professional wordpress themes

iGoogle Porn: Still An Issue?

On January 19, 2010, In SEO, by rustybrick

Back in May 2009, we first reported of issues with pornography on iGoogle. Ever since then, there have been issues that popped up here and there. That is the overall issue with having user generated content (i.e. user generated gadgets).

The latest batch is in the form of “live cams” and the issue was submitted to Google Web Search Help forums recently, in an older thread. This batch comes up for a search on to do list in the iGoogle Directory. They were also submitted by the same user, Mandy. Here are some safe pictures:

iGoogle Gadget Porn

iGoogle Gadget Porn

iGoogle Gadget Porn

There are several more and they all seem to be in the form of cams. I have a good blocking system here for this type of stuff, so the videos won’t render on my computer. Here is a safe picture, what I find funny is that it is being monetized by Google ads.

In any event, Google was notified about this issue. Paul from Google said:

Thanks for letting us know — we’re investigating this now. I really appreciate your taking the time to bring these to our attention.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.


Back in May 2009, we first reported of issues with pornography on iGoogle. Ever since then, there have been issues that popped up here and there. That is the overall issue with having user generated content (i.e. user generated gadgets).

The latest batch is in the form of “live cams” and the issue was submitted to Google Web Search Help forums recently, in an older thread. This batch comes up for a search on to do list in the iGoogle Directory. They were also submitted by the same user, Mandy. Here are some safe pictures:

iGoogle Gadget Porn

iGoogle Gadget Porn

iGoogle Gadget Porn

There are several more and they all seem to be in the form of cams. I have a good blocking system here for this type of stuff, so the videos won’t render on my computer. Here is a safe picture, what I find funny is that it is being monetized by Google ads.

In any event, Google was notified about this issue. Paul from Google said:

Thanks for letting us know — we’re investigating this now. I really appreciate your taking the time to bring these to our attention.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.



0 Comments
Leave A Response

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
 

Relationship Between Link Growth And Indexation

On November 29, 2009, In SEO, by Ravi

With every passing day, the number of websites and hence the number of web pages are growing at an explosive rate on the internet. This can cause a major headache to the search engines as they gear up to meet the challenge of crawling and subsequently indexing the new sites popping up everywhere in the [...]

Related posts:

  1. Exciting News — Netconcepts Acquired by Covario
  2. Increasing The Scope Of Existing PPC Campaigns Effectively
  3. LinkedIn, But NoFollow Link Love
  4. Relationship Between Link Growth And Indexation
  5. Inbound Deep Links Benefit Page Rank Distribution Sitewide
  6. New Tool to Annualize Google Keyword Data
  7. How To Breathe Life Into A Lacklustre PPC Campaign
  8. Good Practices SEO With A Tinge Of Creativity
  9. SEO Tools: Using Xenu and Excel – Blindfolded SEO Audit Part 2
  10. Blindfolded SEO Audit Part 1

With every passing day, the number of websites and hence the number of web pages are growing at an explosive rate on the internet. This can cause a major headache to the search engines as they gear up to meet the challenge of crawling and subsequently indexing the new sites popping up everywhere in the cybersphere.

Today, when a new web site is launched, it will take a while before its pages get crawled and indexed in Google. With the increasing strain on hardware and resources due to the rapid growth of new sites, Google has become very strict in its policy of admitting sites and retaining web pages of sites in its index. It is a case of survival of the fittest in cyberspace.

Some of the basic facts to be borne in mind when looking at the issue in its entirety are:

  • The Page rank is proportional to the total number of pages in Google’s index
  • The page rank gained by a site depends on the number of inbound and outbound links to that site
  • To increase its page rank, a site must build more pages and increase its virtual real estate

When a new site is launched, the number of backlinks to that site is negligible unless the business is well known and has a credible following offline and is launching its brand online. The average site owner has to set about building an external link profile by submitting to directories, guest blogging on well established industry relevant blogs, providing a platform for user generated content on her site, promoting site badges etc etc.

All this takes time and effort and it is a slow and steady natural growth. There are several link building software programs that promise instant deliverance by helping you build multitude of links in no time. The problem with this approach is that an average human cannot acquire 100 links in a day (read 8 hours of work time). Google also knows this and it is an easy recipe for raising a red flag.

Coming to the crux of the issue, creating and growing the number of pages on your site is relatively easy as you, the site owner, have full control over it. If you are passionate about your industry with good working knowledge, you can build lots of content over a short span of time. But this alone will not make the cut in today’s circumstances for making it into the Google index and being retained and ranked over time.

The most powerful links that can be obtained today are editorial links. When another site owner regards your site content as one of high quality and decides to link to from her blog or site, it is clearly a double thumbs up for your content and Google will also consider it seriously. A great linkbait program can help your site gain lots of natural inbound links from the linkerati.

