Posts by jay 11

Wow - fantastic and insightful data. Thank you for sharing! I especially found this to be staggering...

"Globally, of the 1.1 billion aged 15 and older who accessed the Internet in May 2009, 734 million visited at least one social networking site during the month. That’s equal to a penetration of 65% of the worldwide Internet audience..."

Seeing as how the success of these social networks rely on the laurels of their users, I wonder what new developments we will see to help keep users loyal and engaged? It will also be interesting to see how the social landscape evolves parallel to new gadgets such as netbooks and better smartphones.

Google Toolbar PageRank has no bearing on how your website will rank in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). It is merely a measurement of "relative importance" to Google. Web pages that have a higher PR than other web pages will NOT necessarily outrank those pages in the SERPs. Why? Because the lower ranked pages may have a much higher quality of content and keyword relevance.

Thanks for for the pragmatic advice. Can you tell me that how much time It would take?

Using Google Sitemaps, your pages can be crawled and indexed within a day or two.

that's a good question. Aside from conversion.. i'd have to say Reach. If there were a way to truly show how many users saw a social ad or a sponsored tweet, i think that would be a nice KPI.

sure! i think i can abstain from updating my facebook or twitter status while on a trip to Nevernever Land. :) Quite frankly, I think if you are busy updating your social media profiles, you clearly aren't adventuring enough. Put the phone down people!!

yea - i'm mostly in donaldw's camp... i rarely click on any ad, let alone a FB one.. although i have to say.. some of the Facebook ads are extremely relevant and targeted. To the point where it's almost creepy. Guess that's what you get for sharing personal information.

There was a new article posted today about this on BusinessWeek.

Personally, i don't think Apple will drop Google on the iPhone. Although.. to me it seems that if Apple wanted to better compete with Google's new mobile developments, they should drop their exclusivity contract with AT&T.

But it looks like a good phone though, social media is bugging me these days, takes too much of my time to hang around on these networks.

i agree - they can be a major time suck. At the very least I use them as extensions to my traditional marketing campaigns. Should you have a strong following, they can be effective tools for broadcasting your message.

Join Discussions over at Yahoo! Answers – Providing useful answers, along with a link is an easy way to earn a back-link.

Pretty sure "Y! Answers" links are nofollow.. right?

big fan of TweetDeck. Love how you can integrate, manage and monitor multiple accounts - as well as post directly and simultaneously to both Twitter and Facebook.

Link Building is one of the most important factors when a webmaster wants to achieve good search engine rankings. No matter if is on google, bing or yahoo, solid backlinks can win the "top 10 race"

Isn't the most important factor for ranking - the ability to provide a useful and worthwhile resource? It seems without that, all the links on the web won't get you very far...

The absolute best sites to post comments on are the site you genuinely have interest in. Not only will your consistent comments be rewarded with replies, but you will also establish yourself within the community - thus earning trust and returned interest in your potential offering. Comment to be heard and you will be rewarded much more than if you are commenting just for a link.

Write articles and post them on article repository sites like GoArticles with a link back to the forum.

Hi mackone, i really value your insights here and i'm interested to learn if article submissions really have any SEO impact. It is my understanding that once you submit your unique content to a variety of article directories, the content no longer becomes unique or original - thus diluting the value of the links. Is this true?

I wonder if it would be better to host the article on your own site, market and spread the word about it; and if the article is worthwhile, it will earn citations and drive a lot more qualified traffic to your site. What do you think?

Actually posting on those link farms may be deleterious for your SEO rankings.

i agree with InsightsDigital. Link farms tend to link to EVERYTHING - including low quality, spammy websites. Google and other major search engines can see this and consider the directory a "bad neighborhood" - thus negatively impacting your sites rankings.

If you are planning on submitting to directories, it is best to obtain citations from those that have editorial integrity and have established themselves as a quality resource. A directory that rejects spammy, low quality website submissions is a directory worth submitting to in my opinion.

I can nearly bet that the most answer will be that seo-guru uses no software and do everything by hands ))
Absolute best 2 tools out there are:
1) The Human Brain
2) Experience

Ha - nice! ;)

Oh I know, thanks, but what is the best way to organize the data and consolidate the insights?

If you know how to work good 'ol Excel, you can really get jiggy with how you organize and display the data. Could even use graphs and charts.

So I read all this news about Google's new phone - Nexus. I do wonder if users will sign up so they cna be more connected to their social communities?http://www.google.com/phone

I am psyched for this phone to come out for the Verizon network (this spring). I plan on dumping my blackberry shitStorm and going with the Nexus. Not necessarily to be more connected though.. instead, i just think it will be a better functioning phone. The Android OS is appealing - as you can integrate Google Voice, Goggles, and Maps seamlessly. In time, I really think the Nexus One (or some other Google phone) will compete right next to the iPhone.

Sounds similar to billboard advertising. Haven't tried it but i think it would be somewhat effective - especially if the advertising website had some sort of religious theme.

i think it boils down to the good'ol adage of "a social network only being as good as it's users." When Twitter burst onto the scene i thought "what a stupid and narcissistic idea." Status updates? Really? Who cares!

