Google toolbar pagerank update on Jan 1 2005

Google has updated its toolbar pagerank after a long wait of 3 months, this is evident that google has moved into quarterly pagerank updates on their toolbar,

Anyway there is something to be happy about, Check your updated pagerank by downloading google toolbar is you dont have one,

We updated our Pagerank 10 sites list check it out here

An interesting checklist of why a site could be dropped from google’ index posted in webmasterworld.com

An interesting post in webmasterworld.com describes how sites were dropped from google’s index, whether it is because of a penalty or because of google’s own problem, this checklist describes well,

One of the most common themes of posting here in WW starts something like:
“Last night, my site disappeared…”
“Losing” a site can be a painful and
frustrating experience. To help ease the pain, perhaps a starting list of
potential issues might help. I’ll probably miss more than I’m catching with this
list, but at least it’s a start.
Do a site search at the SE in question to
determine if all of some of your pages are gone. Some think that their site has
vanished, when in fact an algo update or tweak has occured causing their pages
to drop. Or, individual pages have been filtered or penalized, but not entire
sites:
If *all* of your pages are gone (search on URL’s to check that), then
perhaps: • your server was down at an inopportune time. • you have a robots.txt
problem. • you’ve been removed from the index based on a perception of bad
behavior (not good).
If only some pages are gone, or if your pages have
simply dropped badly in the SERP’s, then perhaps: • you have some other
technical issue not noted above (e.g., badly executed redirects), • the algo
changed, • you’ve done something recently that the SE did not like, or, • the
algo changed and something that was previously “OK” is now being filtered or
penalized.
Here are some specific things to look at:
Start with the
basics: Was your server down recently? Server failure is always a good item to
check off your list when searching for problems. No need to start remaking your
site if all that happened was a temporary problem.
Are you using a
robots.txt file, and if so, has it changed. , Is the syntax correct? There are a
variety of potential problems that can be caused by improper code in robots.txt
files, or placement of the robots.txt file in the wrong location. Search WW on
this topic if you’re not sure what you’re doing. Use the WW Server Header
Checker. At worst, a robots.txt file can tell a SE to go away, and you really
don’t want that. 😉
Have you more aggressively optimized recently? Internal
changes that can lead to potential problems include: • More aggressive kw
optimization, e.g., changes to Titles, META’s, tags, placement and
density of kw’s, etc. • Link structure changes, and especially link text
changes. Updates to link text or structure, if done for optimization reasons,
can push a site into filter/penalty territory. Look in particular for overuse of
kw’s.
Have you added redirects? The SE’s *can* sometimes become confused by
redirects. Assuming that the changes are intended to be permanent, use 301’s,
not 302’s. Be especially careful about large scale changes. If done properly,
redirects are important tools. Done without proper knowledge, they can lead to
short term pain, often on the order of 1-6 months.
webmasterworld.com/forum3/8706.htm
Do you have a significant number of
interlinking sites? If ever there was a strategy that might be summed up as:
“Here today, gone tomorrow…” interlinking is it. You can succeed with this
strategy. But if you add too many sites or links to the mini-net you’re
creating, or interlink too aggressively, it can catch up to you. Penalties can
range from soft filters to complete manual removal in rare cases. Even with no
recent changes to your sites, the SE algo’s can change, making something that
squeaked by yesterday illegal today. webmasterworld.com/forum3/4618.htm
Are
you linking to sites in “bad” neighborhoods? If ever there was a strategy that
might be summed up as: “Gone today…” linking to “bad” sites is it. If you
think that you might be linking to the dark-side, lose that link instantly, if
not sooner.
webmasterworld.com/forum3/8053.htm
Could you be suffering from a
duplicate content penalty? Some practices or occurances that can cause problems
in this regard include: • Use of a single, site-wide template • Use of one
template across multiple sites • Competitors stealing or mirroring your content
• Redirects from an old domain to a new one • Over reliance on robots.txt files
to exclude bots from content areas you don’t want exposed. WebmasterWorld
Thread: webmasterworld.com/forum3/22494.htm
Are you cloaking? Some cloak merely to deliver “accurate” pictures of
sites/pages to the SE’s. Examples of this are sites with lots of graphics and
little text. But if you’re a mainly text based site that is delivering one set
of content to the SE’s while users are seeing something
less…umm…optimized…then there’s always the risk that you’ve been caught.
Are you using AdWords? This is pure speculation on the part of some seniors
here, but some do seem to firmly believe that if you place highly with an
Adwords listing, it might actually hurt your position in the SERP’s. Don’t shoot
me. I’m just the messenger.
IF OTOH, the only issue is that you’re not as
high in the rankings as you’d like, then a better place to start would be
Brett’s 26 Steps to 15K a Day.

