Google Hypocrisy Exposed Again!

Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2011 Comments
Labels: buysafe, Google evil, Google hypocrisy

Greed is the discorded love of Google. The phrase that may not sound good to many watchdogs of the search engine but it’s actually true. There are many instances that prove Google favors brands and the company aims at smaller business to have its goose producing more golden eggs. First it was China that exposed Google hypocrisy and now buySafe!

In digital world, the Pareto Rule (80/20) does not hold true especially in search business. Google knows 20/80 rule works in virtual world and it’s always about ‘Long Tail’.

Google apparently favors big brand more on organic than on sponsored search that is being perceived as a discouraging tactic for smaller businesses which is definitely NOT from Google perspectives. The objective behind this sudden love of Google for brands is not due to ‘trust’ but due to 'moolah'. O..La la..! Big brands rely more on other marketing channels than on search engines. They care less if their sites rank on Google or not. Then who cares? Of course small businesses that can’t afford large multi-channel marketing investment and therefore relies so much on search engines, especially on Google, for their business.

The strategy is clear now. The search engine does not want smaller businesses (large in number) to rank on organic search results rather wants them on ‘sponsored slot’ to have goose producing more golden eggs.

The watchdog of search quality always hints at ‘Quality’ as an important ranking signal but to me and many of us, quality is a subjective term that is subject to debate. Not necessarily all that is liked by online users is quality and vice versa. What is quality from Google’s perspectives? To me, quality refers to how many products/services of Google that a business consumes. If a business spends a large volume of money on AdWords, uses ‘Check Out’, become partner and affiliate, uses Google Merchant service, etc, Google treats it as Quality! We often fall in debate and discussion of doing X for Y and try to solve the mysterious puzzle of the search engine’s algorithm.

A Bully Finds a Pulpit on the Web, published in the New York Times is one such instance where Google faced the faux pas. Another such recent incident can be found when a company named buySafe is filing a case against Google over their “Trusted Stores Program.” buySafe is a company that addresses the concerns of online shoppers by providing third party certification and transactional guarantee for internet retailers.

Google tried hard for a joint venture with buySafe in 2006 and 2008. When failed on this front, Google launched its Trusted Stores Program which is similar to buySafe’s program. The ONLY advantage with Google is that it would ask e-retailers enrolling for the program to get favor both in organic ranking and in advertisement slot.

Matt Cutts always says Google values a trusted site. With this program, Google will certify which eCommerce site is trusted or which is not, right Matt? Is the same ‘trust’ you are talking about? I’d not say much except quoting Karl Marx who said ‘capitalism contains the seed of its own destruction. To me, its hypocrisy while for many it may be stupidity! What do you think?

Google 2012 –Predictions from Marketing Perspectives

Posted on Monday, December 26, 2011 Comments
Labels: google 2012, google algorithm change 2012, google prediction, google seo prediction

Google 2012!

Do you want to know what what might change in Google 2012? Although, a few might not come true yet I see these predictions something worth to have them for our knowledge. Please, see below the top 20 Google Predictions 2012 I have made!