But as more and more legitimate users adopted the technology, it became more and more useful - and so I started using it as well. Now it seems that everyone (including every news site and nearly every business) has a presence on Twitter and/or Facebook.. and for good reason! They can be incredibly useful tools for keeping up with news headlines, friends, family, stocks, and anything else you're interested in. Not to mention the business side of things, where you can network, brand and reach a specific audience. So yea... because of the amount of users and quality of users, i would say that some of these social media venues definitely deserve a hype. :)

i dunno.. what if everyone in the world had an xbox? MW2 might have taken the cake! :)

Build quality backlinks through blogging, bookmarking, article submission, forums, etc.

in my opinion, the definition of a quality backlink is one which is earned, not sought after.

Very much so, Jay. You never know when you become well known or someone who shares your own name have a life that you dont have/or want, this way, you can prevent that person from getting a site and becoming searchable.

Ah true... didn't think of it that way :)

Today, The Nielson Company actually reported some search data for December 2009. It showed that Google's search share surged from 65.4% to 67.3% (almost two full points) while both Bing and Yahoo lost market share.

So it would seem that Bing's recent surge was short-lived.

Funny you say this.. i just had to renew the registration on my name domain. :)

I wonder though - how does this safegaurd my presence? Are you suggesting that someone could buy someone else's name and defame them on the web?

Engage twitter with a beginner’s mind. Give what you want to receive by helping and praising others. You will get help and praise in return. Also, focus on adding useful content and keep a positive state of mind.

... I have seen significant SEO improvements exclusively through nofollowed links!!!

This is very interesting to me. If 'nofollow' means that Google will not follow the links, transfer PR, or chart the anchor text; And you have no other links coming to the page/site (or any sitemaps established), How could this impact SEO?

If i had to guess, they must be accounting for the citations and user traffic. I'd love to hear others take on this...

If you build this page to primarily please the reader and secondarily the SE's what you now have is a page that will generate traffic on a continuing basis for you and you don't have to constantly baby sit it.

Well said HomeBizAdvisor! I agree.

Does anyone know about the legalities of storing credit card information to use later? Specifically, we want to start accepting political donations but our Click and Pledge account is not set up yet. Can we create a database to store the credit cards and amounts and then, acting as the donor themselves, enter that information into our Click and Pledge site?

Not sure about the legaleze but I would NOT charge the donor on a date that is much later from when they originally authorized payment. This can cause a variety of problems, like the donor changing his/her mind, or insufficient funds when you finally go to charge the donor. It's pretty customary to bill the customer/donor on or very close to the time they authorize payment.

hope this helps! :)

Quick question - how many new back links per day to do you think is a good rule of thumb - through social bookmarking, forums, etc. ?

3 - 5 / day ?

Look to obtain links naturally. Obtaining links artificially via discussion forum threads, and/or signatures is a waste of time. Whether your getting 3-5 or 100 links per day, the SE's are a lot smarter than they were 2-3 years ago. Forum links hold little to no weight when it comes to SE ranking - so you would most likely be spinning your wheels.

Most social networks nowadays are 'no follow' (at least the good one's are) - so if you are gonna get involved, go into it for the branding, reach, and potential traffic.

So, after reading all these posts, does no-follow link contributes to the pr? If so, why so many forums and blogs wanna put the no-follow attribute in their pages? :?:

They add 'no follow' to encourage honest participation. In other words, they do not want people commenting who are only looking to get a link. Quite frankly, I would do the same if it were my blog.

Does anyone know if the iSlate will have satellite connectivity (or 3G)? I read the Times article, and while it mentions that it can function as a phone, I am wondering if it will be able to access the internet like a phone?

you can get many seo friendly backlinks to your website

It is my understanding that links from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Digg are No Follow. Can you specify how exactly one obtains "seo friendly" citations using social networks?

Ultimately - i wouldn't worry about Google PageRank. It has absolutely no baring on where your site will appear in Google SERPs. I've seen thousands of cases where pages with lower PageRank appear before pages with higher PageRank in Google search result pages.

Any lists out there of good quality directories ?

dmoz.org
botw.org
dir.yahoo.com
business.com
vlib.org

When you say post in 5 directories / day - what kind of directories are you talking about ?

I heard posting in the business type directories gets you banned on Google ?

Looking for advice.

Submitting your website(s) to directories will NOT get you banned. However, when it comes to Google, they suggest that you only submit to established directories that have editorial integrity. In other words, submit to directories that have been around for a long time and actually Reject spammy websites. A directory that links to everyone is a link farm. Google says, don't bother with link farms.

It could be that your site is in their database but it isn't Live (for whatever reason). Did you try contacting the directory? Also - try to search for your website's domain (for example - 'yourwebsite.com'). That is often the best way to find your site in a directory.

#1. Blog commenting is Not considered spam. However, so many online users comment for the sole purpose of obtaining backlinks, instead of genuinely contributing to a blog post. This is widely recognized as "comment spam." Because of this, blog authors employ "no follow" on their blog comments AND Google recognizes comment spam as a problem - so they do Not use the links as ranking factors. They might see them, but they mostly disregard them.