If you have votes from other sites in the form of backlinks to the various pages of your site, this is crucial in Google retaining those pages in its index. Again, you cannot produce top quality content across all pages of your site as the subject being discussed can be limited in scope or not very popular in the eyes of users.

I have been noticing of late that even powerful domains with several product pages with wafer thin content and footer heavy links do not pass muster to be admitted/retained in the index. It is becoming increasingly clear that each individual page must attain a certain pagerank threshold to be retained in the index. This clearly proves that things cannot be taken for granted. Also, well established sites cannot afford to rest on their laurels any more.

To achieve a minimum pagerank threshold, internal linking can help to an extent and you as the site owner can do your bit to this end. But it is very vital to get a link from external unbiased sources to derive some link juice that can boost the pagerank of the page in question.

If the momentum on “natural” external link building profile of your website is maintained at a steady level from the inception of your website to its current state, you can expect Google to maintain a decent indexation level of your site and update its index regularly with the fresh content and growing number of pages offered by your site.

Rand in his Whiteboard presentation on Link Growth Patterns explains the relationship between link growth patterns and indexation levels.

Eric Enge in his post on The Disproportionate Value of Deep Links talks about improving the pagerank flow to hitherto areas of the site where there was no link juice flowing before.

Ravi Venkatesan is a senior SEO consultant at Netconcepts, an Auckland seo firm offering both search engine optimisation and ppc services to their customers in New Zealand and Australia.

Related posts:

  1. Exciting News — Netconcepts Acquired by Covario
  2. Increasing The Scope Of Existing PPC Campaigns Effectively
  3. LinkedIn, But NoFollow Link Love
  4. Relationship Between Link Growth And Indexation
  5. Inbound Deep Links Benefit Page Rank Distribution Sitewide
  6. New Tool to Annualize Google Keyword Data
  7. How To Breathe Life Into A Lacklustre PPC Campaign
  8. Good Practices SEO With A Tinge Of Creativity
  9. SEO Tools: Using Xenu and Excel – Blindfolded SEO Audit Part 2
  10. Blindfolded SEO Audit Part 1

0 Comments
Leave A Response

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
 

Google Maps Bug Disables Searching My Maps for User Created Content

On November 27, 2009, In SEO, by rustybrick

A Google Maps Help thread has confirmed reports that searching for user generated content via My Maps seems to no longer be returning results.

ehg, a helpful Google Maps forum member helped debug this. He said, all of my maps of MyMaps created until 20 Oct 2009 are still to search. Here a sample map “GRZG” which is still to search [1] when searching “related maps” and “GRZG”. Here searching for a user- created content (“ghghgh5656″) of the same map [2] I created the map 10 Oct 2009. And here a search for the last map I can search & find (created 20 Oct 2009 – the second map is a copy of the first one I created at this date) [3].

Googler, Brian B, said, “I’m looking into this and will give an update here. Thanks for escalating.”

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.


A Google Maps Help thread has confirmed reports that searching for user generated content via My Maps seems to no longer be returning results.

ehg, a helpful Google Maps forum member helped debug this. He said, all of my maps of MyMaps created until 20 Oct 2009 are still to search. Here a sample map “GRZG” which is still to search [1] when searching “related maps” and “GRZG”. Here searching for a user- created content (“ghghgh5656″) of the same map [2] I created the map 10 Oct 2009. And here a search for the last map I can search & find (created 20 Oct 2009 – the second map is a copy of the first one I created at this date) [3].

Googler, Brian B, said, “I’m looking into this and will give an update here. Thanks for escalating.”

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.



0 Comments
Leave A Response

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
 

SEO Tips for Link Building and Directory Submissions

On November 6, 2009, In SEO, by Jeffrey Smith

Today’s SEO tip is about using citation and search modifiers to find creative solutions for link building. Citation (a websites footprint or popularity matrix) is a prominent principle used by search engine algorithms to assess importance.
Hence, authoritative links in to the quantity or percentage of links out a domain has, determines how much link flow [...]

Today’s SEO tip is about using citation and search modifiers to find creative solutions for link building. Citation (a websites footprint or popularity matrix) is a prominent principle used by search engine algorithms to assess importance.

SEO Tips to Find and Qualify Directories

SEO Tips to Find and Qualify Directories

Hence, authoritative links in to the quantity or percentage of links out a domain has, determines how much link flow a domain can produce in tandem with its contained volume of content.

Popular websites with user generated content are always ahead of the supply and demand curve, because they always have something new for search engine spiders to dig into, which keeps them coming back for more in addition that they also receive a healthy flux of inbound links.

Wikipedia is a prime example of a website with a 94% deep link percentage and all user generated content with millions of relevant themed pages and subjects.

