People give funny names to Google’s algorithm update. Be it “Jagger update” or “Hilltop update” This is called the Google “Farmer Update”. Do you know who gives names to Google algorithm updates? Many people in search marketing world don’t know how Google updates get their names. It all started in 2003 from WebmasterWorld.

In the blog post Google says “Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.”

So quite are the Google’s algorithm changes that few people notice them. But these recent algorithm changes has begun to show effects on various websites. This time “Content Farms” are Google’s target. Matt Cutts wouldn’t say that Algorithm update has targeted the content farms, but Danny Sullivan thinks Google has not targeted the farms so much as it aimed at the low quality content sites.

Who are content farms?
Content farms are websites which publish mass text content targeting top searched keywords on search engines. These text content pages are specially designed to rank high on top searched keywords and generate advertising revenue through visits from search engines. Some sites can be called content farms but have valuation worth of millions of dollars. eg:- ezinearticles.com.

Article directories are being hit particularly by “Farmer update”. Ezinearticles may see 50% drop in their organic traffic by end of this month. Many webmasters on Webmasterworld.com reports of traffic loss overnight and some say that they can’t adapt the algo so quickly. backdraft7 commented :-“Hey Google, this is not fun anymore – YOU’RE KILLING OUR BUSINESSES!”.

Content creators adhere to many legitimate ways to optimize their websites to get higher ranking in Google. But the search giant came cracking down on them as it sees it as inappropriate attempts to do. This update has upset many big players. Demand Media which has a market valuation of $1.9 billion more than New York Times Co already may have experienced fall in traffic according to a study done by a German seo firm as well as data pulled together by Compete.com for BNET.study done

Content Farms are always been controversial to Google as you can find well informative articles on them and some people claim that they amass large amount of content every day only to rank high on Google on as many keywords possible.

Personally I find many valuable articles in EzineArticles.com and other large content sites. There are also many articles I don’t find worth reading. The question is the Algorithm is targeting specific sites or specific pages? But as I read the Google blog I think the words used in the post tell us that this is site specific targeting rather than page specific.

A very important question “How Google will treat news sites & classified sites that have duplicate content?” News sites use PTI source for content, classified sites can have same listing as other classified sites as a advertiser may have posted the same content in more than one classified sites. What will Google do here as these are not illegitimate ways? Matt can you hear me?

As Google states: Any change to Google’s algorithm is a zero-sum game. Some websites win, some lose. Will this algorithm update have a lasting effect on search quality? Anytime Google updates its algorithm to clean its search results, those determined to beat it immediate adjusts.

And of course I pormise to blog more frequently now….

Nowadays we live in a transformed and different world.

The term “Social Media” was first introduced in 2006. Many experts credit this to Chris Shipley, the Co founder of Guidewire Group to be the first to describe the usage of blogs, networking sites or a social presence on the internet as “Social Media”. The best thing about it is that with very low or no cost you can build your brand and promote your business in a very relaxed social platform which has a more personal feel and gives opportunity to businesses to interact with their customers rather than directly throwing sales piches. The more attention you draw to your online business or website, the more genuine traffic you get on the website. That results in more sales and creates opportunities to scale up your online business.

There are 4 most important ways you can promote your business on the online social media platform.

1. Information, Information, Information

Consumers have become quite savvy over years. They don’t to be sold to, there are too many shysters and conmen that have made people more nervy about buying. Instead of trapped down by conventional “Buy Now ! Best Offer” and petty sales tactics, consumers are focusing into who can give them the best and reliable information. Today on the internet consumers have access to vast amount of information on a product before spending a single rupee. And the trick is by using social media platform you can share huge amount of information consumers are searching for without any start up costs. By providing valuable informations to consumers you are leading them to business connections, relationships, trust, and at last sales. There is a old saying, “If you want to sell a drill, teach people how to dig”.

