Let’s Go Dancing With Google

admin    Google     Dancing, Google, Let's

A ‘Page Rank’ is a number Google gives to a web page that represents how important Google thinks the page is on the web. When one page links to another, Google considers it to be effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more ‘votes’ there are for a page across the whole web, the more important that page must be. But that’s quite an assumption, isn’t it? The importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote itself really is, meaning in Google calculations a page’s importance comes from the votes cast for it. These votes are then taken into account when the page is ranked.

So why does it happen? Well, Google pulls its results from over ten thousand servers, and they can’t all be updated at once – Google would have to go down for the update. Instead, each server is updated with the new index, one at a time. This can cause very strange behavior in the page rank process if two major sites located on separate servers happen to have a close linking bond.

Page Rank matters because it’s one of the most influential factors that determine a page’s ranking in Google’s search results. If you want to have good Page Rank, you’d better make sure people are linking to your site. Well, don’t jump the gun and try to get your site linked from everywhere you can, because Google doesn’t count every link. They have started filter out links from known ‘link farms’ (sites that are nothing but big lists of links), and being linked to or from these kinds of sites will get you penalized by Google. Be careful out there. They have also implemented a new relevance calculator that (true to its name) tries to determine how relevant the links into and out of your site are. The most important factor here is that Google considers long lasting links as more meaningful than a recently published link.

The best way to increase your page rank is to contact people with relevant and complementary content (that is, content that does not compete with your own but that enhances it). These links are most likely to last and they will not only increase your Google Page Rank, but they will also provide relevant hits via the links themselves.

The 10,000 servers that Google uses are distributed between seven datacenters all over the world. Google doesn’t keep all of those eggs in one basket – they want to be able to lose one datacenter and have the rest survive. If part of Google goes down, people can still use the search engine and as I said before, this allows your site to be accessed via related sites if the server holding your sites index happens to go down. The datacenters that Google has put into play are enormous in comparison to most datacenters around the world. Google rivals some of the largest datacenters in the world with each of its datacenters and is probably the largest in the world if all were combined into one.

The more links there are on a page, the less Page Rank value your page receives from them. You should also remember that it takes progressively more Page Rank to move up a level. It is generally pretty easy to achieve a Page Rank of three. Once you achieve a Page Rank of four, your site is getting formidable. Increasing past this mark may prove difficult and will require very important content. Reaching 8+ is very difficult. These ranks are usually reserved for sites that are crucial for the functionality of the internet.

The datacenters updating their indexes at different times causes Google to do its dance. Unless you’re looking for your website’s ranking, you’d never notice this as your site is normally available at all times. The unfortunate bit is that often times you will lose your page ranking for a short period of time or your site will seem to have a lower number of pages indexed by Google. If you insure that you have several hundred pages available on Google at all times you will most likely be able to provide all of your content at all times either directly or indirectly.

Page Rank Toolbar Let’s Put it to Bed

admin    Google     Let's, Page, Rank, Toolbar.

Page Rank – it is debated by SEO’s and misunderstood by website owners. At one point in time, Page Rank was the all important feature for determining where you ranked in search results. It was, by all calculations, a measure of the importance of a website.

So what good is Page Rank now?

Wondering whether a new website is worth your time? Use the Toolbar’s Page Rank display to tell you how Google’s algorithms assess the importance of the page you are viewing.

Google’s explanation of Page Rank on their toolbar feature page

Page Rank is perceived by many to be the yardstick with which to evaluate the importance Google gives to a web page.

An Example

I’ll give you an example. We have been working with a client in the insurance industry to bring their website into the top ten results. Following three months of hard work by my search engine promotion team, we lifted the site from Google obscurity to a first page listing. During our review meeting with our client, they raised a concern: one of their competitors had a higher Page Rank than their newly optimized site.

The fact that our client’s site was ranked above their competitors did not seem to matter. It was our client’s perception, particularly due to Google’s explanation of Page Rank, that their page was not as important.

Being in the search engine promotion industry, we know that the Google Page Rank display is insignificant, but those who are not in the industry do not know this. All they know is what Google tells them.

The Page Rank Display is Not an Importance Indicator

To demonstrate to our client that Page Rank does not measure how good a site is, we ran a test. Taking an unused domain we owned  added some nonsense text with links pointing to the same page. We added a couple of inbound links to get site indexed by Google, sat back, and waited.

