Google are undoubtedly the greatest internet search engine on the net right now with a lot of webpages depending on it for daily traffic.

In spite of this if anyone release a whole new website it’s entirely possible that it will be penalised by Google.  New websites are generally screened by Google and placed in the sand box whilst they prove their worth.

Before Google is confident, new webpages won’t appear in their search engine results pages.  This specific consequence can easily go on for a long time and there is next to nothing that you can do to emerge from the sand box other than have patience.

There are several things you can do to help you in avoiding the sand box-

Aged Domains – 1 way you’ll be able to prevent the sand box is investing in an aged domain name which currently have back links as well as being indexed by Google.  Then you’re able to build your new website utilizing an old domain name.

Relevant Backlinking – Be certain that all backlinks you develop for your webpage are applicable.  If you ever spam your brand new site by means of back links you will end up slipped into the sand box

Redirects – If you have an internet site which is listed presently, create a subdomain and construct your web site there.  Once the subdomain is indexed it is possible to clone the site on the actual domain name and 301 redirect the sub domain to your brand new url

Nonetheless, in case you are already in the sand box not a single thing that can be done.  It will take months for the site to be transferred out from the sandbox thus my personal guidance should be to put it aside it and begin an alternative venture.

Dominating Google is tough work

This really is challenging for those who have invested lots of time into it, however truth be told there truly is almost nothing you can do prior to the site is removed from the Sand box.

We had this professionally, the good news is my blog appears to have been taken off the sandbox it’s acquiring numerous visitors from Google and my concentrate is actually on that website.

The Things You Need To Know Regarding The Google Sand Box is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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Google Vs. Bing

With the seemingly global approval of the Bing/Yahoo search deal comes the start of a long lasting battle.  The search engine wars between Google and Bing have truly begun.  Now of course the search engine war has been going on since the idea of anyone making money online, but this recent deal has escalated things to a new level.  Once the implementation of the Bing/Yahoo search deal occurs sometime in Q4 (ppc interface integration is scheduled to take place in middle October), the search engine wars will really heat up.  Google has a majority of the market by far with Bing sitting somewhere between 7-10% depending on whose numbers you look at.  In Q4 of this year Bing will most likely represent about 26-28% market share, significantly more than they currently have.  At the same time, Google is not only trying to hold steady but grow their market lead.  Some people are under the impression that Google is willing to bleed market share to Bing or that Google isn’t afraid of Bing.  To those I tell you – Google’s stock price is currently trading at $566/share.  Google is paying very close attention to every move that Bing is making and counter-acting accordingly.  The purpose of the Google Vs. Bing Search Engine Wars series is to document various strategic moves each search engine is making in order to capture your searches. One thing everyone undoubtedly loves about Bing is the amazingly beautiful imagery on the home page.  Google is obviously paying attention to what people like about Bing and will attempt to re-create such features.  Today I noticed the following section on the Google homepage:

Google Bing Wars

As you can see, “New! travel the world from your Google homepage” now appears.  Hrm… I wonder where Google got that idea.  Looking deeper into the new addition to iGoogle, you will notice the beautiful imagery that you can now add as a theme to your iGoogle.  Now I now some of you are wondering, what’s new?  I’ve always been able to add different themes to my iGoogle.  The key here is the promotion of this feature on the home page and that it is entirely focused on travel and destinations, a strategy that has been working wonders for Bing.

Google Bing Wars Travel Destinations

This is just a teaser of strategic moves that Google and Bing will use against each other in the modern search engine wars.  There are many more interesting moves that will be investigated.  One that comes to mind instantly is the fact that Bing paid search click through rates are double, yes 2X, the other search engines including Google.  Right now it is not imperative for Google to react.  They get so much volume in comparison to Bing that paid search media will continue to look to Google as the leader.   Will Google change the layout of their page to increase the CTR of their paid search ads in the future as Bing’s traffic grows?  You’ll only know by checking back for upcoming parts of the ongoing series: Google Vs. Bing Search Engine Wars.

Google Vs. Bing: Search Engine Wars – Part 1 is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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Real Time Search Results From Google

A few weeks ago Google announced they were rolling out their much anticipated real time search function. While some in the community are excited to see how they can implement real time search results into their SEO program, others aren’t so optimistic.

How Does Google Real Time Search Work? Google real time search delivers results by crawling various “Social” sites such as Twitter, Yahoo Answers, Facebook, news articles, Digg, MySpace, etc…Along with a link to the content, Google shows how long ago the particular comment was posted. There are also options to pause the list to keep if from refreshing. Additionally, Google will only display this new feature if it has a “real time component”.

The algorithm for this new real time search feature is relatively unknown. I would imagine that their is individual algorithm for each source i.e a twitter algorithm, a digg algorithm etc. There should also be a separate algorithm that chooses the most reliable source for the keyword. Example:  A keyword like “Technology News” might give more weight to Digg as opposed to another source. More news on this as the SEO community obtains more insight.

