Digital Gossips

Google Hypocrisy Exposed Again!

2011-12-29T17:22:00.000+05:30

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

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

Googleapparently favors big brand more on organic than on sponsored search that isbeing perceived as a discouraging tactic for smaller businesses which isdefinitely NOT from Google perspectives. The objective behind this sudden loveof Google for brands is not due to ‘trust’ but due to 'moolah'. O..La la..! Bigbrands rely more on other marketing channels than on search engines. They careless if their sites rank on Google or not. Then who cares? Of course smallbusinesses that can’t afford large multi-channel marketing investment andtherefore relies so much on search engines, especially on Google, for theirbusiness.

The strategy isclear 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 havegoose producing more golden eggs.

The watchdog ofsearch quality always hints at ‘Quality’ as an important ranking signal but tome and many of us, quality is a subjective term that is subject to debate. Notnecessarily all that is liked by online users is quality and vice versa. Whatis quality from Google’s perspectives? To me, quality refers to how manyproducts/services of Google that a business consumes. If a business spends a largevolume of money on AdWords, uses ‘Check Out’, become partner and affiliate,uses Google Merchant service, etc, Google treats it as Quality! We often fallin debate and discussion of doing X for Y and try to solve the mysterious puzzleof the search engine’s algorithm.

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

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

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

Google 2012 –Predictions from Marketing Perspectives

2011-12-26T13:57:00.001+05:30

Google 2012!

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

Deploymore human editors than automated algorithm to perform quality audit.
Googletops brands on search results and gives more AdWords options to brandedcompanies compared to smaller brands.
Throwsfresh results (15-20% search queries)! The archive rule gets relaxed tofreshness although a bit.
Thearea of rich snippets shall be expanded and description holds less significancewhile title continues to hold importance in Meta data.
Usabilityand social engagement of the website continue to be preferred.
Googlemight display sites quite often on search results which are G+ integrated thanFacebook. Facebook from Google might get thumbs down on search results. Googlemight introduce +tag similar like (#) twitter hash tag.
Wikipedia'sresult might get down for many generic queries. Brand/scholarly written posts come up above the Wikipedia.
Googlemight come up with rigorous spam policy to remove objectionable content thancontinuing following the same guidelines. A major change in user-generatedcontent guidelines can be expected.
Googlewill continue to consider CTR more seriously as an important factor whiledisplaying organic search results of a website.
Googlemight look at returning visitors in analytics to determine its preference. If asite has more returning visitors with less bounce rate, Google might givepreference to such site over others.
Googleprefers a website that is mobile-optimized. If a website works fine in bothdesktop and mobile, Google might prefer such sites. Browser compatibility mightbe a key area to focus.
Googlewill use https data to study business intelligence than sharing the actual datapublicly for SEO. It is easy to assume that Google will continue to expandthese changes, further limiting the data available to marketers unless they'rewilling to pay!
Googlemight prefer an ecommerce site that has high conversion rate (successfultransaction) 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.
Thenext update Google might come up with is to clean 'blog'. Google might preferreputed blog, authors, etc, on blog search.
Loadspeed continues to enjoy the same privilege in 2012.
Googlewill continue to grow and capture search market share and cautiously manage itsmonopoly to avoid any legal quagmire.
AdvancedGA segmentations and social integration KPIs shall be available for partners,and premium users.
Realtime analytics would be more interactive with dynamic API Google might offer.
Googlemight close Orkut and advises users for migration to G+.
Lastbut not least, your competition of optimizing a website might be against Googlebecause If you're a marketer working on making sure your site is visible in anarea where Google is competitive, remember that you may have tough time and needto do more than an organic search or paid advertising in order to besuccessful. Google has created a system where people must pay in order tocompete against it. Its unfortunate but TRUE!

I also expect thatby the end of 2012, the beginning of new semantic search era and arobust 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!

2011-12-19T15:04:00.000+05:30

G Plus or G Minus!

Do you think G+ has allthe 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 singlepage I”ve seen has been launched by an SEO or socialmedia person…” published on Stateof Search.

I would like to citehere a discussion of ‘Whiteboard Friday” by Roger Mozbot and Rand Fishkin. They have already suggested tactics for earlyadopter marketers on Google plus. One of the best examples to fit in this casehow SEOs/social media persons are talking a lot and come up with hypotheticalanalysis 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 reportpublished on State of Search tells adifferent story contrary to what Rand Fishkin and others are talking about. Tome, a clear gap exists between what top marketers predict versus what CEOs andbusiness owners think!

Most of the businessesfind almost no value in setting up their business page on G+. And, they havereasons 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, Idisagree with Rand Fishkin, at least at this point of time whothinks G+ succeeds and defines the so-called strategies for early adoptermarketers! Contrary to his belief, I think G+ might not succeed unless:

(a) Google updatestheir ‘MACHINE’ and ‘LOGIC’ (hard nut to crack in the current scenario) integratedwith social media. Currently, Google seemingly applies more human efforts toaudit than a robust automated mechanism to display a semantic search resultsbased 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 pagealthough 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 thevoice search results and see SERP on Google that will sure intrigue anybody whosearch for G+ Page!

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

To me, G+ is stillat beta stage with many limitations. This social site is still not wellintegrated with Google’s algorithm nor do any of these big guys at Google useit.
And, the so-called marketers are talking about G+ tactics for search value. At this point of time, neithercan G+ promise search value nor can define business value! It would be just another area for Google to have goose laying more golden eggs!

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

2011-11-26T13:18:00.001+05:30

Google Golden Eggs

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

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

Lots of efforts havebeen made so far for the organic birth of such a goose. Many have tried; someof them have failed while a few are still struggling. We all know how BillGates 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 breakingthe 'rules'. After all, rules arefor smaller people not for big daddies! Not only on sponsored search but Google, apparently, shows a favoritism to big brands on organicsearch results as well. Agreed with Andrew Johnson who in his comment posted on SEObook says “Google will not disrupt a site oradvertiser that will negatively impact their own quarterly earnings. WhenGoogle does disrupt one, it is because they have a backup in place. That backupmay be their own internal project or a competitor of yours who sends 95% oftheir advertising through Google's ad platforms.”

Golden Eggs

Truly said, greed is the disordered love ofriches. 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 themfeeding 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 monopolisticcompetition, 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 Ydollar! How come, Google claims that keyword price is determined by supply anddemand? In Economics, we’ve been taught that demand-supply determinesthe price under prefect competition and thus equilibrium price is achieved.In a monopolistic competition, the market price is determined solely by a monopolyfirm. 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 SEOcommunity) 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 aloaf of news (feed) for them. One such fresh loaf ofnews for vultures thrown by Matt Cutts is the disclosure of change in Google algorithm. Thevultures pounce upon the 'thrown loaf' and create a mess around the digitalspace! 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 buzzacross the web.

Very recently,I tweeted to Matt Cutts mentioning 'eHow is like eWaste thatGoogle dumped in the garbage with Panda update. The next day I got thefollowing 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 isPanda? Is it a quality vs quantity campaign that the search engine hasundertaken to cleanse their indexation? If yes, there are still many search results Google throws which are irrelevant and nuisances.

Themillion dollar question is – Is Panda a well disguised Google favoritismupdate? I’ll not address this question, for the question is already addressedby Andy Jenkins.If I have to answer this, I’d have to wear a different spectacle to see throughthe walled garden fenced by Google but I guess the vultures gullibly eatwhat is thrown at them, they digest and finally they poop to create a messaround!

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

Themost recent one is to run a bus across West Bengal to make Indians familiarizewith internet usage. The objective is clear – use internet to use the goose forlarger quantity of golden eggs.

Wish for a semantic and organic goose sans 'greedy algorithm' to produce golden eggs!

Is Google Too Big To Fail?

2011-11-23T11:46:00.000+05:30

Google Too Big or Too Smart?
Image -Interactive Google

The post is taken from SEObook. Andrew Johnson submitted the postas a comment in response to an article Google Hates Affiliates published on SEObook. SEObook liked Andrew’scomment 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 offif we ignore what Google is saying and follow one thing: Google wants moremoney for Google. When we make this assumption, everything Google does makessense. Deception and doublespeak are logical and expected rather than shockingand upsetting.

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

Google will notdisrupt a site or advertiser that will negatively impact their own quarterlyearnings. When Google does disrupt one, it is because they have a backup inplace. That backup may be their own internal project or a competitor of yourswho sends 95% of their advertising through Google's ad platforms. When Googleclaimed they were going after content farms, and Demand Media's properties (which are explicitly spammed) were spared, the reason was obvious, because itwould have visibly impacted their bottom line.

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

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

My Conclusion: first, I monetizemy existing sites with Google's own products as much as possible. Second: I nolonger invest my time or money in new businesses that require Google's traffic.Google should expect more walled content gardens in their future. Google'sbiggest challengers such as Facebook and Apple recognize this, and theirplatforms are very much walled gardens. That is too bad for the web as we knowit today.

As a consumer Iwant Google to have the best, most trustworthy experience possible. They canfight SEOs and affiliates all day long and it doesn't bother me. I fullyexpected the innovative waves that helped the web destroy old media do the sameagain to itself.
But, when Google lies, and do things that in fact damage thatconsumers experience no longer can I defend Google (when eHow first startedpopping up in 50% of the searches I did I was shocked; I am absolutely appalledthey still show up on page 1 for anything, the articles are obviously writtenby authors that re-hashed another article in 10 minutes and often factuallyincorrect on top of it.)

---

I agree with Andrew Johnson. What about you?

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

2011-11-01T13:36:00.004+05:30

Does Google Promote Brands?

Does Google Recommend Top Brands /Stores for Searches?

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

My Answer - The list is generateddynamically 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 popularityof search-terms depends on how customers are searching for a product using “variations’. With“jessops”, deviation among relatedsearch queries is HIGH while the popularity of jessops for ‘digital camera’ isvery LOW. Scroll below for further detail.

Analysis

PageRank is a probability distribution used torepresent the likelihood that a person randomly clicking on links will arriveat any particular page. Similarly, display of brands and storescorresponding to each other on Google SERP are possibly an algorithmic distributionof keywords popularity among users and the brand value of a company. In myopinion, the ‘probability distribution’ in this case is NORMAL. For example, Olympus, Canon, Sony Nikon and Kodak are verypopular brands for digitalcamera.