2. Branding

These days people are making lots of money on the internet. The world is getting closer and closer and majority of the people on earth are online now. An entrepreneur who works from home with a small business is now able to define himself as an expert in his niche category. This is the best thing in social media, it allows small businesses or start ups to create and develop their own brand and the best thing is that you can control your brand awareness and marketing messages. You don’t need to be a big corporate house with loads of advertising budget to educate consumers about your particular niche. People always buy from people, so how you create the brand awareness is very important and crucial.

3. Leverage

Leverage is a measure of how revenue growth turns into earnings growth. It can be a ratio of fixed costs to variable costs incurred to generate the revenue. It allows you to use others to build or ‘leverage’ your exposure so for the same amount of work you get exponentially bigger results. Social Media is the perfect medium for this.

4. Trust

The point in doing all of this in a social media platform is to build relationships of trust with your people who are your potential customers. The more people you will connect with online on this social media platform the more you can communicate and share information with them. If they like your information they will instantly see you as a person or a brand trustworthy. And as I have already said, People buy from People”.

Social media has never been more powerful than now. With new methods evolving in online social media arena, social media optimization (SMO) has become the buzz word in the Internet marketing world. Social Media is definitely here to stay, could your business survive without it?

SearchWiki also allows you to post comments on results, such as notes to yourself, but you can also see what other people have said about them as well.

To get a better idea of how this thing works, watch the following video:

It seems like a strange move for a company that has focused so intently on the Middle Eastern and North African markets, with versions of Knol, Blogger, iGoogle, Docs, and, most recently, Chat in Arabic.

Remarkably, the block wasn’t the work of the Syrian government — which has banned numerous sites in the past, including Facebook, Skype, and several blogging platforms — but that of Google itself. Google had this to say:

“In accordance with US export controls and economic sanctions regulations, we are unable to permit the download of Google Chrome in Cuba, Syria, North Korea, Iran, and Sudan.”

Users are presented with this, and no further explanation:

It’s not the first time that Google has taken such action. Last year, the company justified restricting access to Google Earth in Sudan with practically the same statement.

Nor is Google alone. The Register reported in November 2007 that Yahoo and Microsoft removed Iran from the drop-down list that lets users choose their country of origin when signing up for web mail. Yahoo also referred to U.S. law in explaining its decision: “Because the United States restricts U.S. businesses from conducting business in certain countries, Yahoo also ensured that these countries do not appear in the drop-down menu.”

In the late 90s that some version of browsers came with licenses limiting their download to people in the United States because they contained certain levels of encryption, which the US government classified as weapons munitions. We don’t know why Google isn’t allowing for the download in the countries listed above. Is it an issue involving encryption? Is there some other reason?

Poverty has many causes, and shows many symptoms. Poverty is a lack of opportunity and education, an inability to receive fair treatment and a chance to grow and develop, a struggle to find food and clothing and shelter and medical care.

Access to information can make a positive difference for those who face poverty, and for those organizations that fight poverty, in many places around the world. I found myself pausing and wondering why Google would impose a limit on a tool that they offer that can allow people to access that information.

It seems silly to block the download of free and widely available software like Chrome, but we can’t blame companies for trying to comply with the law. However, information travels fluidly on the Net, so the law has a hard time keeping up. And that’s troubling, because the U.S. can be seen as inhibiting access to information or possibly even stifling free speech in the very countries whose censorship and repression it condemns.

Advertising Despite Blocks
Another curious aspect of this is that though Google blocks Syrians and Iranians from accessing these programs, it still serves them ads. Google AdWords ads appear on websites and blogs in Syria just as they do elsewhere.

Export Administration Regulations do restrict the dissemination of software that could, say, help build weapons, but make exceptions for “publicly available” programs, “the idea being that people are unlikely to disseminate free of charge the really significant technology,” according to the Harris Wiltshire & Grannis review. But review author Cecil Hunt explains: “For Iran and Syria, the availability of this exception is likely to be moot, due to the pervasive embargo administered by [the Office of Foreign Asset Controls] OFAC.” OFAC administers U.S. trade sanctions programs.