The benefits of a real time search component are obvious. Some examples are ski conditions, breaking news, surf information, tide conditions for fishing, etc…The possibilities are vast. Amongst all these benefits, however, are some potentially problematic issues. The most obvious one is spam. Twitter, Digg, and other social sites have been battling spam since their inception. The question becomes not how to stop the spam, but rather who should stop it. Do Twitter and Digg have to tighten the reins or is it Google’s responsibility to filter out spam through their algorithms? My personal opinion is that the responsibility lies with Google, however, I’m sure Google will be pressuring the most influential social sites to clean up their spam if they want to be included in real time search results.

Aside from the spam is the following concern:

Twitter Down...Again

Twitter is constantly going down due to “over capacity” issues.  While Google could be given priority over users in Twitter’s API, this is not a guarantee.  My personal opinion is that Google will not be granted priority as this will decrease much needed leverage to drive up the sell value of Twitter.  This would potentially force Google to increase their bid to acquire Twitter.

The final negative to real time search from Google is the monopoly they are creating.  Let’s face it- Google is the beast in the search community.  If an independent site invests the time and resources to come up with a good idea to improve search, it is likely that same feature appears on Google in the near future.  That being said, independent real time search sites such as OneRiot and Topsy, will take a huge traffic hit.  Granted, some users will prefer the clean cut interface those sites offer, but Google is set up to potentially knock these sites off the radar.  While business is business, this reality reduces the number of 3rd party developers who will invest their time and resources.  Those 3rd party developers are an important part of the internet community as a whole, and should be protected as such.

All in all, real time search from Google will make numerous improvements to search functionality.  It will also change the ways in which users interact and search through social media.  While the majority of this post hinges on the negatives of this new feature, their are major benefits which cannot be overlooked.  Spam filled or not, I will be checking ski conditions over the Christmas holiday using Google’s new real time search feature!

Have a different opinion?  Think I’m crazy? Challenging the opinions of fellow SEO’s in the community is one of our greatest strengths.  Please post in the comments or send an email to webmaster at SEO Lair dot com.

Google Real Time Search Revealed is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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Google's Twitter Algorithm

How will Google incorporate live twitter updates into their search algorithm?

News recently came out that Google and Bing will be featuring live twitter updates into their search results.  The big question here for SEO’s is how they will incorporate twitter into their algorithms.  In order to shed some light on the potential of Google’s Twitter Algorithm, I’ve looked at how different Twitter grader algorithms work and any additions to these that we might see go live.

One of the more popular site’s out there that will rank your Twitter profile is the Twitter Grader by the guys over at Hubspot.  Now while I wouldn’t suggest you optimize your Twitter profile for this tool, it is still useful for gauging success.  Over on their blog, Hubspot details what factors are part of their Twitter Grader’s algorithm.  Here’s a list of potential factors in the Google Twitter Algorithm:

1. Number of Followers: More followers leads to a higher Twitter Grade (all other things being equal). It is easy to game this (more on this in a later post) but never the less it is an important piece of the algorithm.

2. Power of Followers: The more followers the people following you have, the better.  This is a core part of Hubspot’s algorithm and will surely be part of the Google and Bing Twitter Algorithms as well.

3. Updates: More updates generally leads to a higher grade — within reason.  This is risky and potentially could reward twitter spam.

4. Update Recency: Users that are more current (i.e. time elapsed since last tweet is low) generally get higher grades.

5. Follower/Following Ratio: The higher this ratio, the better.  The weight of this factor decreases as the user excels in other areas of the algorithm (so, once a user gets to a high level of followers or a high level of engagement, the Follower/Following ratio counts less).

6. Engagement: The more retweets a user receives, the higher their grade.  This makes sense since the more references their are to your profile, the more powerful it potentially is. Further, the value of the engagement is higher based on who is being engaged. If a user with a very high Twitter Grade retweets, it counts more than if a spammy account with a very low grade retweets.

Of these 6 core Twitter metrics, some will be more useful than others.  I think the most important of these are engagement and power of followers.  Retweets will most likely turn into the equivalent of “inbound links” for normal sites.  Of the 6 above, update frequency will be counted the least as it will be extremely hard to control spam if this is a major factor.

Aside from these six metrics their are others that will most likely surface when Google and Bing launch their Twitter algorithms.  Two factors I would specifically like to touch on are relevancy and lists.

Relevancy: Relevancy is a huge part of Google’s current algorithm and it only makes sense that it will be included in the Twitter algorithm.  I foresee relevancy factoring in like this: What is the target profile tweeting about?  This will involve monitoring keyword density on all profiles.  Google will then look at your followers.  Is their “Tweet Density” similar to yours?  Google’s algorithm will reward people for having followers which are relevant.  If tweet a lot about SEO and have 600 followers yet 400 of those followers tweet mostly about furniture, the algorithm would reflect that.

Lists: Lists are a relatively new feature that most people don’t know what to make of.  I’m not sure how it will be incorporated, but it will be.  Here are some potential ways this could happen: A list to follower ratio.  This would record how many people following you have added you to a list.  I believe this metric has some serious value.  Another possibility could be a simple count of how many lists you’re on, however, by itself, I don’t believe that metric adds much value.

It will be interesting to see how Google’s Twitter Algorithm turns out.  I’m sure the obvious factors might change before this is truly incorporated into the engines.  If you have any opinions about which factors will be weighed more heavily than others, please post a comment!  With our minds combined, we might end up getting pretty close!

Google’s Twitter Algorithm is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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