Click to enlarge the image

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

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

Click to enlarge the image

The variationof keywords for ‘Jessops” is highmore towards the left of a normal distribution curve. The deviations are high dueto a variety of related keywords not perfectly related to each other. On theother hand, the keywords variation for BestBuyas store appears to be perfect and related.

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

Normal Distribution

The keyword distribution (related searches) hovers around thecentre (main keyword). So, the distribution of related keywords is normal withoutmuch deviation for “BestBuy’. On the contrary, the key-phrase “Jessops” hasasymmetrical distribution and thus deviation is high due to high degree ofrandom variables (un-related keywords or syntaxes such as shops, jewelry,flora, share price, etc.). The deviation is high here due to QDD treatment byGoogle to 'Jessops'. Please, read GoogleQDD for further reading.

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

Conclusion: There is noguarantee a particular brand or store will show within the brands or storesfeatures. The list is generated dynamically by Google based mainly on the‘normal distribution of probability that logically looks into the variations ofrelated keywords and their deviations in context of search for a particularbrand or store.

The popularity ofsearch-terms depends on how customers are searching using “variations’. ‘Jessops’ has lots of variations farfrom related distribution curve. Trust and popularity of search, less variationof related keywords etc are a few parameters that Google might consider forsharing top links of brands and store for any popular searches of products.

Facebook Popularity Among Law Firms and Attorneys

2011-10-27T20:30:00.000+05:30

Conservative Law Firms on Facebook

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

Undoubtedly, Facebook fanof a brand increases their willingness to recommend the brand’s service to afriend. 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 intheir 50s-60s still tend to err on the traditional side yet a paradigm shiftfrom traditional media to digital media (Search +Social) is taking place.A recent survey conducted by Greentarget finds out that, while the moretraditional marketing channels for law firm/attorneys credentialing continue todominate … in-house attorneys now are using new media platforms to deepen theirprofessional networks; to obtain their legal, business, and industry news andinformation; and to enrich their social and personal lives.

Indeed, social media hascreated new avenues and opportunities for attorneys to flourish as thoughtleaders and entrepreneurs. While many in the legal field proceed withtrepidation, the unprecedented reach of social networks, Facebook andtwitter in particular, has been a career game-changer for many attorneys. Do Googlefor your reference that shares an insight how law firms and attorneys are usingFacebook (Social Media) to promote their brands and services and therebyconnecting to their customers. In gist, a well crafted Facebook strategy helpsyou tap the leaking opportunity, indeed, a viable business opportunity!

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

There are many variedways to promote a lawyer’s website across Facebook. However, it’s good to startpromoting a customized Facebook page among ‘satisfied clients’ asking them afavor to ‘LIKE’ (become a part of our virtual network) Facebook page so that clientsstay connected virtually. Over a period, the virtual relationship will growstronger that would get culminated into ‘social customer engagement’. No mediaother than Facebook can give a platform for establishing a social and an emotionalconnection with our customers all 24x7.

Why not trying somethingwhich is FREE and make use of FREEWARE social media Like Facebook to build andmanage customer relationship!

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

2011-06-07T19:03:00.002+05:30

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.

Had you been in the first and second case, what would you have done? Write in your suggestions – munazanjum@digitalgossips.com

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

2011-05-16T19:27:00.007+05:30

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.

But after 8 years in SEO/SEM industry, things become very tough to live in Hyderabad or Kolkata or any other lower zones unless you further jump to another company as a project manager.

I welcome your feedback on my observations!

Naukri and Monster, a no Longer Purple Cow for Job Hunters in India

2011-05-15T13:27:00.015+05:30

Naukri, a no longer purple cow!

Recently, I have observed major changes in the marketing behavior of topnotch job portals in India such as naukri.com and monsterindia.com. They started hiring someone responsible for traffic generation. Do they really need tons of traffic? Not sure but my this question is not about traffic but about the substance of business models in today’s changing landscape for job seekers via social networking sites.

With the changing dynamics of online business and changing pattern of searching information and jobs by online users, these portals should fast adapt to these changes. Ironically, many of them still carry the old legacy of their products (portals) with just a few add ons to kiss their demise.

If you see a case study of naukri.com, the ONLY reason for its success is that it has bridged a gap between employee and employers. Undoubtedly, Naukri.com is still an established entity today in India with a database of more than 6.5 million registered users and with 20,000 company listings.

What was purple cow until yesterday is no longer a milking cow today. They have already reached inflection point and now they are passing through the II phase of diminishing return. See the graph illustrated here.

Hypothetically, my observation about job portals – naukri.com or monster.com, is that they had seen an increasing rate of growth until 2009, a year of inflexion point. Since then, their growth is being pushed up to grow @ decreasing rate. Increasing rate of the growth can never be returned unless they come up with a major breakthrough. They need to sustain II phase which they are maintaining by pushing more workforce to generate traffic to their portals. It has to be seen if these portals may ever risk of transitioning through III phase of negative returns.

The burgeoning popularity of social networking sites (Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com, Community, Groups, etc.) appears to be challenging their business models. The growth, at least “an increasing rate of growth” for these portals appears to be suspicious.

I have been observing many brands making use of LinkedIn, Facebook, Community, Groups etc. for posting their job requirements. Google, Microsoft, Capgemini, Dell and others post jobs more frequently on LinkedIn than on these job portals. Also, smaller companies instead of subscribing to naukri.com or monster.com, they find it quick to post the requirement onto these social media sites.

The community based jobs with recommendations appear to be more trustworthy than any other sources. You will find community based jobs on sites like twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, social bookmarking etc. A recent survey conducted by HR services firm, Ma Foi Randstad, found that more and more Indians are now using social networking sites to look for jobs.

According to the study, 90% of Indian employees have accounts on various social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and out of them, 81 per cent use it for professional purposes. Over 82% Indian employees were found to use networking sites to discover new jobs in their field of work. Among the Indian cities, 85% employees in Mumbai and 83 percent in Delhi were using social media for jobs.

The job portals, though tried to keep a pace with the changing dynamics of online, yet they find it too complex to revise their old infrastructure. If a giant like Google finds it tough to keep pace with social dynamics of online, these companies are just tips of the iceberg.

@Sanjeev, the success of any product can be attributed to three main drivers –great products, unparalleled service and competitive pricing. Do you still think naukri.com encompasses all these today?

vSEO –A Beginning of New Era in Search Marketing

2011-05-03T15:48:00.010+05:30

Google Voice Search

Until now, SEO has been a study of keywords research aligning with Google algorithm and its guidelines but things will be different very soon. Yes, Google will be launching 'Voice Search' on Google.com. This will set in a new era for users as well as for SEO professionals. Users without typing keywords will just speak to Google and get the desired results while SEO will get another tool to research ‘voice’ of searchers to top SERP.

Now this feature is available only for limited desktop users but this is already there on handsets built on popular platform, such as Android, Blackberry and iOS. Google's latest web browser release, Chrome 11, features HTML voice input.

This would be a different experience for users to see how Google accurately listens to its users. The success of voice search depends on how Google lives up to the expectation of voice users. However, Google has been a ‘darling’ search engine for billions of users and many businesses depend on it globally especially online marketing companies and SEO agencies.

With the launch of ‘voice’ feature on Google.com, the scope of SEO and its workflow will make a paradigm shift from keywords based research to voice-based research or at least a good synergy will exist between the two. Google is already experimenting this in its Chrome browser as a plug in but it clearly signals a soon launch of this plugin in its core search – Google.com.

The evolving concept of Long Tail Keywords (LTKs) will get materialized with the launch of voice feature on Google.com. Certainly, ‘voice keywords’ or ‘voicewords” (I call it) will be long tail in most cases as users speak directly to Google without typing.

We need to see how Google keeps track of ‘voicewords’ in its database to offer as a tool to search popular voice. It will be a delightful experience to search voice and understanding users’ not only through keywords but through real time voice data.

It will be further interesting to see:

How Google capitalizes its feature for organic users and AdWords customers
How Google will display SERP based on two search parameters – keywords vs voicewords
How Google’s algorithm fits in for both voice and keyword search results
How Google will delight speakers vs typists (Users type)
How SEO firms will look into this as an extension of SEO services

I leave these questions to time to answer but what I clearly see is a beginning of new era to enrich search experience and a new avenue for search marketing professionals!

Google Quality Guidelines -A “Nofollow” Guide, Dear Matt!

2011-04-26T13:03:00.023+05:30

Answer My Questions, Matt?

Do you follow Google's guidelines or follow your own instinct in designing, developing and promoting your website? Hundreds and thousands of websites do follow Google's guidelines and lay a serious thought on the same while many don't. Of course, those who don't are the ones that don't care ranking much on search engines but their business does pretty much well online. Jeff Bezos' Amazon is one such portal that came to being in 1995 almost 3 years before Google. If you critically review Google's design and content guidelines, you will get to have a feel of 'ambiguity ' in many instances.

Sitemap - Ambiguous Guidelines

Google suggests “If the site map has an extremely large number of links, you may want to break the site map into multiple pages."

Does Google clearly define 'what makes an extremely large number of links? What is 'large number' for a site may not necessarily be a large for a portal. Google knows it and that's why it has avoided mentioning any 'number' that qualifies 'large number of links'. The portals like Amzon.com, eBay, Overstock etc appear to have less followed such logic of providing 'sitemap', for the dynamics of their business models may less allow them follow the sitemap guidelines in Google way. If the logic of site map for these giant portals seems less convincing, it equally makes no sense for smaller websites too. May be, it makes a sense for medium sized websites or portals to organize 'site maps' following Google's guidelines. Does that mean Google's guidelines of creating sitemap appear more convincing for mid-sized websites/portals?

Dear Matt -In order to make Google guidelines plausible to biggies like Amazon, ebay etc, you need to specify 'what is large number of links' vs 'what is reasonable number of links?' To me, this is not possible because its highly subjective, isn’t it?

Content -Ambiguous Guidelines

Google suggests "Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it." On the other hand, Google suggests "make pages primarily for users, not for search engines."

This is quite confusing. On one hand, the search engine recommends us to incorporate 'keywords' on to site. On other hand, it suggests to keep users in mind. Many SEOs have manipulated ranking by emphasizing the first suggestion of incorporating keywords than on the second suggestion i-e 'to keep users in mind'. The confusion is obvious due to two different suggestions clashing with each other.