What Do the Blocks Accomplish?
So what if Syrians and Iranians can’t use Chrome? There are a lot of other browsers and software out there not subject to U.S. law. Google, which had earned a reputation to be the good guys gave the impression that they depart from the big corporation mentality and attitude, which gave them credit in this part of the world. For that reason you don’t hear of someone boycotting a Google service or product.

It is a pity that a technology which could help understanding among people and help one to educate himself is submitted to the shortsightedness of today’s politics.
Google was created by a bunch of “cool guys”. They turn to be less and less cool and more and more in the surveillance industry. ]]> http://anirbandas.com/blog/google-chrome-blocked-in-syria-iran/07/11/2008/feed 0 http://anirbandas.com/blog/seo-or-ppc-the-argument-continues/05/11/2008 http://anirbandas.com/blog/seo-or-ppc-the-argument-continues/05/11/2008#comments Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:29:00 +0000 Anirban http://anirbandas.com/blog/seo-or-ppc-the-argument-continues/05/11/2008 Still not sure about search engine optimization (seo) or pay-per-click (ppc) programs? Well, you’re not alone. There is lots of companies who want to promote in internet are confused. Its one of the most ridiculous arguments you will sometimes see on business forums is that of SEO vs PPC. Some PPC specialists will argue that what SEO may deliver is so vague, that PPC is the only way to go because it’s easier to measure. Some SEO specialists that SEO is more cost effective, therefore SEO in the only way to go because it has a lower CPA. Both arguments are based on empty bias, and to rely on just a single marketing channel – not least SEO – is a precarious way to engage in marketing. SEO and PPC are both valid marketing channels, and as such, a company looking to market on the internet should ideally look to leverage PPC and SEO campaigns, amongst others.

Search engine marketing consist of two basic forms, SEO or search engine optimization and pay per click advertising or PPC. While many passionately claim one is better than the other the simple facts can be hard to come by. For any business owner who is new to search engine marketing, it is easy to get overwhelmed and lost in the argumentation or just avoid the choice all together.

Some experts believe that businesses get more out of paying for the targeted traffic that comes to Web sites from a pay per click advertising campaign, others point out that SEO or search engine optimization impacts where a Web site ranks naturally in the search engines and can thereby increase the credibility of a company. Fortunately, there is one thing that the experts all agree on: if a company has a Web site, they need a way for potential customers to find them on search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN who control nearly 80% of the search market.

Ask ten companies whether they have a search engine marketing strategy and nine will say No. Ask the same people how they find information for the products and services they need and they’ll tell you they use a search engine. So why do they expect their prospects to be any different? A research found that search engines and directories provided over 40% of all sites surveyed with 50% or more of their traffic. Furthermore, these visitors represent a targeted highly qualified prospect that likely would not have found these sites if a search engine marketing program had not been implemented.

OK, you’re now convinced that search engines are important. So should you spend your scarce marketing dollars on optimizing your website to achieve higher rankings? Or should you use the pay-per-click paid listings programs? What about doing both?

The SEO versus PPC “controversy”
On the one hand some argue that search engine optimization and paid inclusion is a waste of time. Optimization firms can’t do much to improve a Google ranking and with search engines having prominently positioned paid results SEO will be a thing of the past.

Others argue that while search engine optimization may take longer to achieve results and can’t guarantee placement it is a long term, very cost effective investment much like public relations and should be an important part of your marketing mix.

If a person had asked me a few years ago whether SEO is complimentary to paid search or asked a SEO professional whether a person must even do PPC (Pay Per Click aka SEM aka Search Engine Marketing), I am sure both of us would not have given a positive opinion of the other.
One reason for this could have been that SEO is the grandfather of search and it is nearly as old as the search engines themselves, while PPC is only less than six years old. Many SEO professionals detested search engines for introducing paid search and firmly believed that it was a temporary phenomenon – if the SEO firms would have truly supported paid search from the beginning, specialist paid-search companies would have found it difficult to prosper.
The following discussion will help settle the controversy.

Traditional search engine optimization
First let’s define traditional SEO. Search engine optimization is the process of fine tuning (i.e. optimizing) your web site to reflect specific keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business and for which you want to attract visitors to your site who are searching for such words.
This optimization relates to a variety of elements, not only on your web site’s homepage, but its sub pages as well. Those elements can include things like meta tags, link structure, link popularity and the content of the site itself.