Deploy more human editors than automated algorithm to perform quality audit.
Google tops brands on search results and gives more AdWords options to branded companies compared to smaller brands.
Throws fresh results (15-20% search queries)! The archive rule gets relaxed to freshness although a bit.
The area of rich snippets shall be expanded and description holds less significance while title continues to hold importance in Meta data.
Usability and social engagement of the website continue to be preferred.
Google might display sites quite often on search results which are G+ integrated than Facebook. Facebook from Google might get thumbs down on search results. Google might introduce +tag similar like (#) twitter hash tag.
Wikipedia's result might get down for many generic queries. Brand/scholarly written posts come up above the Wikipedia.
Google might come up with rigorous spam policy to remove objectionable content than continuing following the same guidelines. A major change in user-generated content guidelines can be expected.
Google will continue to consider CTR more seriously as an important factor while displaying organic search results of a website.
Google might look at returning visitors in analytics to determine its preference. If a site has more returning visitors with less bounce rate, Google might give preference to such site over others.
Google prefers a website that is mobile-optimized. If a website works fine in both desktop and mobile, Google might prefer such sites. Browser compatibility might be a key area to focus.
Google will use https data to study business intelligence than sharing the actual data publicly for SEO. It is easy to assume that Google will continue to expand these changes, further limiting the data available to marketers unless they're willing to pay!
Google might prefer an ecommerce site that has high conversion rate (successful transaction) compared to a site with high abandonment rate (shopping cart - drop rate). Furthermore, Google continues to give preference to an e-commerce site that gets high users' merchant reviews.
The next update Google might come up with is to clean 'blog'. Google might prefer reputed blog, authors, etc, on blog search.
Load speed continues to enjoy the same privilege in 2012.
Google will continue to grow and capture search market share and cautiously manage its monopoly to avoid any legal quagmire.
Advanced GA segmentations and social integration KPIs shall be available for partners, and premium users.
Real time analytics would be more interactive with dynamic API Google might offer.
Google might close Orkut and advises users for migration to G+.
Last but not least, your competition of optimizing a website might be against Google because If you're a marketer working on making sure your site is visible in an area where Google is competitive, remember that you may have tough time and need to do more than an organic search or paid advertising in order to be successful. Google has created a system where people must pay in order to compete against it. Its unfortunate but TRUE!

I also expect that by the end of 2012, the beginning of new semantic search era and a robust intelligence search system would possibly gain momentum! And yes, the world will not end, may be the end of golden era of the monopolistic search regime!!

Neither G+ Promises Search Value Nor Business Value - Reasons Explained!

Posted on Monday, December 19, 2011 Comments
Labels: G plus, G+, google plus, Google plus limitations, Rand Fishkin, seomoz

G Plus or G Minus!

Do you think G+ has all the elements of success in social arena?Many marketers hope so at least the way G+ is being slapped on our face by Google. However, I cease to believe this, at least at this point of time! Contrary to my belief, various sources have already predicted that G+ would be a game changer. There are many experts like Bernie Borges who think so. Flooded are the websites with various analysis. One such reputed site is SEOmoz where many people have given their thumbs up opinion on G+.

What has really caught my attention is Stuart Turner when he quotes“Every single page I”ve seen has been launched by an SEO or social media person…” published on Stateof Search.

I would like to cite here a discussion of ‘Whiteboard Friday” by Roger Mozbot and Rand Fishkin. They have already suggested tactics for early adopter marketers on Google plus. One of the best examples to fit in this case how SEOs/social media persons are talking a lot and come up with hypothetical analysis without discussing anything about the business value!

As an entrepreneur, anyone would love to know if G+ drives any business value more than search value. A recent report published on State of Search tells a different story contrary to what Rand Fishkin and others are talking about. To me, a clear gap exists between what top marketers predict versus what CEOs and business owners think!

Most of the businesses find almost no value in setting up their business page on G+. And, they have reasons for that.

Most important, Google’s own C level executives and management don’t use G+.
Popularity of G + insights is low in Google Insights.
Google seems intent on making it a vanilla-flavored Facebook copy with less chance of success
G+ is an early launch product that still needs varied improvements
Other social products like Buzz, Wave, etc. have been closed down. Orkut is an odd man out!

As a marketer, I disagree with Rand Fishkin, at least at this point of time who thinks G+ succeeds and defines the so-called strategies for early adopter marketers! Contrary to his belief, I think G+ might not succeed unless:

(a) Google updates their ‘MACHINE’ and ‘LOGIC’ (hard nut to crack in the current scenario) integrated with social media. Currently, Google seemingly applies more human efforts to audit than a robust automated mechanism to display a semantic search results based on ‘Likes’, 'share’, tweets, click and G+.

(b) Google stops bypassing ‘stopping words’ like ‘+(plus). For example, if you search “+Eastwood Company” and even top brands like +Samsung, +Nokia, +LG, you’d not find G plus page although such page "exists for many of these. Only Google recognizes G+ page for a very few including Pepsi, Pet Meds, etc. Further, you can check the voice search results and see SERP on Google that will sure intrigue anybody who search for G+ Page!

