How To React To Google's Over-Optimization Filter

In the News: Google announces another Panda update, paid blog networks don't work anymore, you might have to hide your location on Google Places, how Bing removes junk from the result pages and more.

Last week, Matt Cutts, head of Google's anti-spam team, announced that Google is working on a penalty for over-optimized websites. What does this announcement mean to your website and how should you react to this announcement?

Here's what Matt Cutts said in detail:

"We don’t normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks. We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over-optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make Google Bot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now."

Does this mean that you shouldn't optimize your web pages anymore?

This announcement is aimed at people who are trying to push the limits too far. Of course, it is perfectly okay to add your keywords on your web page and it is also perfectly okay to exchange links with other websites.

Actually, all of these methods can have a very positive influence on the Google rankings of your website. The problem starts when these elements are overused. This usually happens when you use fully automated tools and services to promote your website.

For example, it is likely that the following SEO methods will get your website in trouble:

• automated link exchange networks that add your link to hundreds on other websites
• tools that automatically create fake forum accounts and comments with a link to your site
• tools that automatically create keyword rich web pages for you on your website
• participating in paid link schemes

Fully automated solutions always mean spam when it comes to SEO

Google wants to show high quality web pages in the search results. Web pages that have been created automatically cannot have the same quality as a web page that has been created by a human editor. Fully automated solutions lead to low quality links and content that is not helpful to the average web surfers. Businesses that "optimized" their websites with these methods are the ones who will be hit by the new ranking filter. If you see the words "fully automated" and "hundreds" or "thousands" in one sentence that you can be sure that the advertised product or service is spamming and your website will get in trouble if you promote it with these methods.

Don't panic and create a symbiotic relationship with search engines

If you haven't used the spam methods described above to promote your website, then your Google rankings won't be in trouble. Optimizing your web pages remains very important because you have to show Google and other search engines that your website is relevant to a particular keyword and that your website has a high quality.

Secure your Google rankings by using white-hat SEO tools

Optimizing your web pages is important but you have to make sure that you play by the rules. If you do it correctly, search engine optimization leads to lasting high rankings, more customers and more sales. If you're pushing the limits too far, your website will get in trouble sooner or later. If you want to get lasting results, only use white-hat SEO methods.

How To Judge The Quality Of A Backlinks

You want lasting results when you build links to your website. It does not make sense to invest your time in search engine optimization methods that are just a flash-in-the-pan.

Note: PageRank is not so important 

How do you judge the quality of a website? What is a good website and from which web pages should you get links?

1. The PageRank of a website is not that important

Many webmasters only want to get backlinks from pages with a particular PageRank. While you can use this method, it is usually a waste of time and it makes link building more difficult than it really is. 

If a website has an overall high quality then it does not matter if the page with the link to your website has a low Google PageRank:

• If a high quality website adds a new page, the new page will have an initial PageRank of zero. Nevertheless, the page can still be very good.

• A page that has a PageRank of zero today can have a high PageRank tomorrow.

If only pages with a high PageRank had a chance, it wouldn't be possible to get new pages in Google’s result page. Experience shows that new pages appear in Google’s results every day.

In addition, the PageRank that Google publicly displays is not the actual PageRank that Google uses in its algorithm and the PageRank value can be manipulated.

2. Common sense leads to lasting results

You do not need special metrics to judge the quality of a web page. When you find a web page that could link to your site, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does the linking page look good to the average web surfer?
• Does the page have interesting content?
• Is the content somewhat related to my website?
• Does it make sense if the web page links to your site?

If you can answer all questions with “yes” then you should try to get a backlink from that page. It doesn’t matter if that page has a low PageRank.

3. Give Google what they want and your website will succeed

Google tries to imitate common sense with its algorithm. If you use common sense to build your links and follow the tips above, you make sure that the backlinks to your website will count in all future updates of Google’s algorithm.

How To Get Likes On Facebook

In February 2012 Facebook had more then 845 million active users. The users have to register before using Facebook, and then create a personal profile, add other users as friends, exchange messages, and including automatic notification when they update their profile. 845 million active users … amazing right. 

The worlds population today is 7 billion people. So over 10 percent of the people in the world are active Facebook users… wow. And this is why you have to be on Facebook. Also if you have a company. But to be successful on Facebook you have to get some likes. So people can read about you or your company.

Are you ready for this list about how you can get likes for your Facebook? 

1 Post a Status Update

Post an update where you are mentioning your Facebook page. Post the update on other social sites, websites, blogs. Tell people to join you on Facebook.

2 Get fans to upload and tag photos

Make or attend an event where some of your fans also attends. Get the people to upload their pictures to your Facebook page, and/or tag the pictures. Then it will show up on their walls, and will lead to more traffic from your fans friends. 

3 Offer an incentive for people to sign up

Make a dynamic Facebook landing page using a reveal tab. This way it will only show for fans of your page. Its important that the incentive is valuable to your fans. This could be a whitepaper/PDF, a gift, discount to your shop.

