Archive for October, 2008
Government Using Social Networks
Many government agency networks and groups have sprung up on sites like Facebook. EPA’s facebook network, for example, has over 750 members anyone with an EPA email address can become a member of the group. There are similar examples for most agencies.
USA.gov started a Facebook USAgov page in March 2008, for RSS feeds, videos, photos, and other news. The public is invited to become a “fan” of that page.
The CIA has used Facebook to invite students to apply to work at the agency.
Search engine optimization and Website Design: Better collectively
Search Engine Optimization is a pretty new conception in the world of web design, but if you want a winning, profitable website, it’s something you cannot ignore. Rivalry for rankings on popular search engines like Google is fierce, and without Search engine optimization, your website is at a huge drawback. So when closely, in the process of setting up your new website, should you seek an SEO professional.
Preferably, you should consult with an SEO skilled before you meet with your web designer, since your idea or vision of what you want in your website might not be SEO friendly at all. Reviewing the basics with a search engine optimization company early on can save you never-ending heartache and expense down the road.
After that – when presenting your thoughts to a designer, you should also include your SEO practiced. If it is not sufficient to all meet in person, a phone consultation can easily be arranged. Some designers might try to induce you that they are search engine optimization knowledgeable, but it is actually better to hire a part company to handle search engine optimization matters, as it is very doubtful that web designers have the time to reside up to date on the frequently changing details of the search engine optimization world.
Measuring Link Popularity
The best way to discover how people are finding your web site is to examine your site’s activity logs, a topic which is covered in depth on the Keywords Used to Find Your Web Site page obtainable to Search Engine Watch members.
Those not capable to analyze their logs can use search engines to path down referral links. In exacting, this method gives you an idea of how “popular” a search engine believes your site to be. That’s important because all main search engines consider a site’s link popularity in their ranking algorithm.
The information below describes how link popularity is deliberate at popular crawler-based search engines.
Be conscious that “popularity” is only one part of the link analysis systems that search engines such as Google use to rank web pages. The excellence and context of links is also taken into account, quite than sheer numbers.
Google Traffic Report Card
This is part 1 of a 7 part series that examines the 7 factors of incoming links that Google considers when choosing a spot for your website in it’s SERP’s.
Why incoming links? First because these are what Google places the highest value on. But, all incoming links are NOT created equal. This 7 part course looks at the kinds of links Google values when “rating” your website in the SERP’s. Each type of link discussed is important to your overall link strategy and consequently your free traffic levels.
The first factor is of course the anchor text used in your incoming links. The importance of the keywords used to link to your website are more important to Google than the content that is actually on your page. You can generally use anchor link text with your keywords and not even have the keywords on the page and still get a good ranking in Google for that term if enough incoming links have that keyword pharse in them.
If you’ve heard of the phrase “Google Bombing” then you know what I’m talking about. Basically it’s when a set of webmasters or blog owners decide to get a page ranked for a certain term and all leave links back to the selected site with the keyword phrase that they want that page to rank for.
The most notorious example of this is the “bombing” done by several blog owners to the George W Bush biograpby page. Several bloggers left links to the page containing the keyword text “miserable failure” and consequently this page turns up as the number 1 result in Google for the term, even though the words don’t appear anywhere on the page.
The “Google Bombing” was done by at most a few hundred links with this link text pointing to the page. Though more links would probably be necissary for a more competative term. Still, it goes to show how important link text is to the rankings of a page.
Google Bombing is nothing new. But what many people don’t realize is that Google places more relevance on the anchor link text that it finds when it first discovers a link to your website. Each consequent link either adds value to that first impression or subtracts from it.
Many times you can control which link google finds first just by knowing where google goes regularly (like on a daily basis) and effectively placing your link in it’s path. This is called “baiting” the google bot to visit your website through this link.
Each link you place after this initial link should further show google that their first impression (or the first keywords it discovered that linked to your website) was and still is correct. Each subsiquent link is a “vote” so to speak to validate Google’s original impression of what your website is about.
Placing that first link to be found by Google is only the first step, but a very important one. Choose your anchor text keywords carefully. Each incoming link you place after this one should serve to validate this first impression. Part 2 will discuss the appearance and disappearance of links over time and how they effect your traffic and search engine placement.