From SEO perspectives, if + (plus) is a stopping word that Google tends to bypass, what about the findability? The way Twitter has popularized hashtag (#) for search value, G+ has miles to go before Google introduces ‘+tag’ for G+ page of a person or brand! Can Rand Fishkin search his own brand ‘+SEOMOZ’ to discover Google plus page on Google.com? If he can’t, how can he talk about tactics of using G+ even for search value?

To me, G+ is still at beta stage with many limitations. This social site is still not well integrated with Google’s algorithm nor do any of these big guys at Google use it.

The Inorganic Growth of Google Goose That Still Lays Golden Eggs!

Posted on Saturday, November 26, 2011 Comments
Labels: google golden eggs, google goose, google vultures

Google Golden Eggs

We at our young age must have heard of a story about a goose that laid golden eggs! The man finally killed the goose to repent of his folly. Today, men are not fool though they are greedy yet!

Let me tell you a similar modern story of two guys – Larry Page and Surgery Brin who’ve nurtured a goose (search engine called Google). Little did they know that the goose they nurtured would produce golden eggs. They saw their first golden eggs hatched by the goose way back in October 2000 when Google AdWords was launched with 350 customers. The self-service ad program promised online activation with a credit card, keyword targeting and performance feedback. Within a decade, the goose is grown so big that has started laying multiple golden eggs to envy others. This is a 100% organic story!

Lots of efforts have been made so far for the organic birth of such a goose. Many have tried; some of them have failed while a few are still struggling. We all know how Bill Gates has been trying for such a goose to break the monopoly of Google.

Google knows the art of ‘Gamification’ and allure fat businesses with favorable approach by breaking the 'rules'. After all, rules are for smaller people not for big daddies! Not only on sponsored search but Google, apparently, shows a favoritism to big brands on organic search results as well. Agreed with Andrew Johnson who in his comment posted on SEObook says “Google will not disrupt a site or advertiser that will negatively impact their own quarterly earnings. When Google does disrupt one, it is because they have a backup in place. That backup may be their own internal project or a competitor of yours who sends 95% of their advertising through Google's ad platforms.”

Golden Eggs

Truly said, greed is the disordered love of riches. In recent times, Google’s greediness to have goose laying more golden eggs is increased to a limit! Started with organic goose way back in 1998, gradually they have lured the advertisers and have them feeding their goose with large cash to produce more golden eggs for them!

And the buck does not stop here! Another attempt to have goose producing more ‘golden eggs’ is the recent announcement by the search engine to make search more secure via SSL. This means if a user is logged into a Google account, any search performed thereafter shall now be done on a secure socket layer (SSL) and will no longer pass the search term referrer data. However, Google has already confirmed that search term referrer data shall be passed to advertisers who use their pay-per-click service. This indirectly exposes the secret agenda of the ‘men’ for inorganic production of a larger quantity of golden eggs by selling more to advertisers and by selling the premium edition of Google Analytics. That’s why there are TWO rules - one for security (SEO) and another rule for advertisers.

In my opinion, The ‘bidding price’ based on GSP is just a theory! In any monopolistic competition, the proprietor has the sole authority to discriminate the price. The pricing model of keywords that advertisers pay is discriminatory in nature, and we many a time fall in debate and discussion for analysis to solve X for Y dollar! How come, Google claims that keyword price is determined by supply and demand? In Economics, we’ve been taught that demand-supply determines the price under prefect competition and thus equilibrium price is achieved. In a monopolistic competition, the market price is determined solely by a monopoly firm. And we all know Google has a monopoly in search market and even Eric Schmidt admits "We're In That Area." Unfortunately, the one-upmasnhip of the goose is hard to kill!

Vultures on Google's Roof!

