Posted on Nov 3, 2008
Google Trends is a very useful tool for evaluating how a keyword is currently performing with regards to it’s previous number of searches. It can be used to verify that a specific keyword searches are remaining constant, growing, or falling. If you then relate this information to your websites performance with regards to this keyword, you can correlate whether your website is increasing, decreasing, or stable in its ranking. Simply have an increasing number of visitors directed to your website from a certain keyword does not mean you are ranking better for that keyword. If the Google trend for that keyword is greater than your keyword trend, that means you are in fact losing ranking and performing worse. For example, if you have a keyword that is generating an average of 100 visits per day in the month of October and in the month of November you get an average of a 200 visits per day, if the Google Trends graph shows an increase from 1.00 (no change) to 1.50 (50% increase), then your website has effectively gained ranking for this keyword during this time period. This is just one method of using Google Trends as a webmaster; there are many alternative uses that is has.
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Posted on Feb 2, 2008
If Microsoft’s purchase of Yahoo does go through, which seems to be a likely possibility at the time being, how will the search engine industry change? I believe that the MSN and Yahoo’s combination will have a greater chance to steal market share from Google. A sharing of technology after the potential merger could mean better algorithms, which would result in overall better results to compete with Google. However, at the heart of this issue lies Google’s strong hold on the search engine market. Google’s name is known everywhere and their reputation is well respected. I feel that Google’s search engine simply produces better results in the majority of situation due to better algorithms, which simply out power their competition: Yahoo, MSN, etc. If the Microsoft’s merger with Yahoo does happen, will these two David’s be able to encroach further into the search engine industry that Goliath Google has under control? The merger opens the possibility for growth, but in the end I think that Google will still dominate the search engine industry unless they really drop the ball many, many times.
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Posted on Jan 30, 2008
If you searched the term dangerous cult on Google, the first result that you will see is a Scientology website.
The question is: Can this really be categorized as Google Bombing, getting a large amount of websites to link to a specific website with certain keywords, so that the linked website appears ranked first when the keyword or keywords are searched? The website does in fact have the word dangerous on it; however, the word cult only appears in links pointing at this website. This situation is remarkable similar to the Google Bombing of George Bush with the keywords failure or miserable failure. Ultimately, we can say that this Scientology website was Google Bombed. Although, recall that Google eventually did alter their algorithm to end this Google Bombing for George Bush – likely the end effect was pages including the keywords ranked higher than pages only linked without the keywords contained. So, how long with this Scientology Google Bombing last for?
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Posted on Jan 21, 2008
Google has cracked down on link selling; this means that websites that do so, will have a lower PageRank and rankings within the Google search engine. Buying paid links is improper seo in the eyes of Google as these links can manipulate search engine rankings. For instance, Stanford Daily originally had a PageRank of 9; however, after Google’s recent update against paid link sellers, their PageRank dropped down 2 to a PageRank of 7 as of early October 2007. Currently, the Stanford Daily has a PageRank of 5; this drop in PageRank can be attributed to link selling. Over the period of 3-4 months, Stanford Daily has taken a large drop when it comes down to PageRank and rankings with Google.
At the time, Google has not automated the process of checking for paid links within a website, so this means that each site which is suspected of selling paid links, must be reviewed by a human. Also, this also means that a small (most likely none at all) amount of websites will be added to the list of paid link sellers, since this process is not automated. Additionally, Google will review a website upon request, so honest webmasters have nothing to worry about. It looks like Google really is trying to ensure that their search engine is truly optimized by penalizing websites with paid links.
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Posted on Jan 16, 2008
Google’s Pagerank system, also abbreviated as PR, is complex algorithm that ranks websites and webpages on a 0 to 10 logarithmic scale according to the number of incoming links to that particular page. A link from one webpage to another is in essence a vote for the linked site, however the importance of the webpage with the link scale this vote. This means that a page of greater importance, has a vote that counts more than a page of less importance. Using this and other factors, such as page content, a page’s importance is determined. A page could have 10,000 links pointing to it, yet still have a low Pagerank because the linking webpages have a low importance. Also, a page may only have 10 links directed to it, yet have a relatively high Pagerank because the linking webpages have a high level of importance. Factors influencing a websites Pagerank also include the visibility of a link, placement of the link within the webpage, outbound links from the webpage, and how up to date the linking page is. A useful site to find a website’s Pagerank, as well as, predict its future Pagerank can be found at iwebtool.com. Google combines both Pagerank and a pages content to ensure that searches provide relevant results.
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Posted on Jan 15, 2008
Recently, I have seen numerous website hosts offering packages that include credit to advertising sites, such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. For instance, Godaddy offers $20 to Google Adwords and $25 to Microsoft Adcenter if you purchase their Economy Plan.
Note that the 12 month Economy Plan only costs $43.08 ($3.59 per month), and you will receive $45 in credit for these advertising sites as part of the plan.
Sounds too good to be true right? Well there are certain conditions for each of these credits. For Google Adwords, you must apply for an account within 15 days, be a new Google Adword customer, only use the credits on the domain hosted, and pay a $5 activation fee. For Microsoft Adcenter, you must apply for an account within 90 days, be a new Microsoft Adcenter customer, limited to one per customer, only valid for USA residents, and pay a $5 activation fee. Even with these certain conditions, it is still quite a reasonable deal granted you are able to use the credit.
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