RSS Feeds
RSS feeds are commonly used on weblogs (blogs), news web sites and other places with frequently updated content. Once users subscribe to an RSS feed, they can gather material from web sites of their choosing. It’s a very convenient format because it allows users to view all the new content from multiple sources in one location on their desktop.
Importance of Inbound links
Inbound links play an important role in search engine marketing. Inbound links can improve page rank and search engine rankings. It also improves traffic in your site. Inbound links tells the search engine that your site is reliable and trustworthy. This depends on the page rank that every search maintains. The more inbound links that you get in your page the more the page rank will improve to your page. But these inbound links must come from those sites which have some good page rank. The inbound links should improve slowly in your page. If you start building links rapidly in your site the search engine may think that your page is spam and put your page in sand box. To improve your inbound link then buying links from other sites can improve your page rank. If your site has good content then other sites may offer exchange links with you. Both inbound links and outbound links influence each other. Certain factors that you need to consider in inbound links are – number of links, authority of site, anchor text of link, age of links, link velocity, age of site, links in content and one way links.
Blogs and the Blogosphere
Comment on other blogs. Most of these comments will not provide much direct search engine value, but if your comments are useful, insightful, and relevant they can drive direct traffic. They also help make the other bloggers become aware of you, and they may start reading your blog and/or linking to it.
Main tag pages rank well in Yahoo! and MSN, and to a lesser extent in Google. Even if your blog is fairly new you can have your posts featured on the Main tag pages by tagging your posts with relevant tags. If you create a blog make sure you list it in a few of the best blog directories.
Other ways to "Build inks" for your website
Link building is a time consuming and original endeavor. In the long run, some links pass value more than others, which is why diversity is the key to creating a stable and dependable link profile for your website.
First, a brief synopsis of the additional common types of links and link building that one classically pursues, then, a few non traditional unique alternatives will be obtainable.
Editorial links – take weight but have more value for flash in the pan promotions or to draw attention to an interesting event.
Social media links – such as Mixx or Stumbleupon have a first spike and the end result is classically site-wide links across numerous categories if the story goes hot and gets assign of notice.
Directories and article marketing – motionless work, however their technique is best used as a increasing tactic coupled with other link building methods to understand their effects, as articles are archived after 30 days and directories take time to improve a link profile.
Contextual Link building – uses blogs and other websites and uses the basis of content and then provides a link to the aspire site with a relevant wikipedia style link to the site with the perfect keyword, to the ideal page. Excellent technique, but very time consuming and link and IP diversity are vital for maximum impact. It is better to not build links extremely from one site or same block of IP addresses. In other words, the more site that link to you with faith, the more trust and significance your sites reputation becomes (diversity is essential).
Everything You Wanted To Know About Google
Can you remember a day when you have not Googled?
But Google’s reach doesn’t stop with the mouse or the cursor. It has moved beyond the computer screen, snapping up resources, sites, and people at a frighteningly steady pace. Perhaps, the first indication Google wasn’t just satisfied with staying within the wired confines of the world wide web was when it partnered with universities such as Harvard, Oxford, Stanford and others, to scan and index the contents of their libraries — then making this material accessible through Google Print.
Then it casted its aspirations heavenward with the introduction of Google Maps and Google Earth. Mapping services that bring the world’s geographic information into view, it is as if Google had literally ascended, watching us from far and near, tracking our every move as well as our every keystroke. Even using satellite imagery to provide it with eyes in the sky; leading one to wonder, from those lofty heights can divinity be far behind?
All kidding aside, Google, whether it wants to or not, is developing a god-like reverence in the eyes of many. But is this such a leap of faith? Is the idea of Google as a god-like force in our lives so preposterous? so ludicrous? so sacrilegious?
In prehistoric times, pagans used to worship the sun gods. Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome all had their gods who satisfied the basic human need we have to believe in a superior being or force. They even raised ordinary humans who displayed unusual courage or bravery up to a god-like status. Are we now entering into a new post-modern pagan era — will we be worshipping at the feet of Google?
Not really, we treat all our knowledge givers with respect, some even reach a god-like status. We raise them up above the crowd, give them special meaning or reverence in our lives. Humans have been doing this since we stood upright and walked on the plains of Africa. The shaman or high priest of ancient times — holders of the secret rites, holders of a group’s history or knowledge; we show these people respect and we elevate them to a higher status.