There are many 'vultures' (the most vulnerable one is SEO community) sitting on the roof of Google to know the secret of the goose, and every time a watchdog of the search engine– Matt Cutts throws a loaf of news (feed) for them. One such fresh loaf of news for vultures thrown by Matt Cutts is the disclosure of change in Google algorithm. The vultures pounce upon the 'thrown loaf' and create a mess around the digital space! Another such example can be seen in the recent Panda updates. No any 'vulture' actually knew the secret behind Panda but they created a messy buzz across the web.

Very recently, I tweeted to Matt Cutts mentioning 'eHow is like eWaste that Google dumped in the garbage with Panda update. The next day I got the following reply from Matt Cutts.

This proves that Matt Cutts considers SEO professionals as the most 'vulnerable vultures' who are hungry for news about the goose and any news thrown by him becomes so messy to discuss on the web.

What is Panda? Is it a quality vs quantity campaign that the search engine has undertaken to cleanse their indexation? If yes, there are still many search results Google throws which are irrelevant and nuisances.

The million dollar question is – Is Panda a well disguised Google favoritism update? I’ll not address this question, for the question is already addressed by Andy Jenkins. If I have to answer this, I’d have to wear a different spectacle to see through the walled garden fenced by Google but I guess the vultures gullibly eat what is thrown at them, they digest and finally they poop to create a mess around!

In recent times, the goose has eyes on India. It started expanding its wings across the country. Google believes Internet users in India would be triple. It would possibly reach at least 300 million Internet users by 2014, up from about 100 million now. To have more golden eggs to produce, Google is preparing its goose with a set of initiatives.

Is Google Too Big To Fail?

Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2011 Comments
Labels: big daddy google, Google, google big, google monoploy, too big google

Google Too Big or Too Smart?
Image -Interactive Google

The post is taken from SEObook. Andrew Johnson submitted the post as a comment in response to an article Google Hates Affiliates published on SEObook. SEObook liked Andrew’s comment so much that it published the same as a full blog post.

I love his opinion and you'd love too! I've also thought of putting Andrew’s opinion on my blog.

Andrew's Opinion......

We are better off if we ignore what Google is saying and follow one thing: Google wants more money for Google. When we make this assumption, everything Google does makes sense. Deception and doublespeak are logical and expected rather than shocking and upsetting.

When it comes to scale, as pointed out withGroupon, all of these rules go out the window. If you look at the biggest advertisers, replace their account with one with no history and the brand "Geico" with "SEOBook auto insurance" and the campaign will simply not run. You are spam. In some cases larger advertisers are able to run ads which are clearly deceptive and go against guidelines which they actively enforce on smaller advertisers. I have a strong suspicion now that this is in fact institutionalized in Google's rating process rather than any employee going out of their way to overturn some sort of penalty.

Google will not disrupt a site or advertiser that will negatively impact their own quarterly earnings. When Google does disrupt one, it is because they have a backup in place. That backup may be their own internal project or a competitor of yours who sends 95% of their advertising through Google's ad platforms. When Google claimed they were going after content farms, and Demand Media's properties (which are explicitly spammed) were spared, the reason was obvious, because it would have visibly impacted their bottom line.

Brand is a deceptive concept. A hairy, smelly drug addict that compulsively molests women is not a sex offender but rather a globally famous rock star. Much the same holds true to many of the biggest brands. As long as a brand spams, that spam is opaque to Google's customer base and their customers do not bring a negative association with Google's brand. However, when that same hairy, smelly drug addict is anonymous he is a nuisance which destroys your reputation when you publicly associate yourself with him.

Google is like an oil company which not only dictates the price of oil but also chooses where an oil field will exist. Google is now "too big to fail" as indicated by the recent DOJ investigation which could have resulted in a felony charge for their co-founder, and most certainly would have for a smaller firm without $500m of liquid cash. We should be thankful that visitors are still directed to our websites when they could simply receive excerpts of what they are searching for.

My Conclusion: first, I monetize my existing sites with Google's own products as much as possible. Second: I no longer invest my time or money in new businesses that require Google's traffic. Google should expect more walled content gardens in their future. Google's biggest challengers such as Facebook and Apple recognize this, and their platforms are very much walled gardens. That is too bad for the web as we know it today.