It’s true that users search websites on Google using a set of keywords but not necessarily that a site that doesn’t contain keywords exactly matching users' type is not worth ranking. Rather than offering suggestions to incorporate keywords, Google should update algorithm to display results in a more semantic way! The recent Google panda updates cracked down content farms for supplying cheap and low quality contents. My question then for Matt Cutts is:

Dear Matt - How do you define 'quality content'? Are you taking users' feedback to distinguish quality vs quantity? What' a dilemma! You gotta stuck in between automated algorithm and human review!

Alt Tag - Ambiguous Guidelines
Google suggests 'Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images". If you must use images for textual content, consider using the "ALT" attribute to include a few words of descriptive text.”

Dear Matt -The digital media is more than HTML and text. With improved web technology and web infrastructure, you should do away with suggestion of incorporating more text than images. The evolving concept of HTML5 and micro-format heading for web 3.0 is something that many don't follow the guidelines of designing a textual website. If crawler does not recognize the images, please update your crawler to recognize more formats.
This further shows that you want textual content sites like Wikipedia.org rather than 'rich content' sites built on the top of improved and rich technology. It also exposes your inability to define what 'content' means and how you hold the outdated persona of 'content'. To you, content means texts! Had this not been the case you would not have suggested making use of 'texts' more than images! Matt, update your guidelines of putting Alt Tags for images because I have already written that you are no longer considering alt tags seriously. Your own blogspot does not allow ALT tag which is contrarily to your suggestion.

Closing Thoughts: Many analysts believe that Google will continue to rule search engine marketing for at least many years to come by but I think its a 'doubtful prediction'. Google's consistent struggle and inability to update algorithm at par with advanced and progressive web technology may be a cause for Larry and Brin to go against each other earlier than 2024 what was initially agreed upon! Eric’s step down as CEO is just a beginning!

Post Google Panda Remedial Measures –Work in Progress!

2011-04-21T16:49:00.008+05:30

Work in Progress!

The recent disaster that hit

Japan

leaving thousands of people dead and millions to suffer from injuries, destitute and helplessness has flabbergasted the world. In virtual world, with Google’s panda updates, thousands of websites and their businesses have been severely hit. Of course, those who are grinning are definitely the ones who have got extravaganza while many others have suffered from major setback with the catastrophic changes in Google’s algorithm. What is boom for one has become a bane for other. Nevertheless, it is suggested that it’s high time for ‘panda-stricken sites’ to be ready for rehabilitation to recover the loss instead of getting fury over Google. Let ethical SEO experts like ‘relief cops’ do their duty to restore the damage.

My simple advice to both panda-stricken businesses (victims) and SEO agencies (relief cops) is to work in tandem with each other to restore the damage done. My Suggestions:

Attn:
Dear Victims – Instead of yelling and cursing over the catastrophic panda’s updates, you better show your strength to ‘revamp’ your web infrastructure for search engine algorithm resilience. This is possible only when you follow the best practices of Google’s guidelines. Rebuild your product (website) to create ‘WOW’. Many of us believe that ‘Content is King’ but fail to understand ‘Concept is Emperor’. Hire ‘creative workforce’ to revamp the old websites with innovative concept to fill up with unique content in a presentable way so that users who visit website smell the aroma of content for ‘yummy’ to have it regularly. The creative team -Analyst, SEO, Designer, Developer and Writer - should work in tandem with each other to contribute to the rehabilitated web-project. Its not that Google will take lot of time (3-6 months) to rank your revamped website, as per many SEO firms. Once you are sure to have a great site with rich content, you can also take a leap forward to drop in your request to Google for reconsideration.

Attn:

Dear SEO Agencies –Have a helping hand to ‘panda-stricken sites’ to restore their business. It is high time for you to restore the image of SEO profession. Google has provided yet another chance to study what it ‘likes’ and what not. Buzz off the traditional view or outlook and analyze what could help them restore their sites ranking instead of fooling, for such a business can’t afford loss after loss. Help them build sites and suggests developers and designers to build a site resilient to next such change in Google algorithm. Dedicated effort to research, update and experiment helps you come with rock solid SEO suggestions rather than serving the same piece of meal (suggestions) to all. Bring in customize SEO recommendations to fit in the requirement rather than offering ‘all-size fit for’ solutions.

In summary, let’s work progressively to restore websites that have been damaged by Google’s panda. Let’s use our prudence to recover the lost pride!

Change in Google Algorithm –Collateral Damage, Risks & Predictions

2011-04-19T13:22:00.028+05:30

Google Panda Updates - Collateral Damages

The recent change in Google algorithm has significantly hit many businesses of websites that moved down its search rankings from top to bottom creating a tall damage to their businesses. The most vulnerable firms and companies are online publishers associations, content networking sites (demand media) and some news portal including CNN. This has resulted in a major chunk of employees laid off by some of these companies.

Mahalo.com is one such company that laid off 10% of its workforce last week. Others joining the same list are Wisegeek.com, Ezinearticles.com, eHow, AnswerBag.com and Trails.com and Yahoo's (YHOO, Fortune 500) Associated.

What I analyze is that the field of digital marketing based on Google is a highly risk business model. With a change in algorithm, the pressure is mounting on SEO agencies. The stakes are high in the Google-search engine game. The top spot on a search page typically attracts 20% to 30% of the page's clicks. CNN Money reports that according to Adam Bunn, SEO director of Greenlight, "after that comes an enormous tail-off: Positions 2 to 3 generates 5% to 10% of the clicks, and links below the fold receive less than 1% of users' attention. Fall off to the second page and your search-engine-driven clicks will be negligible."

As said the stakes are high in Google-search engine game, its high time for SEO agencies to predict the changes and accordingly offer services to clients by setting right expectations.
Being in the same industry for over 8 years, I analyze the following changes in algorithm.

SEO Prediction Checklist 2011

Content is still king but concept is emperor

Devaluation of directory, forum, blogs commenting, signature and article links

Drastic change in low quality content sites such as ezinearticles.com and other Mom & Pop sites

High importance of short URLs from Google perspective

Social media link syndication and users' choice to 'like' the link to create real juice

Larger document or content rich site may rank better

Websites with rich look n feel (usability), SEO friendly navigation and ethical SEOed websites rank well

Long URLs are extremely bad

Long Title with artificial insertion of keywords may not be useful

Page load time should be extremely fast - the most emphasized area

Economic use of keywords earlier in content body and HTML (H1, and Title) may be helpful

Site map creation continues to hold its own importance

Long tail keywords may perform better than short term phrase

Content masking using CSS or JavaScript is absolutely a 'no no'.

Social media (Facebook, twitter, Linkedin etc) influences strongly in ranking

Partial match and sensible anchor text will have some advantage

The domains like .gov, .edu, and .org continue to rank top due to users' feedback as Matt Cutts has confirmed it.

Keyword rich domain will get lower preference in ranking if content is not relevant

Use of canonical tags for duplicate content will have advantage in CMS based websites

No follow attribute will continue to gain advantage

User vs publisher cum websites will have different treatment in terms of ranking

CTR may be an important ranking factor for organic search results because it’s of less ranking factor and more people factors (users' feedback)

Guys, read the possible predictions in advance and spend time to analyze rather than sticking with on-page and off-page optimization as part of your daily work. Otherwise, things become tough in future for survival.

CTR - The Next Change in Google Algorithm for Organic Search?

2011-04-15T11:45:00.015+05:30

CTR, Ranking factor in Google?
Image courtesy -Techiemania

Google has officially announced change in its algorithm that could be a possible change in CTR for organic search. While analyzing couple of websites’ ranking on a few key-phrases, I’ve observed that the ranking has fluctuated within a month. And this time the difference has taken a major leap. The ‘primary keyword’ that ranked pretty well on Google 1st page until mid March 2011 is pushed back to 4th page this month. I quickly probed the health of the website and found the site was still SEO compliance, as per Google guidelines.

I then checked the popularity of the key phrases and found a small % increase in demand followed by almost same % of increase in supply. I reconfirmed investigation by logging on to the US server yet the result was same with a minor difference in positioning.

Quickly, I scanned the dashboard of Google webmaster and what caught my attention was 'click vs. impression’ of a key phrase (that ranked on 1st Page of Google). While reviewing CTR of the keyword, I found a continuous decline in clicks with almost meager decline in impressions. The impressions in the past 3 months of that particular key phrase were almost same yet there was a significant decline in clicks. This has overall impacted CTR pushing back to 0.02% compared to 1.3% for previous months.

For confidential issue, I can’t share the screenshot of my clients’ websites but it will be a good study to share screenshot of my personal blog to x-ray ranking behavior of keywords in context of CTR.

Screenshot-1

Google Webmaster

This screenshot signals me how Google clandestinely is taking CTR as one of the ranking factors in its algorithm. Guys, if you have not checked, please check if you have similar case.

If this happens to be true, it will be a major change in Google’s algorithm, even greater than the recent change in algorithm to fight against spammy content farms. This will make black-hat extremely tough to manipulate ranking for two reasons:

1. Rejections by users to avoid such sites to visit time and again

2. New algorithm provides an opportunity to another quality website to rank

Just today, many reports are flooded with a change in Google algorithm and its effects on various websites. The algorithm change by Google could be a possible weightage of CTR. Guys, check CTR and continuously monitor primary keywords you have targeted to optimize. If CTR is getting low, change the content to make CTR consistent with ranking on Google.

Facebook Ad or Google AdWords - Social vs. Search

2011-04-13T17:23:00.017+05:30

Social vs Search

I’ve often come across a question whether Facebook ad is better than Google AdWords or vice versa? Different opinion is afloat to address this question. Some favor FB, while many put their opinion in favor of AdWords.

The truth is that you can’t compare ‘Orange with Apple’. Facebook is purely a social networking site while Google is a search engine. The two media differ in their theme, objectives and applications. The prime objective of Google is to facilitate users seeking information on web while Facebook facilitates users connect to their peers and groups. Due to tons of custom apps and high degree of freedom provided to users to perform activities in context of virtual networking, the popularity of the Facebook, as a social networking site, is scaling up high.