Source: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum5/4584.htm

Search Google Ads – searching google’s sponsored links

it seems we can search google’s ad database, for example if we do any query in this URL;

www.google.com/sponsoredlinks it shows ads which google shows for adwords are adsense, seems like a good feature to know who are the advertisers for a particular keyword phrase and how many ads are displayed for a given keyword,

Iprospect cashes out for more than 40 million dollars

Iprospect one of the leading search engine marketing firm has cashed out, they are sold to Aegis a leading company who has been acquiring lots of quality companies lately,

News story in yahoo news,

Isobar Acquires iProspect to Create World’s Number One Search Engine Marketing Entity

Isobar, the global full service digital network created earlier this year by U.K. firm Aegis PLC, today announced it has acquired 100% of iProspect, the Original® Search Engine Marketing Firm. The news marks Isobar’s first acquisition in the U.S. market, and the 7th for Isobar globally in the past six months.

Source: biz.yahoo.com/prnews/041222/sfw009_1.html

How much they were cashed out information here

Aegis has acquired US internet search marketing agency iProspect.com in a deal that could net the founders of the firm $50m (£26m).

Aegis will pay an initial £16.7m with a further £9.4m deferred and payable over two years, subject to performance-related targets. IProspect will become part of Aegis Group’s digital media network Isobar, which has made a number of acquisitions over in the past six months, including Korean digital agency Agency W and Australian digital agency One Digital. Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, iProspect is one of the pioneers in search engine marketing. Earlier this year, it was named among the top 50 fastest-growing companies by Inc.

Source: www.revolutionmagazine.com/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=ViewNewsArticle&ID=231352

Google Adwords displaying all the ads

we can adjust the number of results displayed per page Inorder to display all the ads on one screen, Lately there was a discussion in webmasterworld where a user reported he say almost 60 ads, some say it is a common phenomenon when google results are set to 50 results or 100 results per page,

Discussion here, www.webmasterworld.com/forum81/4107.htm

forum users report index / home page missing in yahoo’s new update

Forum posters report their index pages missing in the most recent yahoo update, If you are a user who lost your index page it is worth posting in this thread and see what others say about this,

www.webmasterworld.com/forum35/2875-3-10.htm

Google fixes their desktop search tool flaw,

there was a report that hackers can get access to users’ local searches if people are using the desktop search tool, it was reported by some rich university scientists ( news here news.com.com/Flaw+found+in+Googles+new+desktop+search/2100-1032_3-5497244.html )

Now google seem to have fixed the issue, news here,

news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-12/21/content_2360777.htm

Site:www.example.com Returns 5x Greater Number of Pages Than on the Site

A webmasterworld poster reports he is seeing more than 5x of pages showing in the site: command of google, as many are aware of site: command shows the pages that are indexed under a particular domain, It is an useful command for various reason one good is reason is if you want to find a particular information on a news site or some information site we can use the keyword that document contains with the site:www.domain.com and find that page,

From what i can see there are no changes in site: command, probably what that user found was just a glitch,

www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/27157.htm

Google as Web King – An interesting thread discussion in webmasterworld

A interesting thread in webmasterworld discusses an article written by Charles H. Ferguson at Technology Review,

This article neatly describes the future of google and how they can improve them selves from their current standings,

2 significant posts in this thread are from 2 regular users, they had a very good insight into the article, Source of the article; www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/issue/ferguson0105.asp?p=1