As a consumer I want Google to have the best, most trustworthy experience possible. They can fight SEOs and affiliates all day long and it doesn't bother me. I fully expected the innovative waves that helped the web destroy old media do the same again to itself.

Why Not “Jessops” in ‘Stores’ on Google SERP While BestBuy & Others Are?

Posted on Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Labels: algorithm, brand search, Google brand search, top brand search in google

Does Google Promote Brands?

Does Google Recommend Top Brands /Stores for Searches?

One of my colleagues asks “If you search for “digital camera” on Google, you can see the text link of ‘Best Buy’ under Stores. How can we get a site’s link there for other sites like Jessops.com?”

My Answer - The list is generated dynamically by Google which is based on the ‘normal distribution' of probability. Algorithmically, Google looks into the variations of related keywords and their 'deviation' in context of search for a particular brand or store. The popularity of search-terms depends on how customers are searching for a product using “variations’. With “jessops”, deviation among related search queries is HIGH while the popularity of jessops for ‘digital camera’ is very LOW. Scroll below for further detail.

Analysis

PageRank is a probability distribution used to represent the likelihood that a person randomly clicking on links will arrive at any particular page. Similarly, display of brands and stores corresponding to each other on Google SERP are possibly an algorithmic distribution of keywords popularity among users and the brand value of a company. In my opinion, the ‘probability distribution’ in this case is NORMAL. For example, Olympus, Canon, Sony Nikon and Kodak are very popular brands for digital camera.

Click to enlarge the image

Google Insights shares how people use ‘digital camera’ for top brands like Nikon, Sony, and Canon. Although the popularity of ‘Samsung digital camera’ is high yet its Google does not display Samsung as a brand in its search result for this phrase due to high degree of variations (towards right of the normal curve – the preference to be given if the trend continues). Further, people know Nikon, Kodak, and Canon purely as camera manufacturing companies but Samsung has diverse products portfolio.

As for ‘stores’ results on Google for the keyword – ‘digital camera’, Google shares links for BestBuy, Amazon, Walmart, Circuit City and Target. If a client like www.jessops.com asks why not in 'store' list on the top of Google search results? The reason is obvious. Jessops is not as popular as other stores are as per Google.See all related searches on the screenshot. (Left)

Click to enlarge the image

The variation of keywords for ‘Jessops” is high more towards the left of a normal distribution curve. The deviations are high due to a variety of related keywords not perfectly related to each other. On the other hand, the keywords variation for BestBuy as store appears to be perfect and related.

The popularity of search-terms depends on how customers are searching using “variations’. ‘Jessops’ has lots of variations and thus Google assigns QDD to unrelated broader key-phrases. Trust and popularity of search, lesser variation of related keywords, etc., are a few parameters that Google might consider for sharing top links of brands and stores for any popular products search.

Normal Distribution

The keyword distribution (related searches) hovers around the centre (main keyword). So, the distribution of related keywords is normal without much deviation for “BestBuy’. On the contrary, the key-phrase “Jessops” has asymmetrical distribution and thus deviation is high due to high degree of random variables (un-related keywords or syntaxes such as shops, jewelry, flora, share price, etc.). The deviation is high here due to QDD treatment by Google to 'Jessops'. Please, read Google QDD for further reading.

Google’s algorithm is based on the ‘probability distribution’ . Had “Jessops” had normal distribution, it would have appeared in search results as STORE’. In layman’s language, Google‘s probability is determined by how people search a particular item associated with a brand or store.

Conclusion: There is no guarantee a particular brand or store will show within the brands or stores features. The list is generated dynamically by Google based mainly on the ‘normal distribution of probability that logically looks into the variations of related keywords and their deviations in context of search for a particular brand or store.

Facebook Popularity Among Law Firms and Attorneys

Posted on Thursday, October 27, 2011 Comments
Labels: attorney on facebook, facebook by lawyers, law firms on facebook

Conservative Law Firms on Facebook

Statistics apart, Facebook is now a corporate necessity. Just like websites and web pages are now ubiquitous, so too are Facebook pages NOW. Both Facebook Page and web site are now perceived as a 1:1 digital combination that meets the needs of customers, while bringing in extensive digital coverage for a company.