Facebook is more than a social networking site. it’s a framework to develop lots of custom apps that adds value to community users in networking with their peers and groups. On the other hand, Google is horizontal search engine offering no such scope for the development of customized apps on its main product by search users. Search is the holy grail of Google though the company provides API to developers to build apps around other products and customize site search.

The advertisement model of the Facebook is different from AdWords. Most advertisers perceive AdWords as a purely lead generation tool. And the single most important KPI that matters to Google advertisers is CPA or CPL or Cost per Conversion more than CTR, CPM, Impressions, etc. A business person does not care for Quality Score or any other KPIs, for what matters to him/her is ROI that he/she calculates for X$ spent on advt. and its return. He/she is more interested in knowing the ’GAP’. Higher be the ‘gap’, louder be his/her laugh setting his/her lower lip apart up above from upper lip to create a Gap in between his mouth to swallow more profit and vice versa. He/she purely looks at AdWords from capitalists’ perspective.

The fact is that many marketers have embraced the belief that Facebook ad has potential to generate leads even higher than Google AdWords @ much lower cost. This implicitly indicates how a marketer holds a quantitative comparison between AdWords and Facebook ad. Let this myth not prevail!

Facebook is a ‘Social Utility’ and any advertisement across this channel should be looked from social perspective and accordingly advertisers need to calculate social ROI. The feature-sets and advertisement options in Facebook differ from the options in AdWords. Facebook offers options to advertisers more from ’connectivity’ and social perspectives because, as said above, it’s a social utility. However, Facebook ad may not yield real time conversions as high as Google AdWords yet the former has many advantages if we look it from long term perspective.

Facebook ad brings in exposure and helps in build brand

It helps advertisers connect to larger audiences, prospects, customers, and followers

It yields social ROI in long term and may yield real ROI as well

Google AdWords, on the other hand, has also some advantages if we look at this from short term perspective.

Google AdWords generates leads that meets immediate sales goal

It is a pull-marketing strategy that shortens the ‘sales cycle’ for any leads generated

It is a search engine marketing based on ‘keywords’ and ‘key phrases’ searched by users.

Both have different customer segments and different models. It depends on an advertiser what he/she is looking for. Ideally, an advertiser should have different expectations from these two different channels. The fact is that not all advertisers are alike. Similarly not all digital channels (Facebook ad and AdWords) are alike. Both Google AdWords and Facebook Ad are different digital channels for advertisers to choose from depending on their objectives. The choice is theirs - if they want social advertisement or search advertisement or both?

Why Should Google Incorporate Social Search Feature on Mainstream SERP?

2011-03-11T10:15:00.008+05:30

Google Social

To many, Google already displays social circle results when logged in. This is officially confirmed by Google almost two years back when a new experiment on Google Labs called Google Social Search was rolled out that helps users find more relevant public content from their broader social circle. However, this kind of experiment of incorporating social results may not serve a meaningful purpose unless the search results are materialized on Google mainstream.

Google in search result page offers many options for users to customize their search based on their informational needs. However, none of the options have any tab for ‘social search’. Though Google’s attempt to experiment social search is worth noticing yet it’s not appreciated due to lack of finding the same on Google’s mainstream search.

After the closure of Google Wave, the fate of real time search launched by Google a few months back appears to be in doldrums because of ‘replicating updates’ from Twitter. The hype of RealTime Search is fading due to bad users’ experiences.

In my opinion, Google should consider incorporating social search feature onto mainstream search results. This will not only provide an additional option to users but also create many other advertising avenues for the company. Also, this will help users make fast decision of making purchase of anything they find on social search results that should ideally include reviews, recommendations, feedback, etc. One of the sources confirm that 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations over ads and Google SERPs.

In order to further enhance users’ experience, Google can also customize its interface with tabs including Universal, Horizontal, Vertical, and Social. See below the screenshot.

Google New Interface

The default setting should be directed towards horizontal search (General Archive search). Universal search option should display results from all sources (archive, video, audio, image, news etc). Vertical search option should display industry specific or commercial specific search. Social search option should display search results from social sites (YouTube, Linkedin, Facebook, social bookmarking etc).

This will not only help Google take a major leap but also explore additional avenues for advertising. It’s high time for Google to come out of horizontal approach. Redefine the search in a customized and semantic way!

AOL to Lay Off Bangaloreans, Google to Blame!

2011-03-10T21:30:00.003+05:30

AOL to Lay off Bangaloreans

A massive lay off of Bangalore workforce at AOL is almost confirmed, as many media sources published the news. The latest layoffs may most likely to happen for employees in the content side of AOL India. The reason for the massive ‘cut’ is being ascribed to the recent deal of Time Warner’s unit to buy Huffington Post for the sum of $315 million USD. This is a fact but hides ‘essential truth’ –the truth is that AOL has become a victim of Google’s recent change in algorithm that poses a challenge to content farms apart from other varied reasons.

This is certainly not good news for many professionals working in AOL in Bangalore. I checked with some of my friends working in operations and content departments, and I too found that they seemed to be getting jitters. They have rigorously started hunting for jobs. Their worries of job insecurity reflect on their faces and talks. If you search jobs in naukri or other major job portals in India, you’ll find a few listings of opportunities in AOL.

At time when the companies like AOL, Demand Media, and Yahoo Networks etc. pass through a difficult phase of managing employees, Google and Facebook have taken major leaps in creating multiple opportunities in India. CNN reports that Google is about to go on a hiring binge. Last quarter, Google posted 26% sales growth while AOL suffered sharp declines in advertising sales and dial-up subscriptions in the fourth quarter of 2010, driving overall revenue down 26%, ibnlive.in.com confirms.

To me, it looks as if Google alone is responsible for bringing in havoc to many companies including AOL. Hope, Huffington Post will salvage AOL from further fall.

The Birth of SEO Under the Dark Shadow of Google

2011-02-19T20:27:00.021+05:30

Dark Shadow of Google

Right from the transitional phase of Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, we seem to have embarked upon a false journey of search engine marketing. Thanks to Google for creating a ‘false illusion’ of SEO, a phrase that has become so popular that every online business seems to be talking about. While some are Google frenzy, many bake their ‘cakes’ to ensure top results on Google SERP without laying emphasis on enhancing users’ experience. To them, the significance of SEO is even higher than enhancing users’ experience. Who is to blame for over-crowded cheap and low websites studded with crappy contents? It’s none other than Google itself.

The ‘archive-oriented’ algorithmic program of Google has set a ‘rage race’ that the online business across the world has embarked on. From the age of taxonomy to tagging, the world is gaga over securing top SERP on Google. The ‘rat race’ thus gave birth to many flourishing SEO businesses and agencies. They keep Google on top while optimizing a site rather than users. The blame goes to Google for its automated archived algorithm.

If you ask Google, which do you value most – SEO or Users’ Experience? The answer would be obvious. But this is a ‘business trick’ of Google. Had it been emphasized more on users’ experience, it would not have become ‘FAT’ via AdWords. How do you define users’ experience? Objectively, there is no definition. Users’ experience is subjective in nature that never gets fit into Google’s algorithms. For any broader key-phrase, for instance, the result will be Wikipedia. This itself shows Google looks at the content through traditional glasses. Though Wikipedia is a brain child of Web 2.0 contributed by users yet it nowhere verifies that the content is great and enriches users’ experience. May be, some other contents from experts or research papers would be a great experience to explore rather than having a glimpse through Wikipedia page. Then why Wikipedia’s result for any broader key –phrase is always on top? Is it just due a treasure of traditionally written content presented in digitalized wiki form? Many researchers and academia don’t rely on them.

It appears to me that Google, in an attempt to promote its engine, has coined the term ‘SEO’ to set a ‘rat race’ to garner its business. If we retrospect the last two decade, the Google’s success is Google. With Web 2.0 on high and social networking gained momentum, the company experimented with whole lot of products only to bite the dust. Confused over social media and content syndication for links, the engineer at Google is unable to revamp search engine in a social and semantic way. Instead, they create a separate product –Google Real Time’ (Clandestinely tied up with Twitter for revenue sharing, I guess!) to get twitter updates rather than real time updates from online communities.

Thanks to Eric Schmidt for monetizing Google and taking the company to the next level. Mr. Schmidt considers Web 2.0 as a marketing term. He has reason too -the reason for his company’s failure to revamp the engine to Google 2.0. Mr. Schmidt, more than a marketing term, Web 2.0 is a way of life now. It is more refined way to seek information, communicate and create WOM.

Indeed, the burgeoning popularity of Facebook, blogs, twitter and other social networking sites seem to have taught Google a lesson about users’ experience. Since then, the company is talking about users’ experience. The recent change in algorithm to challenge the business model of content farms is the first major implementation in true sense that Google has taken to enhance users’ experience. Let’s hope, this will really help us seek quality information.

To me, Google is not very clear in its preference between a SEO friendly site and a great User’s experience website. SEO is not all about great users’ experience and vice versa. There exists a paradox. As an SEO by profession if you ask me which one I value, I value a site that enriches my experience rather than an optimized site. Google has to update its algorithm more towards quality websites instead of SEOed websites. Well, if this happens to be true, the so-called SEO will be replaced with User’s Experience Optimization (UEO). It’s time to correct the digital industry with right phrase and with right strategy, and yes with right algorithms!

SEO Guys, Wear Your Hats Carefully! Hats Off to Google 2.0

2011-02-16T12:09:00.011+05:30

Wear Your Hats Carefully

Content is king but the so-called king that ruled for a long to please Google more than users may no longer exist. The way people of Egypt ousted Mubarak, Google by delegating ‘Power’ to users may soon oust the ‘Bad King’. And the established regime of eHow, Demand Media, AOL's Yahoo's Associated Content and others appear to be at stake. Also, the danger looms large over their SEO firms and writers.

Enough is Enough

With Chrome’s ext of personal blocklist, Google wants to kill two birds with a single stone. On one hand, the search giant delegates the power to users to block any site they want. When you choose to block or unblock a pattern, the extension will also transmit to Google the URL of the web page on which the blocked or unblocked search results are displayed. On the other hand, it does not want to displease large advertisers and their networks directly for moolah factor.

Based on users’ experience, the site’s result on Google will appear over a period of time. Upon the receipts of various complains and the criticism made by Jeff Atwood and the team at Stack Overflow, Matt Cutts officially announced a change in Google’s algorithm with main objective to punish content farms.