4 Use Interactive YouTube Annotations to Drive Likes

You can use linkedtube.com to add link overlays to your YouTube videos. So you can link out to external sites like your Facebook Page.

5 Facebook groups

Join groups related to your subject and make sure you can post update in the group. Pages send updates, but groups send messages directly to a users Facebook inbox, triggering an email alert. 

6 Join your page via SMS

You can send a text messages to 32665 (Facebook) saying ”fan yourusername” or ”like your username” (without the quotes). 

7 Encourage Likes in Your Employee’s E-mail Signatures

How many emails do you and your employees sending out every day? This is an easy and quick way to send out links to your Facebook page. Try to go to your send box in your email account. How many emails did you send out last year?

8 Install a ”Like Box” into your website

If you install a like box on your website – your visitors can become fans without leaving your website. 

9 Suggest your page to friends

Remember to use ”suggest to friends” feature of your Facebook page. If can be a little annoying t- so don’t use it to much. 

10 Install a like page button on your website

With a like button people can post your website page on their activity stream. This will make you visible to the friends of the visitors that have visit your site. 

11 Connect your page to Twitter

Post to your Twitter followers about your Facebook page, so you can convert your twitter followers into Facebook fans.

You can connect your Facebook status to your twitter account. So every time you make a twitter update, it will send the update to all your Twitter fans too. Remember to have a link back to your Facebook page.

12 QR codes

Use QR codes in the real world. Put QR codes with your products and make the people like it. When you making an old fasion ad – show a QR code directly to your Facebook page – so it will be easy to like it. 

Remember to like my facebook page here… http://www.facebook.com/broadcast2world

Home remedies to treat stomach ache

Here are simple home remedies to treat stomach ache

• Add honey in your lemon tea and have it twice a day.

• Take one teaspoon of lemon juice and mint juice, add a few drops of ginger juice and black salt. Drinking this mixture will cure stomach pain.

• Extract some juice after grating a few pieces of ginger. Massaging this juice on your tummy will give you relief from stomach ache.

• Drink water. It will cleanse the body of toxins and guarantee better bowel movements.

• Processed foods like chocolates and dairy products will only aggravate your problems. Opt for healthier options like leafy vegetables or fruits.

• If you regularly suffer from stomach ache, trying going for a daily walk. It will make your digestive system healthier.

• Mix one teaspoon of ajwain, some lemon juice and a pinch of black salt in warm water and drink it.

Google Confirms Panda 3.3 Update, Plus Changes To How It Evaluates Links, Local Search Rankings & Much More

Google has confirmed a new Panda update at the same time that it’s announcing 40 search updates that happened in February (or are in progress right now).

It would be all but impossible to fully sum up the full slate of changes here, but there are a few that seem especially noteworthy and will no doubt produce a lot of speculation among search marketers. Here’s a look at the ones that stand out to me:

Panda 3.3 Update

Here’s what Google says about its latest Panda-related change:

Panda update. This launch refreshes data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.

This sounds very similar to Panda 3.2, which happened in mid-January and was described only as a “data refresh” and not related to new or changed ranking signals.

Panda was launched a year ago — don’t miss the full background in our recent story,Infographic: The Google Panda Update, One Year Later.

Postscript, Feb. 28th: Google tells us that the Panda data update took place yesterday, February 27th. The company declined to share any additional information about the “link evaluation” item below.

Evaluating Links

Google says it’s getting rid of a link evaluation signal that it’s been using for years. This one’s sure to prompt discussion:

Link evaluation. We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years. We often rearchitect or turn off parts of our scoring in order to keep our system maintainable, clean and understandable.

We’ve reached out to Google in the past, asking for further clarification on the items in these monthly roundups. The company has indicated that the blog post says everything Google wants to say. That, along with Google’s understandable (and necessary) reluctance to give away too many details about ranking signals, leads me to assume we won’t be getting anything more than the above about this.

A link evaluation signal that’s been used for years is now turned off? The SEO mind races….

Local Search Rankings

Here’s another one, along with the link evaluation signal, that I’m actually surprised Google would so openly reveal. The company says traditional algorithmic ranking factors are now playing a bigger part in triggering local search results:

Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch codename “Venice”] This improvement improves the triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the ranking of our main search results as a signal.

Traditional SEO has played a bigger part in Google’s local search since the launch of Places Search in late 2010. And now it sounds like that dial is being turned up a little higher, too.

Google’s post also says local results are being improved because of a “new system to find results from a user’s city more reliably. Now we’re better able to detect when both queries and documents are local to the user.”

Infographic: The Google Panda Update, One Year Later

One year ago, Google launched its “Panda Update” designed to filter low quality or “thin” content from its top search results.

Below, our infographic produced in conjunction with BlueGlass covers how Panda works, what it impacted and the various updates from Panda 1.0 through Panda 3.2 that have happened along the way.

After the infographic, you’ll also find more information about the Panda Update ranging from in-depth analysis of how it works, “winners and losers” and well as recovery tips.