Once your web site is properly optimized, the goal then is to make sure that each of the top crawler based search engines find your site and add as many pages as possible in their indices. These engines will usually start with your home page and then work their way to other pages of the site.

Search engine optimization also involves making sure your site is listed in the major directories such as Yahoo and Open Directory to name a few. Other elements of SEO include monitoring you’re positioning in the search engines, making adjustments as necessary to your site to stay in the top positions and submitting to new engines or directories that come along as well.

Pay Per Click
Pay per click or PPC is a service in which an advertiser selects specific keywords or phrases and then creates a listing that will show up when someone searches for that phrase.

The advertiser selects an amount they are willing to pay for each click on their listing that results in a visit to their site – thus the term “pay per click”. If other advertisers have selected the same keyword or phrase as yours, you then compete against them for the highest position. Whoever is willing to spend the most shows up first with the others following in order.

What makes PPC attractive is that paid listings are distributed (syndicated) to other partner sites. In fact, if you bid for one of the top three positions at Overture (as an example), your listings will also show up at some of the leading search engines including Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista, HotBot, Infospace, iWon, Lycos, and others. Therefore if you bid for top placement at Overture, you will show up at these partner sites as well.

What PPC has allowed you to do is instantly “pay” your way to the top whereas traditional SEO takes time and effort.

The Case For SEO
First of all you must understand that PPC will never help improve your positioning in the regular editorial search results. PPC results always appear in a “Sponsored or Featured” area, which is usually at the top or side of the regular search results.

While it is nice to “show up first” there are still a lot of users that do not click on the “paid” listings but rather will search through the regular editorial search results. The only way to get optimized (high) rankings in these regular editorial results is through an effective SEO program. In most cases, once you have good positioning in the regular search results, you will continue to receive “free” traffic. Obviously, when you stop paying for PPC, it disappears and so does the traffic it brings.

Consider search engine optimization the same as you would word of mouth advertising or public relations. It’s exposure that comes with a very high degree of credibility and trust. Traffic coming from traditional search listings tends to have high conversion rates.

There’s another advantage to traditional search listings. They are considered unbiased and non-commercial. Traditional search performs very well at certain points in the buying process. When consumers are gathering information about a purchase, they show a marked preference for traditional search listings. When they are ready to buy online, they seem to have less bias against paid placement listings and their likelihood to click on one of these listings increases.
Perhaps the most compelling reason not to exclude SEO from your online marketing strategy comes down to dollars and cents. The following case study provides a very compelling argument for traditional SEO:

This Company has been an aggressive search engine marketer for a number of years. A few years ago they discovered Overture and aggressively bid for keywords.
About a year ago, they were ready to drop their traditional SEO campaign, feeling that it wasn’t really effective given the new PPC environment. Before they did that they decided to continue with SEO and to track the traffic coming from traditional SEO compared to the PPC traffic. The results were surprising.

In one thirty day period, for the company received a total of 5,538 visitors from search engines. 2,552 of these came from his PPC advertising on Overture, Google AdWords and other engines, which cost a total of $2,169.20 for the one month. The average cost per visitor? $0.85. With his traditional SEO, he received 2,986 visitors, at a monthly cost of $533 (including all related submission fees), and an average cost per visitor of $0.18. What’s more, the traditional SEO visitors had a higher conversion rate than PPC visitors, at 2.3% vs.1.4% respectively. This client is now a firm believer in the power of SEO.

While in the example above it is clear that SEO was the better performer, there are two major drawbacks to traditional SEO. It often takes a number of months to achieve initial results and it’s not an easy strategy to control. That said, while it may not be quick and easy, it is still possible to influence search engine rankings (even Google’s). How? By simply giving the search engines what they want to see.