I always hear about the so-called SEO copywriting techniques. I’m perplexed, as there is no such profession but many farms or SEO agencies hire dedicated professionals to write smartly to please both users and Google alike. This practice is in vogue and pursued even in larger organizations, for manipulated ranking on Google because clients' results on top of SERP matter for their thriving SEO business models.

The paradigm shift form Google 1.0 to Google 2.0 is taking place to keep users’ satisfied and happy. The evolving concept of Micro format, new capability of CMS, declining importance of Alt Tags, Meta tags, link exchange etc give enough signals for a fast transition of Google as a search engine.

Google 1.0 was for Black Hats but Google 2.0 is for White Hats. So, SEO guys, wear your hats carefully, hats off to Google!

Alt Tag, a No Longer HTML Attribute for Image in Google Ranking

2011-02-14T16:41:00.017+05:30

Alt Tag Not Required

For last couple of days, I had been observing if Alt Tags were of any use for images on website from SEO perspective? As an SEO by profession, until now, I knew the importance of Alt Tags. Further confirming this, Matt Cutts also discussed the importance of Alt Tags from Google perspective sometimes back. After observing and analyzing the latest CMS of blogger ,reading a few comments in the forum and skimming through the currently published specs for HTML 5 at whatwg.org, I hereby sum up with my thoughts that Alt Tag in HTML for image on website no longer seems plausible.

Let’s review the latest blogger CMS. I have uploaded an image in blogger and looked into Alt tag property in HTML, I could not find unlike in older blogger CMS.

HTML CMS Mode

If you now review the same CMS in ‘Compose’ mode, it will display property ‘Add Caption’ that appears below the image you upload. This seems more plausible because the visibility of the caption is 100% on all browsers with or without downloaded image. This kind of caption also adds to usability and readability not only for normal users but also for visually challenged users.

Many of us argue that Alt Tag still holds importance from search engine perspective and the new CMS of blogger as an example illustrated above does not verify the claim in toto. To confirm this further, I checked and researched reliable websites such as The Hindu, the Times of India and couple of other sites. Their CMS allows captions below the pictures and also SEO adds the same repeated captions in Alt Tags. I believe, the extra Alt Tag in HTML with this kind of CMS is not necessary. However, SEO firms or persons still advise to add Alt Tags for which they have been taught as a good practice and they have been practicing the same YoY.

Compose Mode

I believe, this is not the best practice to add caption one in HTML as Alt Tags and the other as caption below the image. If a CMS has property to add caption, no need to insert Alt Tags in HTML, as blogger does not recommend this nor practice it now.

At time when Matt Cutts confirms that the repetition of keywords in web pages shall be considered as SPAM. To me, Alt Tag in HTML now looks repetitive to gain ranks that no longer remains valid as long as you give a caption to image you upload. This seems more logical from upfront users' perspective.

To sum up, I must say Alt Tags for images do not look promising in a fast changing technology as long as you properly name your images below the one you upload. Any attempt to add extra looks spammy! Am I right Mr. Matt?

Role of Social Media in Revolutionary Egyptian Movement

2011-02-01T12:16:00.023+05:30

Social Media is already declared as a ‘sharp-edged weapon’ in Tunisia’s revolution and now it has spread its wings across Egypt. The scary anti-Mubarak campaign in Egypt is yet another example of people’s movement. It was too late for Mr. Mubarak to invade with a ban on social media in Egypt. The fire via FB, twitter, YouTube etc had already engulfed the whole country. China has already banned social media and has virtually 'deleted 'Egypt' to avert such a situation while other GCC countries are getting jitters and anxious.

Mubarak, in an attempt to extinguish the rapid burning fire, took first steps to ban Internet that further created furor among people. The worldwide administration can put restrictions on Print, Radio and television but any attempt to ban social media or internet provokes and creates reactive and retaliatory actions, for social media is a ‘media of people’. Banning a social media implicitly means ‘boycotting people’.

Egypt -'Down Mubarak'

The inherent democratic traits of social media can’t be subdued nor can be censored. History has witnessed very strong role of print, radio and television media in civil wars, revolutions, and even World Wars. Time is gone now when media could have been controlled and censored. Now the power of vox populi is already shifted from elite media to public media. The worldwide administrations are really cautious to ban people’s media to avoid Egypt-like consequences. China has taken a daring step to temporarily diffuse the ‘hot balloons’ after Egypt’s revolution by banning the social media but the very country knows that it’s not the permanent solutions.

Social media is emerging as a ‘lethal weapon’ more than any other media channels. It’s because of its ‘connectivity’ and ‘WOM’ characteristics. No other media is a two-way communication other than social media.

Einstein created nuclear with a sole purpose of human welfare but its wrong usage brought holocaust. Many worldwide administrations like Tunisia, China, Egypt, Arabian nations deem ‘social media’ as a lethal tool and consider them even more dangerous than a nuclear weapon but what they are not realizing is that their attempt to ban social media fuels the rapid fire to engulf the whole countries. They should realize that no administration is bigger than 'WE THE PEOPLE'.

It’s not a question of sovereignty but a question of democracy. Restriction on social media to safeguard sovereignty is justifiable but it’s not justifiable to censor social media for a social movement which I believe is above democracy.

Colonization, Globalization and Googlization

2011-01-31T12:09:00.003+05:30

The British who colonized the large parts of the globe to explore natural resources to plug into their manufacturing sectors could not sustain for they were VERY exploitative. Gradually, the economy takes a paradigm shift from colonization to globalization against all hue and cry for Socialism.

Many of us think ‘globalization’ is the final ‘output’ produced by the world economic system for we all agreed upon but to me, it’s Googlization that encapsulates the whole digital ecosystem wherein our economy depends essentially for commerce/e-commerce.

Every morning when I turn on my laptop, I see the comforting white background and cheerful cartoon graphic imagery of Google instead. The search engine guides me through the open web, the space that Bing or Yahoo does not yet control. Just as clearly, my day starts with Google and I hope there are millions who are like me.

Not shrouded in mystery, Google plays pivotal role not only in our information culture but also in our day to day business. It is a ubiquitous brand, used as a noun and a verb by users all across the world. Its initial public offering in 2004 generated $1.67 billion in cash. Its revenue has more than doubled to $3 billion per year since the offering.

Unlike British colonization, the damage Google has done to the world economy is minimal and centers largely on the slippage of grammatical standards, copyright issues, etc. Thanks to Matt Cutts for taking initiative to run a ‘clean up’ campaign. It’s wonder how the giant search engine got big by keeping ads small for which Yahoo and Bing still struggle to compete despite the fact that Microsoft is doing everything from soup to nuts.

In gist, I agree with Siva Vaidhyanathan, an associate professor of Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia who said “Google carefully examined our marketing saturated nervous systems and offered illusions of objectivity, precision, comprehensiveness, and democracy.”

If I look at the digital world through commercial kaleidoscope, it appears to me that Googlization is driving our commercial and non-commercial lives direct or indirect way!

No Googlepology for Content Spamology!

2011-01-30T10:59:00.000+05:30

The recent confirmation about changes in Google algorithm may possibly hit many content factories and firms that manipulated SERP for a whopping profit. Thank God, Matt Cutts acted very fast to the criticism made by Jeff Atwood and the team at Stack Overflow.

To my knowledge, many SEO firms, Content Syndication sites, and company like Demand Media will suffer. Now, the fate, especially for a company like Demand Media, depends on how it changes its content strategies. Whatever may be the future strategies, but this is really a bad news for the company (DM) that is set to have gone public this year.

There are tons of companies and content firms who spammed G-SERP with inflated key phrases. The traditional SEO firms and the so-called SEO professionals adulterate the content for they knew their time-tested tricks to rank on Google. With this action, these firms will definitely get hit to the hardest..

My heartiest congratulation to @mattcutts for cracking down the scandalous business that survived through years under the sleeves of Google. To me, it appears that the giant search engine is in no mood to excuse spammers this time. So, no Google Apology (Googlepology) for content spammers (Spamology).

Challenges of Larry Page as a CEO

2011-01-28T12:04:00.005+05:30

A product so created with a vision to survive through decade one or two needs a revamp to sustain its growth. In today’s fast changing technological world, Google appears to be falling and failing. The recent announcement at Googleplex confirms that Larry Page could soon take over as CEO. This lets the cat out of the bag as how the giant search engine needs a serious revamp to survive and sustain through YOY.

Undoubtedly, Google has revolutionized the digital space and reined the world as a giant search engine. Thanks to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, their visionary product succeeded but it needs to be revamped to face off challenges from Zuckerberg. The loopholes in Google’s automated algorithm were maneuvered by company like Demand Media to thrive its business. Now, things look gloomy for a company like Demand Media to survive.

On receipt of tons of complaints, Google is simply acting to target the company like Demand Media as Content Farms or On-Page Spam. This would be a good move if seriously taken by Google after Matt Cutts’ action against link farms that was taken long back.

Today, Larry Page is faced with two-edged problems. One is ‘the pollution’ around Google (Black Hats & manipulation) and the other one is – ‘the challenge’ posed by social media and technological break-through. It would be interesting to see how Larry Page takes on these problems.

The evolving concept of Web 3.0, micro-formats, semantic index, OWL, data aggregations, users’ repository on social sites etc are a few major challenges to block the growth of Google. Nevertheless, Google’s profit is whopping up because users still have no best alternative channel to source information. Slowly, we are finding options, more semantic and useful. Before we turn completely on these channels, Larry Page, as a CEO, has to re-engineer his product to pull back users wandering towards other directions.

Google Instant Discourages Organic Clicks

2010-09-14T22:44:00.026+05:30

Google Instant has already created suspicion and fear about the future of SEO. Since its launch, there came up various news and articles about the impact of Google Instant on SEO. The author like Steve Rubel believes SEO becomes irrelevant while Matt Owen disagrees with Steve. Whatever may be the pros and cons, one thing is certain that Google Instant will change the organic users’ behavior but more than this, it will bring an instant changes in the behavior of sponsored users as well. And that’s where the main goal of Google lies. The ‘Giant Search’ discourages organic clicks and directs the users more towards sponsored links.

The moment you start typing your queries, 80% visibility falls on sponsored links while 20% visibility falls on organic SERP. This concept is based on the eye tracking behavior of users, a study conducted by Enquiro Research a few years back.