Undoubtedly, Facebook fan of a brand increases their willingness to recommend the brand’s service to a friend. We are seeing a participatory nature of legal firms, attorneys, and lawyers in social media. And the trend is already set as high as the limit.

Although attorneys in their 50s-60s still tend to err on the traditional side yet a paradigm shift from traditional media to digital media (Search +Social) is taking place. A recent survey conducted by Greentarget finds out that, while the more traditional marketing channels for law firm/attorneys credentialing continue to dominate … in-house attorneys now are using new media platforms to deepen their professional networks; to obtain their legal, business, and industry news and information; and to enrich their social and personal lives.

Indeed, social media has created new avenues and opportunities for attorneys to flourish as thought leaders and entrepreneurs. While many in the legal field proceed with trepidation, the unprecedented reach of social networks, Facebook and twitter in particular, has been a career game-changer for many attorneys. Do Google for your reference that shares an insight how law firms and attorneys are using Facebook (Social Media) to promote their brands and services and thereby connecting to their customers. In gist, a well crafted Facebook strategy helps you tap the leaking opportunity, indeed, a viable business opportunity!

Although the ‘social return’ takes little longer time but the value it creates is amazing. Once the rhythm is set for a Facebook song, customers in chorus will sing for you!

There are many varied ways to promote a lawyer’s website across Facebook. However, it’s good to start promoting a customized Facebook page among ‘satisfied clients’ asking them a favor to ‘LIKE’ (become a part of our virtual network) Facebook page so that clients stay connected virtually. Over a period, the virtual relationship will grow stronger that would get culminated into ‘social customer engagement’. No media other than Facebook can give a platform for establishing a social and an emotional connection with our customers all 24x7.

TLD vs ccTLD –A 301 Redirection Issue– Real Case Scenarios!

Posted on Tuesday, June 07, 2011 Comments
Labels: adsense google duplicate SEO, canonical, ccTLD, cross domains, real case studies, TLD

Misuse of a 301 Redirection in Case II

Quite often, I observe that SEO professionals for the lack of profound knowledge get caught in catch 22 situation if they find a non-performing top level domain (TLD) over country code top level domain (ccTLD) on Google.com or vice versa.

Let me cite two practical cases to explain it more clearly.

Case Scenario 1

One of my clients Alex (Name changed) has two domains -http://www.xyz.com, and http://www.xyz.co.uk (domain name changed). Both these domains have same design, same content, and same IP, same server and same folder including single root folder. The developer has used mirror technique to distinguish these two domains to serve the ‘same content’. Both .com and .co.uk was a replica of each other.

Given the above scenario, my recommendations to the client were:

Create two folder structure and host .com in the US and .co.uk in the UK
‘Or’ check Google SERP and see which performs better and accordingly 301 redirect

While the first recommendation requires change in server configuration, a migration of web infrastructure apart from other complex technical issues, the available option was the ‘next best alternative’. In this case, a 301 redirect from .com to .co.uk has been implemented by the dev. team but not without pros and cons.

Pros

.co.uk ranking might improve further without a mirror domain
.co.uk is preferred to .com by Google more in the UK than in the US for local traffic
.co.uk is already performing and has good SERP without a major loss in traffic
Had .co.uk been redirected to .com, traffic could have fallen significantly because, as said in the above, co.uk was ranking while .com was not

Cons

.com (TLD) is better choice if targeting universally
Traffic from TLD would perceivably higher than ccTLD

Its official confirmation from Google that geo-location of the web host has significant ranking factors for Organic SEO because Google detects IP address of the web server. In this case, both ccTLD and TLD were hosted on the same server with the same IP address and IP locations, ccTLD was performing better than TLD in Google ranking because it was based in the UK and Google automated algorithm detects IP address that gives impression that a particular website hosted in a country is useful for local audiences.

