, but regardless, it doesn't affect people publishing free-reprint articles. When you publish the article, just make sure you have unique content around it. Generally, it's enough to have your own unique introduction to the page (which may be common to all pages), and your own navigation elements, headers, footers, sidebars, logos, images, etc.

Conclusion

Free reprint articles are a great way for you to achieve a high ranking. And you don't have to pay a cent! So what are you waiting for?

Happy reprinting