See the below screenshot.

Apart from large exposure of sponsored links, Google Instant has other commercial intent. That is to increase unnecessary impressions for AdWords advertisers. You must be surprised to know that Google just now came with a new definition of ‘Impression’. Check out Google AdWords to know how Google counts impression Now! Even though a user types a query and stops typing for 3 seconds and results are displayed, the available display of advertisements on sponsored links will be counted as impressions.

With the launch of Google Instant, many Google watchdogs on twitter post it as ‘fast changing event’ during the event streamlined on Youtube. Melissa Mayer says that the primary benefit of Google Instant is to save the average searchers 2-5 seconds and by this logic, they will be able to save 11 hours of users.

@Marissa, are you sure you have the same intention behind the launch of Google Instant?

I’m not sure if you have really holistic motive behind this. As far as I analyze, you have vested 'commercial intent' to consume advertisers' money fast really fast! My analysis is based on the following logic. If you have counter logic to offset my analysis, I welcome your comments.

1. A new definition of Impression is coined by Google. With Google Instant, Google has now a wider definition of ‘impression’. If CTR is a function of clicks in proportionate to impression, you will lower ‘Quality Score’ and ask to increase bids. This is going to happen for ‘average users’ (Google says) but for me, they are average advertisers or small businesses entrepreneurs.

2. With Google Instant, Google will have a wider ‘web’ to spin advertisers’ money. Since the company’s biggest challenge is social media and it has always failed in this area, the biggest plan might be to spend more on R&D to compete in social networking space as Google R & D budget is increasing and planning to extend R & D divisions across the globe

3. Google has also added CTR feature in Webmaster Tool sometimes back. I have already written an article as how Google might count CTR for displaying organic results as well. This might make an SEO job tough in future.

4. By default, Instant is ‘on’ when you type. Only when you select ‘off’, it will go off. But do average users really care? Surely not! Similarly, If you look at AdWords, ‘Content Network’ by default in setting is turned on unless you turn off. Selecting default setting in adwords unnecessary increase impressions. I believe AdWords experts know what I mean to say.

5. Google Instant discourages 'long tail key phrase'. This implicitly means that the company wants users to click on broader keywords to display high priced and competitive keywords on sponsored links.

6. Google instant does not display any results of pornographic key phrase. Type anything vulgar it will not show results (For ex. just type p###, f###, etc). This is not a bug. Rather Google does not accept vulgar and pornographic advertisements. So, no sponsored results are there. Do you still want more proofs to verify that Google Instant promotes sponsored links but not organic clicks?

All these points confirm me as how Google Instant discourages organic clicks and promotes sponsored links clicks. Well, from the talk of Google Caffeine to the launch of Google Instant, it seems that Google is going fast, very fast and asking the ‘average runners (users)’ like us to Run Fast, Type Fast, Click Fast, and Spend Fast! What an idea sir ji!!

Anyways, listen to a song on Google Instant sung by Jnathan.

Jerry Young Crying, Larry Page Fearing and Bill Gates Smiling!

2010-09-12T20:17:00.003+05:30

The continuous decline in Yahoo due to lack of successful innovation in search and social media to survive through digital space is a strong signal that the company’s fate is going to be similar like AOL. Google, though an apple of eye for all, is struggling to survive with its R&D team to innovate trendy products like Buzz, RealTime Search and the latest one is Google Instant. The only slow and steady winner that appears to be obvious is Bing. Its tie up with Facebook and refined search algorithm are making users turn back to Bing, perhaps a good news for Bill Gates, bingo!!

Yahoo stock continues to slump. The stock is 18% in 2010 and is 7% above its 52-week low, CNN Money reports. One of the strong reasons behind the plummet is continuous decline in the popularity of Yahoo Portal. The chart compiled by Citi analyst Mark Mahaney published on Business Insider SAI, illustrates the picture very clearly. Check out the graph here – ‘Time Spent on Yahoo Sites Declining’.

Despite regular innovations and experimentations, the giant search is losing its search share as a study recently published confirms that people spend more time on Facebook than on Google to search information. It appears that Google is surrounded with many challenges such as anti-privacy policy (Google is running its own sponsored search), pain of shutting down Google Wave, criticism and controversies around the latest addition Google Instant, the burgeoning popularity of Facebook, rumor of ‘human hands’ behind Google search, growing dissatisfaction of Google SERP and there are a few more to add to a list. There is mounting pressure on Google to innovate alternative search. DoubleClick co-founder Kevin O'Connor says consumers want smarter search engines that show relevant results. In an effort to save the falling empire, Google, it seems, is struggling now to catch up with the Jonses. In my opinion, Google’s only savor messiah would be to come up with Search Engine 2.0 to meet the users’ expectation rather than experimenting new areas that are falling flat one by other.

Now, Bill Gates’ biggest concern to establish Bing as one of the best alternative to Google is almost soothing down. Bing continues to gain search share and it has reasons to shine. There are many reports around this including ComScore and Liveside reports. According to Hitwise, in June 2010 Bing has experienced triple digit growth in three main categories: Automotive (197%), Shopping (199%), Travel (196%) and 94% in Health since June 2009, when Bing officially launched, Search Engine Land published the report. Yet another report says that Bing users more likely to click on advt compared to Google and Yahoo.

Whether Bing will be a new addition in Oxford Dictionary as a verb synonym for ‘Search’ like Google now, it depends on how successful Bing establishes its leadership by replacing Google in near future.

Best of luck!!

Future of Web Analytics Depend on Refinement of KPIs Integrated with Social Analytics

2010-09-08T11:05:00.008+05:30

Chris Anderson in a debate published on “The Wired” mentions that web is dead. He has showcased illustrations to prove his argument. If you study the trends, you’ll also find logic in his argument. The growing usage of social networking sites, many acquisitions of social networking sites and launch of RealTime search by Google, and burgeoning adoption of social apps indicate enough that the future of web is at least not going to be the same as it is now. If this happens to be true, what would be then the future of web analytics?

As of now, there are some standard KPIs to measure users’ behavior on a website. They are, as known to you, are – visits, page views, top keywords, time spent, referral sources, bounce rate, etc. The question here is now – whether these KPIs, as standards set by world web analytics, are still relevant in measuring the performance of a website. In my opinion, they are not.

Web Analytics Association (WAA) has listed down concepts to measure analytics behavior of users on web. Many of them are related to ‘keyword optimization’ and many web analysts always suggest ways to increase web site traffic based on the insights they drive after studying standard KPIs. Not necessarily, a web whose traffic has gone down is not popular as it was. May be, it’s more popular today than yesterday. Today, there are various sources where users without visiting a website keep themselves updated about the offerings of websites. Those sources are micro-blogging like Twitter, syndication service like RSS, creation of profile in networking sites, YouTube videos etc.

I’m a big fan of Mashable. I’m sure many of you are. I follow Mashable updates on Twitter & Google buzz. I have also ‘Liked’ Mashable on Facebook and subscribed to RSS feed. Within no time, I get the latest updates from these sites. I just glance at the heading and read right on my email the full article without even visiting the website. I today spend more time on Twitter, Facebook, RealTime Search than visiting manshable.com. I’m equally sure all other users’ are doing the same. Does it mean Mashable’s popularity is going down just because its ‘visits’ as per web analytics KPI is going down?

Today, there are various sources of information collections and not just search engine. Web 2.0 has really redefined the way we are seeking digital information via different sources. Do the current web analytics software – be they Omniture, ClickTracks, WebTrends or Google Analytics track user behavior on those social networking sites? Why social analytics like Radian6 is getting popular? Have you ever thought?

The future of web analytics lie in its integration with social analytics. Though many softwares claim yet they are not still fully integrated with social analytics. If users are going social way, why web analytics are still stuck to a website? I often hear IBM’s acquisition of web analytics software. I’m not sure what IBM is going to do with traditional web analytics at time when the standard KPIs don’t represent the true picture of users’ behavior. I’m equally not sure if certification from WAA or UBC Award of Achievement in the field of Web Analytics remains relevant down the line unless they set other standard KPIs fully integrated with social analytics to track users’ behavior.

All the best web analysts!

CPM Dead, PPC Dying & Pay Per Fan (PPF) Evolving in Online Advt. Market

2010-08-31T20:32:00.014+05:30

It’s not surprise that CPM in online advertisement is almost dead now in online advertisement industry. Then came a revolutionary Pay Per Click (PPC) model and Google AdWords won the trophy to replace CPM by relevant advertisement concept. After ruling almost one and half decade, it appears PPC is also dying because social media, particularly Facebook has redefined online advertisement market to give a way for Pay Per Fan (PPF) model.

Today, there are varied potential avenues for advertisers to collect ‘prospects’ information. In loose sense, I call ‘lead’. For example, the site like SlideShare has come up with ‘Pay Per Download’ model and Scribd has also come up with ‘pay for download doc/pdf). I’m not sure how successful their revenue models are but Google AdWords takes the major share via its PPC model. Nevertheless, the growing popularity of social networking, increased number of click frauds, increasing cost of keywords etc are disturbing elements for Google to face with. As a result, AdWords too is losing against social media and the whole contextual advt and PPC advertisement industry is making a paradigm shift to pay per fan (PPF) model to test its effectiveness.

Though PPF is at nascent stage and many of us are not aware of the evolution of this model in online advertisement industry but the fact is it has already arrived and is evolving very fast to catch our attention.

PPF is purely an advertisement model that can be used by companies on Facebook to promote their brand. I’m sure Facebook has no objections if companies use FB platform to find advertisement avenues.

So far we have heard and know of companies that sell customer database to many SMBs on subscription basis but soon we’ll hear a thriving list of companies selling ‘Fans’ on Facebook. uSocial, is one such company that is trying to sell fans to Facebook advertisers, twitter followers, YouTube subscribers etc. I’m not sure how effective uSocial’s business strategies are but what I’m sure is that the company is very quick to adapt to the advertisement market for windfall gains.

In today’s social advertisement e-world where the number of fans you have is important to your brand’s perception and represents your popularity, why not purchase a few thousand fans? This appears to be the mindset of many online advertisers that are currently paying for new fans on their FB page. What an IDEA Sir ji! J

Cisco’s Well Crafted Social Media Strategies

2010-08-30T20:28:00.011+05:30

First, it was Dell’s Twitter strategy, now Cisco’s well crafted social media strategies have become an example for online marketing professionals of different verticals to review and study. Cisco, for Aggregated Services Router (ASR) launch, zeroed in on entirely social media to shave $100,000 prior launching the product.