However, this is not the only factor. If we set geo-location preference in Webmaster console and instruct Google bot, we can minimize the ‘ranking loss’ but Matt Cutts encourages to find a great deal in a particular country to host on a web server.

Case Scenario 2- A company had similar issue. They had two domains – one was ccTLD and TLD. Both had different folder structure, different IP locations, and little different content serving to the UK audience while TLD was serving to the US & universal audiences.

Their SEO team recommended a 301 redirection from .co.uk to .com, for .com was performing better on Google.com while .co.uk was performing SATISFACTOY in the Google.co.uk. They misunderstood the issue of duplicate content across two domains.

The question here is–

Was this 301 redirection absolutely required for this? I really don’t think so because SEO professional here not only misunderstood the issue of duplicate but also misused a 301 redirection. There was absolutely no problem as long as .com and .co.uk had little different content catering to specific country audience. A redirection in this case, according to me, was a loss or at least the not best practice.

SEO/SEM Job Opportunity & Average Salary in India –Observed Data

Posted on Monday, May 16, 2011 Comments
Labels: SEO jobs in India, SEO salary in india, SEO SEM career India

Jakob Nielsen, the web usability expert

I’ve always pondered over the job market for SEO/SEM professionals in India. There has not been any single survey ever done on this to provide an idea to people associated with this industry. Based on my experience and preliminary web study, I have attempted to provide unverified data. While the accuracy of the data is questionable but they represent some facts that might help us take a sensible decision with respect to SEO/SEM jobs in India.

Fig (1.0)

The above graph represents the average salary of SEO/SEM professionals. The average salary of SEO ranges from 2.5 to 9.5 Lakh depending on the years of experience. I have also observed that the job opportunity for these professionals abounds especially for 0-2 years and 3-4 years of experience. After 5-7 years experience, the job opportunity for SEO/SEM professioanls falls by 30% while the job opportunity for 8-10 years of SEO/SEM experienced professionals falls by 50%. See graph below.

Fig (1.1)

The graph shows a jump of 20% job opportunity for SEO/SEM professional with 3-4 years of experience is greater than 0-2 years of experienced professionals. After this, a rapid fall in job opportunities for people with higher experience in this field. The % gap will be higher that shows lower job opportunities for people with 8 years + experience.

Compared to CTC, the % job opportunity for experienced professionals falls greater than the % increment in CTC. Given the fact that % CTC increase is lesser than % of increase in experience, it would be interesting to know which cities in India pay you off more to relocate for SEO/SEM jobs.

Table 1.0

Based on my preliminary study, I have observed that Mumbai tops the job opportunity for SEO/SEM professionals followed by Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Ahmadabad, Hyderabad and many others. Delhi & NCR, as shown in lower column of this table, is due to low CTC and poor compensation being paid to these professionals compared to other cities including Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai where the job opportunities for SEO/SEM is GREAT.

If you see Google Insights, you’ll find Delhi tops for SEO jobs followed by Maharashtra. To my knowledge, SEO/SEM job opportunity in Delhi is as great as Maharashtra but the ‘search for SEO jobs’ in Delhi & NCR is higher than Mumbai. See the search trends in Google Insights.

Where to Relocate?

The following graph can help you take decision for taking up job offers in India cities.

Assumptions –

· You must think that you should get decent CTC, at least average as per standard

· You must be ready to relocate

· You must see cost of living

See the graph

Fig (1.0)

This graph represents the above table. Bhubaneswar is at the bottom next to Kolkata both in terms of CTC and job opportunities. As you move from Mumbai down to other cities, the job opportunities as well as salary for SEO/SEM professionals become lesser. Delhi is a just an exception because the city has plenty of job opportunities but CTC being paid to these professionals is low just above Kolkata and Bhubaneswar.

The graph also helps an SEO/SEM professional relocate a city for a job. For example, if a job offer is made for Mumbai and for Hyderabad, you’ll definitely opt for Mumbai as far as CTC and job opportunities are concerned. If you look other factors beyond these two and opt for Hyderabad, you’ll have to settle with lower CTC and lesser number of job opportunities. In that case, the decision is purely yours.