Don’t let a web designer dictate your marketing strategy. Web site designers often have no idea how search engines work or what their capabilities are. They have other goals in mind when designing their sites, such as:

• Presenting the site in an interesting and unique way.
• Getting the maximum impact from the available screen real estate.
• Using available design techniques to get their message across.
• Handling content in an efficient manner.

All very important objectives, but often at cross purposes with effective “search engine friendly” design.
Designers will often use Flash, java or DHTML navigation tools, frames, dynamic content management or other techniques to get the most out of their site design. Each of these presents a challenge to search engine spiders. Most of the sites we look at have not even considered the basics in search engine friendly design during their construction. Content is completely hidden from search engine. Search Engine Optimization can help you maintain the site’s appeal while improving its performance with search engines.

A final advantage of search engine optimization is that a better site and more extensive content will make it more likely it is found not just for your primary key words but also many secondary key words. This incremental traffic doesn’t have the same conversion rates as the traffic that comes looking for your main words, but it’s also free.

The Case for PPC
While SEO does not put you in the driver’s seat, Pay per click (PPC) gives you the ability to have complete control over your search traffic. With PPC programs you select the keywords and write the listings. You control where you’re listed and what the listing says. You decide what your budget is and can adjust your spend rate based on results or events (e.g. announcements, promotions).

By tracking results from a PPC campaign, you can build up a knowledge base with respect to your business, including which messages perform the best, which search terms have the best conversion rates, and what destination URL is best for specific users to land on. Over time, this knowledge can help you to improve and define your business.

Tracking also allows you to understand your ROI from a specific marketing initiative and gives you confidence to spend money and drive volume. You may have thought that spending $10,000 a month on a PPC campaign is way outside your budget, but once you measure the ROI, you may realize that it’s well worth the investment.

Check out many of the search providers (e.g. MSN, Alta Vista, Lycos) and you have to do some scrolling before you can find their editorial (i.e. free) results. Their first page is dominated by their own and Overture’s paid listings. Search engine providers depend on advertisers for their revenue. Paid search listings will continue to command more and more real estate on search results pages across the web because they make the search engines money.

Why would a user click on a paid result when they could be clicking on an unpaid (more objective) result? While it’s often true that when a user is searching for information they may prefer unpaid results, when that user is interested in acquiring a product or service a relevant paid result is just as appealing, if not more appealing.

Finally, PPC programs give you immediate results. Once you’ve selected your keywords and written your copy it is only a matter of hours or days before your site is placed and the leads start coming in. And you can terminate the listings anytime you want.

PPC or SEO?
Actually, that depends. If you need to improve the quality and quantity of your lead flow as soon as possible then PPC is the right answer. If you want to insure that you have the highest ROI, enhance your branding and get an optimized conversion rate then SEO makes a lot of sense. For most companies it will be a combination of the two. SEO and PPC are complementary. In fact, a PPC program can help identify the most successful search terms, copy and call-to action and can then be used to optimize the site. PPC budgets can be adjusted up (and down) based on results, including the improvements delivered through SEO. The bottom-line is that you should spend your marketing dollars on the venues that deliver positive ROI. A campaign that includes both PPC and SEO helps you to saturate search result pages with your listings. As long as both remain profitable (which is easily trackable), both should remain a priority.

The Bottom Line
Search engine marketing, Whether through SEO or PPC or both, should be a fundamental component of your overall marketing mix. Search engine users have chosen to use the Internet to research an issue or solve a problem. They are the ultimate in qualified prospects. These visitors are well along the sales cycle as a result of having taken the initiative to use a search engine to solve their problem. These are buyers.

After spending tens of thousands of dollars or more developing a website, businesses often discover that the site is invisible to the major search providers. Failing to take your website’s visibility into consideration when making development decisions is expensive mistake, both in real dollars and opportunity costs. By recognizing both the importance and the need of search engine marketing in the development of your website, you hold a significant advantage.
Only one of two outcomes is possible each time a prospect performs a search:

• They will find your website.
• They will find a competitor’s website.

I think I know which outcome I’d prefer.