Cisco leveraged the existing social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Secondlife and many other social channels to evangelize ASR prior to launching that created ‘WOM’ effect. Let’s look at the social statistics of Cisco Systems as of August 30, 2010.

Social Statistics of Cisco Systems

Cisco Twitter - 35,117 followers
Facebook - 86,389 fans
YouTube - 300+ channels, 2,000+ videos, 4 million views
Flickr - 300+ photos, 400,000 views
Blogs - Blogs: 22 external, 475,000 views/quarter

Apart from using these social channels, Cisco has made use of widgets, online forum, content syndications across top directories and many more. The company also used mobile campaigns to reach larger audiences across the globe.

See below the kind of video Cisco created to promote it on YouTube. It will definitely catch your eyeballs and will let you open your eyes where the future of digital technology is moving.

Additional Resources for Reference
Cisco Social Media Guidelines
Cisco Social Media Plan
Cisco Social Media Journey
Cisco Social Media Blog

After Google Wave, Orkut be the Next?

2010-08-29T17:04:00.016+05:30

The growing popularity of Facebook poses a great threat to Google’s products. First major jolt was a shutdown of Google wave for all lovers of Google products. In coming days, I also predict a closure of Orkut which was very popular in India until ComScore published its report on August 25, 2010 saying Facebook grabbed the no.1 ranking in the social networking category for the first time in July with 20.9M visitors, up 179% versus year ago. Orkut registered a growth of only 16% in the same time period.

To be proudly saying, we Indians hold now the 7^th largest market for social networking sites after US, Brazil, UK, China, Germany, and Russian Federation. With the startling facts revealed by ComScore about Facebook being number 1 beating Orkut in India must not have sounded sweet to Google.

I have searched the popularity of Facebook vs Orkut using Google Insights. See left the screenshot.

Orkut retained the number 1 position in social networking site in India and Brazil. But it seems that the growing popularity of Facebook poses a great threat to Google’s product. The question now is – why users are leaving Orkut and migrate to Facebook? The reasons are many but I personally believe is the existence of many user friendly apps that make Facebook a true collaborative platform –all in one place.

Personally speaking, I spend now more time on Facebook than on Orkut. Now-a-days, I always hear of my peer closing or abandoning orkut account and migrate to Facebook. I find my peers on Facebook more often than on orkut.

In gist, the growing popularity of Facebook is a wakeup call for Google to save Orkut. Otherwise, it might meet the same fate as Google Wave has met recently.

Good additional resources to visit

Which Social Networks to Focus On?

2010-08-28T22:46:00.008+05:30

There are many people and companies who as part of social media marketing strategies must have been using popular social networking including Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Digg. Many people new to social media still wonder where to focus more? Which channels to spend more time? There are endless list of social media and many more are just adding day by day.

Dean Whitney, a popular author and inbound marketer, solved the riddle for marketers who many times are confused with regard to the use of social media channels. He says ‘Marketers should look at two things – Audience reach and search engine optimization (SEO).”

The CMO’s Guide to The Social Media Landscape from CMO.com, prepared by 97th Floor, an SEO and social media firm, is an interesting take on the top 10 choices. Take a look and decide :)

The CMO's Guide To The Social Media Landscape

Google Real Time Search More Biased Towards Twitter?

2010-08-27T20:41:00.009+05:30

Today, Google launched Realtime Search as a standalone product though it has been in existence since Dec 2009 in the left hand search menu. Though Google claims “Realtime Search lets you see up-to-the-second social updates, news articles and blog posts about hot topics around the world,” yet its RealTime Search Result Page (RtSRP) is more biased towards Twitter updates.

Google RtSRP gives more slots to Twitter rather than to Facebook and other networking sites. This appears to me that the underlying framework to develop Google RealTime Search is based more on Twitter, FriendFeed and Google Buzz updates. Nevertheless, you’ll also see a very few updates from the most popular social sites like Facebook, Linkedin, Digg and Technorati.

Shall I assume that Google Realtime Search is more biased towards Twitter updates? I have tested my own ‘Google Poetry’ and it shows my Twitter updates along with other Twitter results though I have updated the link on various social sites like Linkedin, Facebook, Digg and Technorati. See below a screenshot.

Just check here and type a search query, you will get verification of what I have mentioned above.

The 'CAGE' Methodology of Social Media Simplified

2010-08-26T21:21:00.022+05:30

Have you ever heard of CAGE methodology of social media? Well, CAGE, in my definition, abbreviates to ‘Create’ ‘Attract’, 'Generate’ & ‘Engage'. Yes, there are 4 stages of social media. Once you are done with a project plan of social media, it’s time to execute CAGE methodology. Let me explain each of the alphabets to clarify my thoughts.

C =Create – This is Stage I of social media plan. First, you need to identify ‘channels’ where you want to create profile. For example, create a ‘twitter’ account and then get ready with the content you have already created to tweet based on social media project plan. Also, create a list of audiences (employees, stakeholders, customers etc.) who have twitter accounts. Invite them via personal mail or request to join your corporate Twitter account. Post daily 2-3 ‘unique’ tweets for a list of audiences who have joined Twitter. Not necessarily, your tweet should always be about promotional stuff of your products & services nor it should be off track. It should be something interesting not only about your company but also about others that should compliment to each other. Many companies use social media as one way communication tool to promote their stuffs. This might not work all the time.

A = Attract – This is Stage II. As the number of tweets increase, extend your efforts beyond in-house list that you have created in Stage I. You can increase your list of followers. There are many articles written on ‘how to increase followers in Twitter. However, the basic idea is to ‘promote’ Twitter profile the way you focus on promoting your website. Make use of advanced segmentation of Google Analytics or any other analytics software and identify what type of audience is visiting your website. Also, make use of ‘Heat Map’ analysis and place the social icons to bring in more clicks and exposure.

G – Generate – This is Stage III. Once you have growing list of audiences (not necessary a huge list of unwanted audiences) following you on Twitter, encourage them to‘re-tweet’. However, this is not easy. Followers are both passive and active. Identify both type of audiences and invoke their responses as well by posting on Twitter. Exchange comments, appreciate some posts of your audiences and re-tweet their content. ‘Virtual Communication (VC) might play an important role in encouraging your audiences to re-tweet. Also, make use of # tag to optimize your tweets to ensure a result on search engines. Read here an article on how to optimize Twitter. Be active in communicating, chatting, responding to re-tweets made by your followers. Your quick, fast and smart gestures are the key ingredients to generate interest that automatically paves in a way for Stage IV which is a final stage of ‘Engagement.’

E – Engage – This is Stage IV, a final stage of social media. You can find some instances inBlack Atlas. Click on the link and see how the company has used Twitter to engage its audiences. However, the fundamental rule of ‘audience engagement’ is to develop humane trait – Patience. You need to have patience to listen to your audiences that you already knew in Stage III. Yes, Listen first and then react to address their voice. This is the most difficult stage. Once you succeed, you’ve already learnt the matured way to use social media. Once the maturity level is achieved, make sincere efforts to manage and maintain. Keep a track of records by effectively managing your audiences. You can use Online Reputation Management and go in depth to understand ‘sentiments‘of your audiences via ‘Automated Sentiment Analytics Tool. Read here an article for reference on How Companies Can Use Sentiment Analysis to Improve Their Business.

All these four stages of social media make a ‘CAGE, a virtual cage of your followers, peers, prospects and customers. This is easier said than done but not virtually tough.

Go, & follow the ‘CAGE’ methodology after you are done with social media project plan.

Note – This article represents my personal thoughts that I always wanted to share with my audiences.

Google Webmaster – Now Verify Site Ownership with Google Analytics

2010-08-23T22:07:00.007+05:30

A few months back, Google introduced to us a new asynchronous Analytics JavaScript and since then it has been encouraging webmasters to use the new asynchronous code for enhanced analytics reporting. Last week, Google released a very user friendly site map verification process via Google Analytics. As Google says “The time you save using these new verification features might not be enough to let you take up a new hobby, but we hope it makes the verification process a little bit more pleasant”.

With this new code, you do not need to upload HTML file nor a meta tag verification nor DNS record rather you can just click an option of Google Analytics set up and verify the ownership.

If you are using the old tracking urchin of GA, please migrate this as Google encourages webmasters to use asynchronous Analytics JavaScript to benefit from easy site ownership verification. If you are using old tracking GA code, you can’t use this option.

Why migrating from the old GA tracking code to asynchronous Analytics JavaScript? The first benefit is the latest addition of Site Verification Ownership in Google Webmaster and second benefit is a speed web page loading factor. Yes. Google introduced this code to make a less burden on server of a website for fast access and better reporting. For other benefits, refer the article here.

It’s unfortunate that I have not seen much encouraging implementation of this code from many webmasters across the globe (I saw few top websites still using old Google Analytics Tracking code).

Guys, its time to migrate to the new asynchronous code from the old tracking GA for easy and new reporting features. The migration from old tracking code to new code is easy. Read here migration guidelines Google released after it introduced to us the new code.

So, try and test!!

Google Algorithm Changed –SEO in Jeopardy for Smaller Business!

2010-08-21T20:18:00.008+05:30

Officially, Google announced yesterday a change in algorithm that will make users find a large number of pages from a single site. This, of course, is not a good news for many small business websites that depend on Google SERP mostly for traffic and lead generation. Many users have reacted in a negative manner saying that this is not a justice done to users because users don’t like to find 6-7 slots on a single page repeatedly. I too agree with this counter argument and smell a rat as what might have been cooked after the association of Google with SBA.

No doubt, the change in algorithm will bring in more pressure on SEO firms/agencies to ensure regain in ranking of small websites that they are almost pushed down to 2^nd and 3^rd SERP. This is of course not an encouraging move by Google for smaller business. Recently, the ‘giant search’ in association with SBA has had all the helping hands for smaller businesses and suggesting them to use Free Marketing Tools to promote their online business and after this, Google has taken a different turn by changing its algorithm more biased towards big brands while encouraging smaller businesses to opt for paid services like AdWords.

