Bizarre places to get backlinks for a quality website:

There is no limitation in getting backlink for a high quality site. Especially high quality site like ours get 100s of backlinks from good sources as well as some bizarre sources. There are lots of bizarre links we get when we monitor our blogs here is a list of some of them.

1. From PDF and Doc files which are actually not html or web based files. PDF ( Portable Document Format ) is a format used to create important documents, thesis, projects, invoices and lots of other users. We get links from PDF files as well as doc files from some edu sites as well as other sites which use our website as reference for their project or report.

2. From PPT: Google , yahoo, MSN all top 3 search engines crawl power point slides effectively we have some Gov sites use our website and tools as reference on their PPT slide shows and this turn up as backlink for our website. You know edu, gov backlinks are some of the best backlinks you can get for your website.

3. From Other language sites: We get links from Japanese blogs, European language blogs, urdu blogs, Arabic blogs and from lots blogs in different languages. Though we are an English only site we have people visiting our website all over the world.

4. In college personal project pages: We get links from some students from major universities who use our tools as a testing base for their projects, also they use our articles and other good resources we have for their college projects. We get some good quality links from this source.

We get lot more bizarre links which I will share in future in our blog.

Google ranks a page of a website?

Google ranks pages not sites we know that but the real question does Google rank a page based on keyword relevance on that page or keyword relevance throughout the website? Based on my, admittedly very targeted, sites I have to say Google is now sophisticated enough to analyze whole site for relevance than just the ranking page. Pages, yes, words are analyzed and targeted. But Google also seems to understand a sites “keywords” and rewards with better SERPS when those are entered.

I look at it like this. I have a site about widgets, 1,000 pages primarily aimed at widgets. Each page is about a particular aspect of widgets, green ones, round ones, making widgets, etc. A couple of my pages on that site are about an apparently disconnected subject, e.g. plankton. The reason that a couple of plankton pages are there is because they are the source of the material which is used to make widgets.

I have loads of these “disconnected” pages, all written well and in the same style as the base widget pages. But they don’t rank for plankton. My guess is that Google can’t connect plankton and widgets and therefore the plankton pages are considered as less value.

Increase in traffic and rankings can cause manual review:

We have seen this across some major sites. If your site is doing very well and if its starts appearing for some rare competitive keywords I am sure your site will be subject to manual review by search engine specialists.

Search engines are very careful about the quality of their SERPs. We know from some internal knowledge that Google uses people to manually review their search engine results. Main flag areas are if a search engine detects big boost in backlinks from high pagerank websites then you can be sure to raise a red flag. A manual review is not always bad but again it depends on the reviewer. A reviewer sees in Google point of view and they are pretty strict on their guidelines even a site going little bit out of bound might raise questions in reviewers mind. We should be careful especially gaining lot of backlinks in short time since Google is always watching us.

Websites targets ignorant offering grants money:

Some scam websites that advertise with Google or rank in Google organic results are scamming people about Obama Stimulus package. According to those websites you can buy a home, a car, pay credit card bills, invest in Business, run a business or can do anything with that money. To find these scam sites just type “government grants” , “grants” , stimulus share , stimulus package , stimulus etc.

Con artists are creating and running scam websites like federalgovernmentgrantsolutions.com, OfficialStimulusPayments.com etc and lure ignorant people for spending to some crap services. Scammers create bogus blogs too and redirect traffic to sites that offer tips on bogus grant offers.

“A company in Las Vegas called The Grant Instructor has generated even more complaints – 450 so far. The BBB says the company, which also has an “F” grade, runs at least two dozen sites with names such as: American Grant Club, Get My Grant, Grant Dollars, Grants Are Easy, Grant Resource Center and Your American Grant.

Christopher Gaffer of Mankato, Minn. stumbled onto one of their sites called “The Grant Search.” Gaffer is on the board of a non-profit group in Mankato that helps provide affordable housing. Part of their funding comes from grants. Gaffer went online to look for new funding opportunities.

The initial cost was just $1.95 for seven days access to the Grant Search database. Gaffer paid but never got his access code. Seven days later, he found a charge for $49.50 on his credit card for “a recurring monthly membership.” Gaffer tried to contact the company but could not find a phone number or e-mail address. “It was a nightmare,” he says.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29643680/

Yahoo Makes money now from Yahoo search BOSS developer network:

BOSS is currently offered to developers free of charge. In the near future (likely late Q2 2009), we plan to implement a fee structure for API use above a set threshold.

BOSS will continue to offer free use of the API below a set daily threshold – up to 10,000 search queries per day depending on the type of API call. In addition, we plan to implement a service level agreement (SLA) in parallel with fees. We will announce firm timing and further details when we get closer to launch.

When we implement fees, we also plan to offer developers the ability to make non-time sensitive API requests at a significantly reduced price. This “off-peak” option can be used for research and analysis efforts to support building search experiences and would allow developers to request queries to be fulfilled by BOSS when capacity permits.

We currently plan to implement a fee system with the following structure:

· Fees will be determined based on the number and type of API requests made per day

· We are no longer restricting developers from monetizing their products using third-party platforms

· Fees will be determined using a unit system

· Units for Web, News, and Image BOSS API calls will be incurred based on the last result requested. For example, an API call requesting results 91-100 is the same cost as one requesting results 1-100

· Developers may request up to 1000 results in a single API call

· Units will cost $.10

· Developers will receive 30 units per day for free of charge

http://developer.yahoo.com/search/boss/fees.html

Webmaster help videos : a must watch:

http://www.youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp

Does pagerank for a website affect crawling rate?