I was surfing as usual and dashed through a report on email marketing effectiveness. Email marketing is still a far fetched route of marketing in India. Every comapny have email campaigns but dont focus on that much. And still people think email marketing ROI is less than all the othet modes of reaching out to the customers, its like knocking on the door of a potential customer and yell like a vegetable vendor (in india vegetable vendors walks down the neighbourhood to sell vegetables by yelling at their top of the voice, mouthing wierd pronounciations of names of vegetables and in deifferent frequencies.) and say “Alloo le lo, swasth sunder sodol aloo le lo”.

These days, just about every profession and industry has an email marketing campaign. What is the thing with email marketing? Why is everyone exploiting the seemingly cheap opportunity of advertising? Recent estimates have shown that email marketing is one of the cheapest forms of advertising that has ever existed. Next to “word of mouth” which has an intensely exponential viral effect, email marketing take sits in its rightful place. Almost everyone has an email these days. What is the cost of the email? Sometimes, nothing. Currently, over 186 million people have email addresses in the United States and an estimated 1.2 billion worldwide. This means that approximately one in every six people on earth has an email. The potentials of email marketing are staggering. Never in the history of mankind has such an avenue to sell and market one’s products to a huge audience presented itself as it has this time. As a result, people are harnessing the potentials of email marketing which is still growing.

The report on email marketing which I mentioned in the second paragraph had quite interesting facts. According to the study, e-mails sent from “legitimate” e-mail servers averaged a delivery rate of 56 percent. 20 percent were rejected; 8 percent filtered out of the inbox. The rest — 16 percent — were bounces.

So nearly half of the time, e-mail marketers’ messages don’t get through. But there are ways to increase deliverability. Here are five:

1. Make sure your e-mail server—or ESPs—is configured correctly. If you maintain your own e-mail server, it’s crucial that it’s set up correctly. This means making sure your reverse DNS settings, which map an IP address to a host name, are correct and use your domain name. You don’t want to have a big string of numbers. You want it to say, ‘mail.domainname.com’. Otherwise you may be classified as an illegitimate server.

2. Keep your unknown user rate down. When you send a message to an illegitimate email addy, the ISP or server handling it keeps track of that delivery attempt. Log too many of those attempts and you might be put on a blacklist — worse still, blocked at the server level.

If either of those things occurs, none of your emails to that domain or ISP will get through.

Fake emails aren’t the only worry. This can also happen when e-mail recipients change jobs or don’t log in to their email address frequently. Your best bet is to check for unknown users after every mailing and remove them immediately. Your IT person or ESP can provide you with a list of bounced e-mail addresses and help you remove them.

3. Track your reputation. Many email deliverability services track email senders’ reputations based on information like inclusion on blacklists, complaint rates and e-mail volume. Keeping a vigilant guard of your reputation score gives you a better sense of your deliverability rates; one tends to correlate with the other. It’s definitely a case of the higher the score, the higher the deliverability.

4. E-mail often. If you don’t email your list often enough, addresses go stale and you may end up with a higher number of undeliverable messages. And even if some messages do get through, recipients may forget they signed up for them and report you as a spammer. Reach out to your list at least quarterly, but monthly is better.

5. Don’t get caught in a spam trap. ISPs and large domain holders sometimes set up “spam traps,” placing email addresses that don’t belong to anyone on their homepage or around the web to thwart spammers engaged in email harvesting.

You might inadvertently mail one of these addresses if someone maliciously puts one on your list or if a legitimate e-mail address is entered incorrectly. There are two ways to prevent this problem: implement a double opt-in so every email address on your list is verified; or send double opt-in messages from a separate domain and a separate IP address.

Double opt-in also serves as a handy defense against blacklisting: If you do hit a spam trap and get on a blacklist, you can go to the ISP or the domain owner and say, ‘This is my confirmed opt-in welcome stream. I can’t control what people input. That’s why I have a double opt-in in place’.

The ISP sees you’re trying to do the right thing and, as long as you provide some evidence that that’s what you’re doing, you won’t have a problem getting off the blacklist. And at the same time, the rest of your e-mail list is safe.

Hope these 5 points will help you all who are refrained from magic of email campaigns.