In my previous post, I have already analyzed that Google will soon count CTR as one of the ranking measurements for organic listings after it introduced the same feature in Google Webmaster. Now my analysis is proved that Google wants this to happen!

On one side, Matt Cutts says SEO will exist in another five year while addressing a question posed by user and on the other hand, Google changes its algorithm more biased towards big brands. Mr. Matt, you should understand, big brands do not need SEO services. There are many big sites that don’t comply Google guidelines yet you will show their results with full coverage on first page. Are you compatible with what Google does and what you say? If so, what about smaller business? Do you want them to pay for adwords? Well, your this move verifies the intent if you really want smaller business to grow online!

SEO guys, a tough time ahead for you, especially when you are involved in small business sites optimization.

Best of luck!

If Web is Dead, Google Gets Cremated!

2010-08-19T19:51:00.006+05:30

Web 2.0 verifies the maturation of the internet economy today. Currently, we are in adolescent phase and soon enter into a full fledge matured age of web 3.0 era. The key concept of web 2.0 is networking applications. The archive pages (website) get least surfed by users on internet. Web is almost taking last breath. Is web dead now? Yes, says Chris Anderson.

As web 2.0 is reaching its maturity, the whole lot of social apps is being developed for virtual communication. It’s not just people are using more and more social apps but because these social apps are becoming smart enough to capture more and more users’ data. That’s’ why iPhone and Android have competitive edge over others. They have more apps than others. Similarly, Facebook has more social apps compared to Google 2.0 add ons.

Today, the biggest source of revenue for Google is AdWords, and for many top news or portal’s revenue comes from banner/CPM advertisements. But CPMs are declining. Many publishers of such websites rush in hiring SEOs/SMOs to promote websites to showcase high traffic for CPM advertisements without understanding and investigating the reasons. They should understand- engagement is what matters. Inventory is irrelevant.

A big chunk of companies follow Google for good SERP, but they don’t understand that tons of traffic generated by Google ensures no ‘final sale’. And optimizing on targeted keywords and ranking ensure no higher click as well. There are innovative ways to drive traffic and create viral buzz via social networking marketing and online multi-channels. As I always reiterate Google is not an answer to millions of search queries.

If the maturation of the internet economy brings in different trends and web is going dead, Google has to innovate fast really very fast to save its empire from falling down. Otherwise, the epitaph of Google will surely be built and web 3.0 generation will be reading the history of the fallen ‘Search Giant’.

In short, if we believe in Anderson’s quote that web is dead or web is getting dead, soon we have to say a Goodbye to Google. I’m not sure if the web is going to be full dead or half dead but what I’m sure is that Google might see its own epitaph if it does not keep up or surpass the Joneses like Zuckerberg.

Additional Reference
Wired uses the graph to illustrate Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff's claim that the world wide web is "dead." Check here!

Social Media Introduces a New Role in Digital Marketing – Will It Last Longer?

2010-08-19T12:30:00.006+05:30

The rapid innovation in digital world brought to by social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube bookmarking etc. is redefining the marketing strategies inclined more towards social. The social buzz is already out and many B2B and B2C businesses have embraced it on mainstream marketing. This has paved a way for a new profile ‘social media marketer’ (SMM). Will it longer last?

Indeed, any invention and innovation creates new position in industry. Until, 2-3 yrs back, there were tons of SEO firms and agencies offering their services. Now, the growth of social media companies/agencies is thriving up. I’m seeing seasonal spring up of many in-house agencies that stake claim to provide service in social media. Even, many SEO agencies added social media service in their profile to go with the winds.

Whether social media is boom or bane, I don’t get into this argument. But one thing that I clearly see is a rapid growth of social media, bullish outlook of investors, and acceptance of social media in mainstream marketing by verticals. Even though, social media’s growth will not be as high as now yet the position of social media marketer created out of necessity may exist but in a different form. Not sure, any company will hire dedicated SMM just like SEO in today's digital space.

In my opinion, seeking career exclusively in social media or providing niche services in social media may not be lucrative in coming days but yes today they are. Social media will remain as a value added service in digital marketing just like SEO and PPC. Survival demands the whole amass of knowledge including writing skills combined with technical knowhow of SEO, SMO, PPC and Web Analytics. The new role introduced by social media boom may soon soothe and settle.

Google Alternatives – Other Search Engines for Better Results

2010-08-16T13:08:00.005+05:30

Dissatisfied with Google search results? Don’t waste your time in Googling page by page if you don’t find information you are seeking! Many times, you’ll find manipulated and old archive results. Anyways, I have compiled a list of sites and search engines that may help you optimize your research skills and knowledge. After all, Google is not an answer to millions of search queries.

Try Google alternatives now!

Google and SBA – A Commercial Marriage

2010-08-11T21:28:00.013+05:30

Very recently Google partnered with Small Business Administration (SBA) to provide tips to local businesses on how to get succeeded in online by using available free online tools. Well, this is good news for many local businesses but this is half truth. The other half is fishy!!

The continuous decline in Google search share and burgeoning popularity of Bing and social sites, especially Facebook are already giving a tough fight to the giant search engine to clearly predict a ‘breakdown’ of monopolistic empire built in the era of Web 1.0.

The commercial marriage between Google and SBA is not solely intended to educate local businesses but to seek ‘prospects’ to put their budget at risk in a program like AdWords which is a minting machine for Google to make money. Who knows better than the ‘Master of Archive’ search when it comes to market audiences! Google has data. Does data tell lie?

Its true that there are free online marketing tools available if effectively used brings in tons of traffic and customers but are they sufficient? I believe ‘no’ they are not and even Google believes the same. That’s why, Google in partnership with SBA plays a guerrilla tactics to promote AdWords. Yes, the single motive is to earn as much money as possible because this contextual advt will no longer be a safe haven neither for Google nor for advertisers for a long. See here how Google shows 4 sponsored links just above the organic search results. As one of my friends who is SEO expert Mr. Senthil truly commented ‘I think in future, we have to find organic results on Google Paginations”. J

I’m not sure who is maximizing from the so called ‘Free Marketing Tools’ campaign –Google, SBA or both or local businesses. Whoever will be, but all roads lead to Mount View!

Let me cite my nursery rhyme - Jack & Jill.. went up the hill to fetch a pail of water…..Jack fell down.. and broke his crown….

Feedback - munazanjum@gmail.com

FREE Complementary Social Media Analysis for Your Brand

2010-08-09T19:34:00.006+05:30

Want a Free complementary social media analysis for your brand? Answer 9 simple questions and receive a free report with a detailed assessment of your brand's performance online. The report will also include actionable recommendations to boost your brand's visibility.

Don’t get afraid that their experts are seeking information to pitch you selling their service. This is something you get Free. The report might be interesting to see how MS&L evaluate your site and what components they take into consideration into their scorecard. The report will contain: Customer behavior Social stats and trends, Online competitive analysis, Search engine optimization,and overall brand presence.

So, request your assessment right here!!

Social Engine Optimization – Practical Tips

2010-08-05T21:05:00.007+05:30

In my previous post, I have talked about the new abbreviation of SEO. To extend this discussion further, I’ll share some practical tips on how you can actually optimize search results on social sites. Let’s take Facebook for example here. Why Facebook? Because:

Facebook has 500million users, Facebook Blog
Growth of search queries from 395 million in Jan 2010 to 621 million queries in June 2010, ComScore
Users time spent is higher on Facebook than on search engine, Nielson reports

The basic rule is same as you do with Google, Yahoo and Bing but the difference lies in strategies. The Facebook optimization strategy to be so deployed that might be integrated with search engine as well to display results.

Facebook On-Page Optimization

Create a Vanity URL (if possible add keywords in case you create a group
Write description in ‘About’ and Info. box and insert a few keywords if they make sense otherwise avoid.
Make use of FBML page and customize accordingly
Add Blog applications and put RSS feed for content syndication (Refer Blog Network Apps)
Create Facebook Question and description and try to get ‘more like’. The more people like, the more likely you will get result on face book search query and even on search engine like Bing
Always try to optimize results on Bing 1^st Page and if possible create a story on Wikipedia (Following Wikipedia Guidelines)
Incorporate Facebook Open Graph protocol into your website and add a Like button to your webpage.
To make sure, your website must get indexed. In order to learn Facebook index technique, please refer Jesper Astrom’s article on ‘How to Get Indexed and Rank in Facebook Search’.

Facebook Off-Page Optimization

In short, attract links by integrating external apps like YouTube, Blogs, and send across your networks to ‘Like’. The more you get ‘Like’, the more authority it will build.

So, think and innovate multiple ways to optimize your site/groups across social search sites with just a focus on facebook optimization as well. I have already written how you can optimize listing on social bookmarking a few year back, just check this link on Digg Algorithm in case you are interested.

Best of luck!

Feedback - munazanjum@gmail.com

Will SEO Exist in 5 Years? Matt Says ‘Yes’, I Say ‘No

2010-08-05T11:26:00.012+05:30

On March 2009, Matt Cutts while addressing a question – ‘whether SEO will exist in 5 years’ says that SEO will exist in next 5 years. He further says ‘you don’t need to be SEO expert but if you know the free guidelines of SEO, as released by Google’ it would be sufficient because SEO can help you to put your best face on your website. Look here his video.

Contrary to his optimistic reply, I would say many companies, in future, would not hire SEO professional due to growing awareness and DIY approach. As I said previously, the career of SEO poses a great risk and you need to explore in-depth of online marketing. Today, SEO and SEM are considered as the mainstream channels in online marketing but down the years, it will not.

The way trends are moving and the way digital technology is advancing, I clearly see not a promising future of SEO. In order to survive in a career of digital marketing, you need to update your skill sets stretching from SEO, SEM, Social Media, web analytics to much more. While SEO as a career is a good decision to start now but survival needs expansion of your knowledge horizon in digital space.

The rise of social media, the growing need for social ecommerce, the changing dynamics of search algorithm, transition from web 2.0 to web 3.0, changes pattern of users behavior in seeking digital information, semantic behavior of search engines etc are enough indications that users’ behavior in searching information is changing from single channel (say Google) to social and specific sites.

In short, SEO will exist in 5 years but not SEO service solely on Google, Yahoo & Bing. Stay update on digital technology and always use new platform to market. This can minimize your career risk of online/digital marketing.

Look at Matt Cutts Video