Google falls into this category.
And Google does deserve some respect, as far as the search engine market goes, whether it’s wearing a halo or a cursor — Google is still the only game in town. According to Alexa, a company that tracks web traffic, the top three sites on the Web are 1. Yahoo, 2. MSN, and 3. Google. However, when you compare where people go on these sites — search.yahoo.com accounts for only 9% of Yahoo’s traffic and search.msn.com only 7% of MSN’s total traffic; whereas most of Google’s traffic is search traffic. This is a big distinction.
And what about the purchasing power of these search engines; latest data presented by Score Networks, Inc. shows MSN searchers at 48%, Google searchers at 42% and Yahoo at 31%. That is Google searchers were 42% more likely to purchase online than the regular Internet user.
Another aspect of Google’s commercial might is its online advertising system. Through its Adsense and Adword programs, Google has commercialize and monetized most of the web’s free content. Depending on your opinions or stand, this may be good or bad. Regardless of viewpoints, Google has been more than generous with sharing this ad
revenue with all concerned parties — content providers, web writers and journalists, professional bloggers, ordinary webmasters and marketers — all have reaped the benefits of these programs.
If you feed it with fresh high quality content — Google will take good care of you! In many cases, it can be argued that Google is subsidizing or facilitating the creation of quality content on the Net through its Adsense program.
Google’s dominance of all aspects of the Internet is also taking on a god-like force. It is acquiring and building at an almost god-like speed. Google Acquisitions include: Outride, Blogger, Neotonic Software, Applied Semantics, Ignite Logic, Genius Labs, Picasa, Keyhole, Urchin software… how did all this madness start?
Initially called BackRub, referring to the way it back linked to web sites, Google was founded by Stanford graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google, the name itself is a play on the word googol, and refers to the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros… opened its doors on Sept. 7, 1998, in Menlo Park, California. It had a corporate staff of three. In 2004 Google offered its IPO with a price per share at $85. By June 7, 2005, Google was worth $80 billion, making it one of the world’s biggest media companies.
Perhaps, one of Google’s most brilliant (some believe absurd) moves, happened just recently. It has applied (via Nelson Minar, a Google Engineer), for patent rights to transmit ads through RSS feeds. Few people know, even more won’t believe, but the Internet has undergone a fundamental shift in how information is exchanged on the web. RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ and was first popularized by blogs because blogs use XML and RSS feeds to syndicate their content.
Don’t come to us, we will deliver. People can view a site’s contents through RSS readers or an RSS equipped browser without actually going to the sites.
RSS will revolutionize the Internet. Microsoft in its Longhorn Statement has announced the next version of Windows will have RSS integrated into its Operating System. RSS applications, under the Creative Commons license, will change the way we use our computers and the Internet.
Google, if it is successful with this patent application will build on its already god-like status. The stakes are enormous and Google knows it. This patent could put Google directly into the mix, but the rewards are beyond belief! And that’s not all, there are rumors Google may be developing its own RSS powered operating system and browser. Why not, it has the resources and financial clout to easily carry out such an undertaking. Google is already the owner of the domain name “gbrowser.com”!
One can only wonder, is Google positioning itself to not only be the brains of the Internet but also placing itself into the very core of the nasty beast? Does it desire not only to be a mega hub, but also to be an innate part of the whole structure? Positioning itself, in essence, to becoming the web’s nervous system.
Any movement of data, information, or commerce on the Internet will have to pass through and be affected by the Google Factor. More or less, cementing Google’s influence on the whole scheme of things. And in the process, further weaving Google into the very fabric of our lives.
Challenges of Blogging
You need to consider issues of proprietary or confidential information, and how to handle potential defamatory language. These should be policies that your agency already has in place for other forms of communication.
In government, we must adhere to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Some government blogs such as USA.gov’s Gov Gab state that it is unable to post comments from children under the age of 13, and invites children to email them rather than post public comments.
The emergence of blogging has brought a range of legal liabilities. Employers have fired their employees who maintain personal blogs that discuss their employers.
As informal as blogs are meant to be, if they’re appearing on a government domain, they’re official government communications. They’re on the record and fair game for being picked up in the mainstream media. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a blog you just need to think carefully about how to use it as an effective communications tool that can benefit both your agency and the public.