#2. Google does Not use Meta Keywords in web ranking (as per Google Engineer Matt Cutts). The Meta Description, if crafted well, could be used as part of the snippet that is returned on Google's Search Engine Result Pages. It is my understanding that both Meta Keywords and Descriptions do not have very much ranking power.

i also want to know the same.
also i want to know that what is the difference between "Site page rank and Page pagerank"?

There is no such thing as 'site pagerank.' Instead, think of your website in pages. The homepage is separate from and internal page and is therefor ranked differently.

Social networking is very effective way for getting quality back links and get high pr for the page

Really? Can you be more specific on the process of using Social Networking to earn web citations and links?

Could someone explain how to best build backlinks?

Hi AnnekeR, I see that you recently posted about how you get backlinks by posting in forums? - http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post1083837.html#post1083837

Is this no longer working for you or are you just posting for the sake of getting your signature links out there? :)

Does traffic correlate directly with PR or does PR mainly mean lots of links?
You can certainly have lots of links, but that does not necessarily mean traffic, am I correct? I have a PR 5-6 site, but traffic is low now how can I generate more traffic? Increase the importance of linking pages, in other words, link with pages that are higher PR ?

We recently covered this here - http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread234960.html

Probably the best way of getting listed and achieving success on the World Wide Web is to create something of value for people. Instead of phishing or bartering for links, you could focus all that attention on building something worthwhile and coming up with marketing strategies that actually work. Spread the word naturally and if your product or service is of merit, people will visit, revisit, and willing link to you.

Always remember that links should always made with text. We can use images but it is not at all effective for optimization purposes.

I respectfully disagree. I find that it is perfectly acceptable to link using images. If you want to tell the search engines (and those that are visually impaired) what the image is about, simply use 'alt' text.

Furthermore, I would also say that most of the time, your site's internal link structure is more important than any external link. Crafting a natural and logical link structure will help both users and search engines navigate your site.

Link building takes you to the top on Google Pagerank.

PageRank? you mean that little green indicator in the Google Toolbar? Is that how CNN got to a PR10? By link building? Or perhaps it was the content...

Now a days Social media is also an important tool of SEO becz it generates lot of traffic to your site

Actually, what i think you meant to say is that Social Media will help brand and expand the reach of your company. Participating in social media really doesn't impact your rankings in the search engines. As a by product, it may generate some web citations, which could be picked up by Search Engines. But for the most, Social Media is just another platform to broadcast your message from.

Creating unique, compelling, well-optimized content generates the best type of links, the naturally generated type. This is the basis to which off-site ranking influences factor into the keyphrase ranking game; which many SEOs seems eager to exploit. Linking strategists deceive the search engine into thinking that their webpages are important because of the volume, credibility and relevancy of the incoming link sources. Rather than create content worthy of naturally generated links, they try to cheat; to make magic - making something important out of nothing.

Exactly - and what's interesting, is that the SE's are getting better and better at catching on and displaying what's really important at the top of their results.

I read an interesting post today by Robert Scoble, whom i mostly share little in agreement with, but it certainly made me think about how SEO, in the traditional sense, is becoming less and less important - while the need to create something worthwhile is and really has always been the best way to get to the top.

Do they process the card information or do they just pass the information to the payment gateway? and do payment gateways send back a response so that my site can dynamically offer the site they bought for download?

You'd probably get the products through some sort of API - in which case payments would be processed on their end. They assign each affiliate with an id, so any sale referred from that ID gets commissioned. And yes - the system is most likely automated and advanced enough where you could send custom notifications to the user who purchased the item on your site.

Hi,

I own an undeveloped domain that generates roughly 25 direct visits per day that I'd like to park (I do get another 50 visits from google every day, but I guess they will fall off when the domain is parked?). The general consensus seems to be that different domain parking services generate different revenue depending on which keywords your visitors are interested in. Thus, my question is: which service would be to prefer for a domain name suitable for a file sharing site?

Also, I've heard ppc:s and ctr:s for these kind of sites are extremely low. Considering how many visitors I receive, roughly how much revenue should I expect?

As you probably can tell, I'm a complete newbie when it comes to domain parking. Hence, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi kotr, thanks for posting. Unless you get heavy type-in traffic (user types your URL into a browser), I really wouldn't expect to generate a significant amount of revenue from a parked domain. Your google traffic will drop off once they discover the domain has been parked. Personally, I usually try to sell my domains before I try to park them, but if I were to park a site - i would first look into my hosting provider to see if they offered an option (just because it is easier), then i would look into SEDO or GoDaddy.. just because i've heard of them.

established human edited ......... good guess!!

the way of google to say all and nothing.... tipical google policy

Well.. their definition of an established human edited directory is one that has and adheres to editorial guidelines... and has been around long enough to establish trust with the search engines.

It's tough to gage the impact of just one link - or even a handful of links - but Google does recommend that site owners submit to established human edited directories. After all, a link is a link - and a listing in a relevant category of a quality directory, should help increase exposure for your website.