Iguana says,

I think I understand what Charles H. Ferguson is saying. He seems to be
saying that Google needs to develop commercial APIs to their search – because
this is what Microsoft has done before with windows and their applications and
made (nearly) all the facilities available to developers.
But I don’t regard
‘Web Search’ as that important a function to require APIs. I still regard it as
a way to quickly access the statically delivered content on the web. Obviously
Google already have a developers API (with very limited usage) and Adsense
websearch. Amazon have their new e-commerce webservice that allows you access to
their search results (Google-derived and Alexa enhanced) that is in beta and may
be subject to a charge in the future. Both of these seem to be allowing websites
to incorporate their own websearch facilities. I don’t think they will be taken
up in large enough numbers to have a big impact on searches done.
What he is
talking about is the next generation of search – the one that includes the
‘hidden web’ desktop PC file systems, emails, handhelds, and Linux. To provide a
cross-platform access to all of this would be nice – but hardly a ‘killer app’.
I haven’t bothered to download Google or MS desktop search – I know where my
files are and what they contain and can use windows explorer to check them. I
only need a deep search of previous web pages/emails/files about every 2 weeks.
If you said I could search and access the text of any book ever written, any
software, any album details (cover/real lyrics/ track listing/sample), access
MP3s of my music and the music collections of any friends (wishing all my vinyl
was converted to MP3) – then I would be excited both in my working and home
life. But copyright prevents a lot of this and I couldn’t afford to actually
purchase these as products.
I just fail to make that jump from search being
a quick, sometimes frustrating, way to access web content to being the nervous
system that unifies my informational world. In the long term (10-20 years?) it
will be that. But for the next few years, when the Google/MS competition will
take place, it is the web search that will be the battleground. I used to think
the real crux could be how you access the search – when the browser disappears
from Windows and becomes part of the desktop then Microsoft can make it awkward
for people to change the default search from MSN to Google. It didn’t work last
time with the built-in IE search but maybe will work better this time. Luckily
enough Google should have the financial clout to quickly stop Microsoft using
any unfair tactics, unlike some other companies in the past who have had to wait
5 years for their multi-million dollar settlements that are just loose change
for Mr Gates.
I realise that I am holding up my hand and saying I just don’t
have the imagination/foresight to see how APIs and extending the search content
is the next step. Given that Microsoft won’t be able to just leverage control of
the major operating system to eliminate Google, I keep on coming back to the
thought that for the next 5 years it’s the same old, same old thing – quality of
the search results. All the pain of the Florida update, the obfuscations that
have reduced the power of Pagerank, the ‘filters/sandbox/hilltop/ anchor text/
over-optimisation penalties’ – has failed to produce better Google search
results. Google needed to move from a keyword-based search with Pagerank to
something else (now that Pagerank was understood and spammed rather than natural
web linking). I really believed that Google was going to move to the next stage
and figure out what a page was about before serving it as a result as opposed to
ever more elaborate counts/weighting of keywords in the document. But they have
failed. I think that Yahoo and Teoma may now be its equal and that Microsoft may
catch up in a year. Google could become a minor player long before the big
battle over control of access to digital content is fought – if one of the other
players comes up with a search engine that actually understands something about
what the user is searching for.

Namaste says,

Web search is a service, and in a service, the quality of service matters. MS
has never won a service war, only a product war.
From what I have seen of
Google’s strategy so far, it seems to be sound:
1. Index deep. 2. Go beyond
the web 3. Earn revenue from increased distribution 4. Make search convenient:
fast, desktop, etc. 5. Build a WebOS 6. Don’t be evil
These 6 are common
sense strategies and if they stick to them, they should have a sound future.
For all that is said, MS also sticks to some common sense strategies that
have seen it win many battles: 1. Make everything easy to use 2. Provide
reasonably good quality 3. Provide it cheap 4. Push it to the max 5. Get
developers on your side
It beat Netscape, Apple, Novell, IBM, etc. using
just these five strategies. But these strategies are blunt against Google,
because Google is already doing the first four, and there isn’t much scope for
the fifth in search.
The big question is what will happen when MS provides
integrated desktop search? The answer is that Google still wins if it follows
it’s own 1 and 2 and stays ahead of MS. People who are searching will goto
Google.
Further, we are moving to the high bandwidth era, where we are using
more web applications than ever before. If Google can successfully engineer some
key applications (such as Gmail) to be equivalent to desktop software (such as
Outlook), people will automatically migrate to web apps as they are completely
portable.
I am also surprised that the author hasn’t spoken about patent
acquisition as a strategic advantage. We have seen many tech wars won as a
result of patents (Minolta vs Carl Zeiss for example). This important factor
could decide the MS vs Google battle. Both players realize the importance of
patents and must be amassing them in hordes. Google ofcourse has a head start in
this as far as search and WebOS goes.
As far as APIs are concerned, I
believe, Google will provide full fledged APIs when it can successfully offer a
WebOS. Possibly just before Longhorn.
Let us not underestimate the Linux
factor in all this. In one or two years, Linux will be as friendly to use as
Windows (still some issues with fonts, installations, etc.). When the time comes
for people to discard Windows XP, the big question is will they go for Longhorn
or the new Linux. In my opinion, it will be the new Linux.
The future:
People will “upgrade” from Windows to Linux; and use more web apps as compared
to desktop apps.
Has MS considered building a WebOS? No news there so far.
If they do, then we are talking serious competition to Google in a few years.

Source: of the thread, www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/27178.htm

Yahoo opens new research and development in chennai india

Seems good news for india, Yahoo seems to be starting R&D department in india,

News here,

Yahoo, HP to launch operations in Chennai,

Internet major Yahoo Inc and Hewlett Packard are in the process of setting

up their development centres in Chennai and will soon be launching their

operations, IT secretary of Tamil Nadu, Vivek Harinarain said in Chennai on

Thursday.

“Yahoo is currently in the process of setting up its

development centre and is expected to launch its operations on December 24. In

the next couple of months, Hewlett Packard will be starting its operations in

Chennai with a total headcount of around 500 and plans to take it to 1000 in the

next couple of years,” he said, while addressing a two-day conference on

‘Creating A New Generation Of Entrepreneurs.’

more here, www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=39692