Pagerank is just a value assigned based on pagerank of other pages linking to it. Crawling rate for a site depends on various other factors and its definitely not pagerank alone. Martin Buster of webmasterworld gives a good explanation of the myths behind pagerank and crawling.

“I can’t be more emphatic about the falseness of this emphasis on PageRank 4. It has to die. If you are going to get ahead you must walk away from this myth. It’s a number that was arrived at in relation to backlink searches many years ago. The situation that gave rise to the myth went away, it ended, but the myth endured. I’ll explain.

History lesson
Many years ago Google used to show the backlinks of sites with a PR of 4 or more. This caused webmasters to make the erroneous assumption that PR 4 is the threshold between a good ranking and a bad ranking, that Google did not count links from -PR4 sites. Otherwise, why didn’t they show them in the backlink searches? It could be said to have been a reasonable assumption but at the time the Googlers were saying this wasn’t the case.

To the webmasters, because Google didn’t show links from sites with less than PR 4, they assumed that -PR4 meant you were crawled less, had less authority, etc. Over PR 4 meant your site had finally arrived.

Then during a London Pubcon DaveN suggested to Matt Cutts that this scheme was inaccurate and Matt Cutts agreed. Not long after he arrived back at the Googleplex their search engine began showing a sample of backlinks across a range of PR.

Stop and examine the facts

Anyone who has ever ranked a site with an under PR 4 site knows that the assumption that -PR 4 is less worthy is an assumption without foundation. Anyone who has watched their rankings jump with – PR4 backlinks understands that the PR 4 threshold is absolutely false.

The superstition continues

So even though Google began showing PR 4 backlinks, to this very day many webmasters still cling to the mistaken notion that PR 4 is a significant threshold. It is not. This belief in the superiority or meaningfulness of PageRank 4 meets the definition of superstition: “A belief in something not justified by reason or evidence.” It’s a myth. The healing powers of PR 4 is a superstition.

So what determines crawling?

What determines crawling is the amount of links you have. Each link is a new door, so to speak, for a bot to find you. One can have thousands and thousands of links and still rank under 4, yet be better and deeper crawled than a PR 4 with less inbound links.”

Age of domains – Importance in search engines:

I’d say the age of domain is one of the top factors in obtaining “authority” status. And then within the age factor are all the other things that determine its age. Change of owners. Change of IPs. Change of Servers. Change of just about everything that takes place within DNS.

I also feel that “stability” in the hosting network is another factor. I feel that anyone who has a serious Internet business is going to have their own IPs and possibly server(s) to do their thing. They won’t be relying on a cheap web host to compete in a market that is reserved for the BIG BOYs. That’s like showing up for a drag race in a Prius or something. 🙂

It is not the “only” factor though. Success takes time. There was a point in Internet history when it “could” happen overnight but that has slowly dwindled to lotto type statistics. You’ll have to invest the time and patience knowing that what you are building is a long term proposition.

Sure, you can open your doors and have success overnight and it still happens. If you have the right product and/or service along with a few strategically placed marketing efforts, you can start the ball rolling. Nature will take its course from there. Yes, things will “naturally” happen as it goes viral. Unfortunately many of us may not reach that level and we’ll continue to work in the trenches, feed our families, and make a decent living off the leftovers. 🙂

Yes, domain age is an important factor in “all” things Internet related. Each year that passes, the value of that domain increases. It’s like fine wine. Since 1995 has a bit of meaning when talking Internet these days. Companies who have been online for any period of time would be wise to start advertising their since dates.

Is excess links from social bookmarking sites harmful?

We get this question from our readers. I believe yes too much of anything is harmful right? If you are into building links from social media sites we need to make sure its done correctly. First of all we need to make sure social media links are not no-followed. No-follow links are not counted by Google. Even if the links are not no followed there are too many links submitted in sites like Digg.com so most of the time it’s not worth doing excess links in social bookmarking sites. Keep in mind, you are building a “link profile” right now. Do you want that profile focused in the Social Media space? If so, you’re on the right track but maybe going about it the wrong way. The way the question reads almost sounds as if you are abusing the Social Media outlets where this stuff was supposedly submitted.

Social bookmarking sites are meant for communities which want to share pages and sites they like on the web I am sure if you want to abuse it then you are in wrong track.

Unable to get rid of potential penalty?

You know your site is penalized. You cleaned up what you thought was the trigger. Filed re-inclusion request. After that you are in the dark. The chances are you never get reincluded-

– Your site might never have had a problem to begin with. It might have been one of those Google’s freak collateral damage issues that landed you in the soup.

– You correctly identified the issue, cleaned it up, filed a request, but you are in the mandatory penalty period, which you don’t know is how long and when will it end.

– You haven’t identified the problem or have partly addressed it and Google wants you to do more, a fact you are not aware of and are waiting endlessly for the penalty to end.

– It might never have been a penalty by Google’s definition, but an algorithmic tweak that has affected a select set of keywords. If the overall traffic hasn’t been affected drastically, perhaps a perceived penalty might belong to this category.

– Your site is affected (penalized or algorithmically tweaked), you undertake damage control efforts, file a request to Google citing what might have been the problem that you addressed, which might be a news to Google! So, they use the stick you gave to beat you.

It might just be best to clean up issues that you are aware of and leave the rest to destiny.
Google penalties are vague and sometimes affect high quality sites I feel best is to go for re-inclusion requests.