Within five weeks that site, which was filled with nonsense, was given a Page Rank of 5/10. Many very important websites filled with important content and a lot of links are not given this high of a Page Rank, yet our useless website managed to achieve a high Page Rank.

If the Page Rank display really assesses the page importance, why would our useless website is counted as important? The fact is, the page is not important – despite what Google’s Page Rank display may tell us.

What is the Point of the Page Rank Display?

If a searcher is looking to make a purchase online and arrives at a website with the exact item that they are looking for at a favorable price, should they not buy the product if the Page Rank display gives them a low rating?

The only use of the Page Rank display would be for people who want to optimize their website for the search engines. Of course, if the Page Rank display is inaccurate as it was in the example given above, then it is of no use to optimizers as well.

Although Page Rank may still be a factor in how a website ranks in Google, the Page Rank display offers no tangible benefit. So let’s put the Page Rank display to bed.

Blended Search – Let’s Get Vertical

admin    Google     Blended, Let's, Search, Vertical

When consumers today search online for the products and services your business offers, you are not only competing with other web sites, you’re also competing with social networking profiles, online videos, blog posts, Twitter tweets, photo sharing sites, online news outlets, etc., all blended together on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

So how can your business optimize for all these different types of media now being included in the search results? By getting vertical.

Getting vertical is simply another way to think about your search engine strategy. Yes, you still need to effectively optimize your web site to do well in the search results. But in addition to that, you now must also optimize for the search “verticals” that contribute to blended search results as well.

For instance, Google determines its blended results (in part) by analyzing what ranks well in its search verticals, including image search, Google News, video search, and social networking information from Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed. That’s a lot of verticals to consider! But optimizing for blended search means that you need to have at least some sort of presence on these verticals to get Google’s attention and boost your position in the search rankings.

Social Networks

Since the major search engines now include real-time information from popular social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, your search engine rankings can definitely benefit from implementing a social networking strategy. By participating on social networking sites, you contribute a constant stream of fresh information that not only benefits your customers and followers, but also helps get (and keep) the attention of the search engines as they gather new information from these real-time sources.

The key to being successful on the social networks, however, is to implement an integrated strategy that combines all of your social marketing efforts together with your web site and with the other marketing activities you may already have established. (See our web site or blog posts on Integrated Social Marketing (ISM)® for more details on this concept).

Online Videos

Videos can be optimized for blended search, whether on a web site, in a blog post, on a social networking site, or uploaded to a video sharing site like YouTube. In fact, video sharing sites already have built-in features that make it easy for users to share videos with friends and followers. They also allow viewers to leave comments or forward video links to their lists of contacts.

When using videos in your search strategy, be sure to add relevant descriptions and title tags to your videos, and rename the video files to include your targeted keywords in the filename for an added boost. Re-use your videos in as many places on the web as you can, including embedding them in your web pages and integrating them with your Google Place pages to help build authority for the videos as well.

News Content

Another source of blended search results comes from content found in online news from mainstream media outlets, in Google News, and on a variety of online newswire services. One way for small businesses to get online news coverage is to submit press releases to online media outlets, both paid and free, as a way to build quality inbound links and get additional exposure online. You should also try to include video and images in your press releases whenever possible. Multi-media content tends to do well – especially in Google News – and it provides additional press release content that can be indexed in the search databases.

Images and Photos

There are several ways that you can use images to contribute to your results in blended search. First, your images and photos should have keyword-rich file names, such as “keyword.jpg” or “my_company_at_eventname.jpg” whenever possible. Also, be sure to use keywords in your HTML image alt tags and in the descriptions and captions of the photos as well. Then, you can share these photos on your web site, on your blog, on your Facebook page (and other social profiles), and upload them to photo sharing sites like Flickr. Encourage your visitors to leave comments, and also leave your own comments, since this type of participation will also help provide fresh content and gain attention from the search engines as they gather real-time search information as well.

Think Vertical

So if you are serious about improving your business’ positions in the search engine rankings, you will need to expand the way you think about optimizing your entire search profile online. The more you can do to optimize the search “verticals” (like social networking, video, images, etc.), the more influence you will have over what the search engines know about your business and its relevance to searchers today. Thinking vertical can help you stay competitive now that blended search means competing with more than just other web sites.