Directories of that magnitude may not exist, but you can find smaller more potent themed directories to acquire links to your homepage or more importantly deep links to individual pages with keyword-rich anchor text that pass just as much value.

On the contrary, websites that constantly link out, offer bleak editorial value or are dripping with commerce laden jargon often do not make the grade when it comes to developing an authoritative domain.  When picking potential directories to submit your site, you should focus on quality and relevance rather than bulk submissions.

There are only a handful of directories that have kept a clean link profile as a result of a human review editorial process. In addition to the neighborhood of a website, you can also use off page citation as a measurement of if that directory is worthwhile for submission.

Search engines scan their index for duplicate, so vary your title and descriptions for more impact. Use other websites as a yardstick to assess how authoritative a domain might be.For example, using Alexa ranking as an indicator could signify what type of imprint that domain has. Another great website you can use as a yardstick is DMOZ.

If a site appears there, in most cases you know it has passed a stringent editorial review and has been around for some time. You can also visit DMOZ and just use their search box and type in keywords (topic) directories such as legal directories, shopping directories, etc. and find dozens or hundreds of hard to find pre-qualified directories for consideration.

Another method is to use the *wildcard technique in a Google search such as:

furniture * directories
legal * directories
blog * directories
rss * directories

Google will fill in the blanks based on authority and return a list of top domains that feature related searches based on the shingles (words) used in the query.

Or you can even search for

www directories or
www AND legal directories (just replace the word legal with your category).

If you just typed www into a Google search box, it would list the most powerful sites online in chronological order based on citation. By adding the word “directories” to it you are adding a modifier for the information retrieval parameter to lock on to and return relevant results.

Cut down scrolling time by using http://www.google.com/ie?&num=100 first to view 100 results at a time or just click your advanced options in Google and switch results to 100 (to view descriptions and meta snippets in addition to titles).

Then by context alone you can skim for relevant directories to add your website. Age, trust and authority are crucial elements here, not the submit your website to 1000 directories wild west approach.

Quality is the cornerstone of search engine result page longevity and combining this with deep links (links to specific pages) you can create buoyancy for pages nested deep under the surface in your website.

Another method is to add a modifier to the category such a:

legal directories AND deep links

*See example http://www.google.com/ie?q=legal+directories+AND+deep+links&hl=en&num=100&btnG=Search

Once again, replace your category in front of the word directories and see what the spiders have crawled and what is in the index as a potential link candidate.

Just replace the legal category with the one you are targeting to find the directories you are considering.

Next check to see if they are in Dmoz, Yahoo or Alexa and then check the PageRank of the homepage and sub category you are considering to determine crawl frequency and indexing.

If it hasn’t been crawled for a while, then it is more than likely penalized or the page suffers from link attrition and is not a good candidate for providing a link.

Also consider that the more links that are on the page, the smaller the percentage your site receives. Although you may not consider PageRank important, in this way, using it to assess crawl frequency and how much authority and citation a page has is not a bad idea.

Personally, I prefer using Majestic SEO to conduct a page level analysis of the AC rank (which is a much more straight forward metric), but to each their own.

Remember, as you develop your link profile, quality is better than quantity, so think before you link and remember, everything leaves a trail…

Happy directory hunting.

0 Comments
Leave A Response

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
 

User Initiated Content – Worth The Hassle?

On October 24, 2009, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

You’ve no doubt heard of user generated content (UGC). It’s content that users generate for you in the form of blog comments, forum postings, wiki information, etc. If a user can log in to your site and post information that you publish then it’s user generated content.
But what about user initiated content? This is content [...]

You’ve no doubt heard of user generated content (UGC). It’s content that users generate for you in the form of blog comments, forum postings, wiki information, etc. If a user can log in to your site and post information that you publish then it’s user generated content.

But what about user initiated content? This is content that you generate based on user input. For instance, a user requests that you write about a certain topic. But more often than not, a blogger will write a post about a topic because a user posted a question or left a comment and the blogger thought the comment deserved more than a response in the comments. It’s called user initiated content.

The great thing about user initiated content is you know it is content that at least some of your users are concerned about. Chances are, if one person mentioned it then there are at least ten or more other people thinking the same thing but not verbalizing it.

User initiated content is also easier to get started on. You don’t have to brainstorm for ideas. The idea is right in front of you. And if it’s something you can write about without researching then it will save you time and engery. And it still has all the same on site search engine optimization benefits as user generated content or any other type of content. In the end, user initiated content is a big plus. Just don’t do it too often, unless you really get some excellent topics from your visitors!

0 Comments
Leave A Response

Tagged with: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
 

Seth Godin: Sliced Bread

Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers

Anthony Parinello: Your Price is Too High