Google's Expanded Sitelinks | 12 Pack Sitelinks | Advantages

Google Launches New Expanded Sitelinks

Google has introduced a new sitelinks feature in Google search results which display up to 12 results below the main result for certain queries on search result pages. These appear only for specific queries like the name of the firm or business or the website name . Currently before the expanded sitelinks came on the search results page, Google used to show a few links below the main result for certain searches.

The new site links display upto 12 links below the main result in two columns of 6 each and hence the name "12 Pack". Each site link now includes a title, a short one line description as well as the link. The sitelinks are very similar to the regular results just but their lengths are smaller. In addition to this the maximum number of sitelinks that is displayed for a site has been raised from eight to twelve, and the number shown also varies by query.
According to the posting in the official Google Blog "It turns out that sitelinks are quite useful because they can help predict which sections of the site you want to visit. " Google also states that One-line sitelinks, where sitelinks can appear as a row of links on multiple results, and sitelinks on ads are not affected by this change.

Advantages Of Expanded Sitelinks

Site links will help users point out the various types of content present and help them access it immediately. For example a site discussing Content management systems may have sections on Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal and site links will help the searcher go to the section of his or her choice in one click.
Another advantage of the expanded and improved sitelinks is that they give a brief overview of the information that exists on the site that the searcher wishes to browse. Webmasters can now choose to optimize their descriptions for the sitelinks so that the important words come first since Google will typically display about 30 to 35 characters for each snippet.

Google Farmer Update Rolls Out | Panda Update 2011 | Scraper Sites And Content Farms Hit

Google Farmer Update or Panda Update Rolls Out World wide

On 24th Feb 2011 Google rolled out it's now famous Farmer or Panda Update across US and on 11th April this was extended to all English language Google searches across the world including google.co.in . World over Scraper Sites and Content Farms were badly hit as well as sites which had lots of poor quality content.
Google says that this update impacts 12% of all searches and that it is implemented so that high quality content and sites will move up the Search Engine Results Page and low quality content as well as sites will move down.This change has been done to lower the rankings of Scraper sites and content farms that copy content from other websites and republish on their websites.
It rewards websites that have high quality and unique content which is not present elsewhere.
It has also been found out now that it has also impacted some sites which has internally duplicate content on their websites.
The solution is to either block the indexing of the duplicates or to specify the canonical page by using
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/my-preferred-page.html"/>. Quite a few e-commerce sites have also been impacted as the product descriptions are more or less similar across sites and the content duplication is high.

Google's Views On The Farmer Update

This is what Google had to say on Google Webmaster Central Blog
"Based on our testing, we've found the algorithm is very accurate at detecting site quality. If you believe your site is high-quality and has been impacted by this change, we encourage you to evaluate the different aspects of your site extensively. Google's quality guidelines provide helpful information about how to improve your site. As sites change, our algorithmic rankings will update to reflect that. In addition, you're welcome to post in our Webmaster Help Forums. While we aren't making any manual exceptions, we will consider this feedback as we continue to refine our algorithms."

Reciprocal Link Penalty by Google | Manipulative Link Practices

About three years back a large number of real estate websites in USA were hit by by the now well known "Google real estate penalty". Basically these sites were trying to increase their page rank by exchanging links with real estate dealers in other parts of the country.

Manipulative Link Practices Done By Certain Real Estate Websites

These websites basically had link pages typically named links.html or links.htm and listed links of other real estate websites with which they had exchanged links. These sites were of those real estate firms located in other parts of the country.
The link on the links page would link with the home page of the reciprocal link partner. Typically there were hundreds of links in the links pages. It was extremely clear to Google that these links were traded solely for the purpose of increasing ranking and this tactic is in clear violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines. Such Link pages exist even today and thousands of Websites create them for the purpose of exchanging links. As soon as the number of such links crosses a threshold action may be taken against such sites also.

Google Guidelines On Link Schemes And Reciprocal Links

This is what Google has to say "Some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links....." and "This is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines"

Further Google elaborates what violates their guidelines. They clearly state that links intended to manipulate Page Rank, links to bad neighborhoods and excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging as well as buying or selling links that pass Page Rank are in violation of their guidelines.

Effects Of The Reciprocal Link Penalty

After Google penalised the real estate websites they could not even rank for their own site name or unique title phrases from their site.
To get the penalty removed they removed the reciprocal links and submitted a re-inclusion request to get the penalty removed.

Malware Attacks on PHP Based Websites | Remedies

Malware attacks on Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal websites

This month we will divert our attention slightly to the growing problem of malware that has attacked thousands of websites on high profile and very popular web hosts since the middle of April 2010.
The attacks have struck Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and several other sites that are based on PHP. The malware typically causes visitors to redirect to a fake anti-virus site that downloads malware on the visitors computers. The malware achieves this by injecting a javascript into all PHP files.

Remedies For Users

Anti virus software such as AVG, Avast and others display warnings and prevent the redirection to malware sites.

Remedies to protect Websites

Upgrade to the latest version of the software. It is recommended to keep all your files read only. Although this will cause problems when upgrading, this is known to prevent re-infection.

Views Of GoDaddy Regarding Attacks

This is what a leading web host GoDaddy had to say regarding the attacks: "This is a complex attack with many components. Here is a high-level overview of how they occur:

1. The attacker is coordinating attacks against three different hosting providers for this to work.

* At Hosting Provider ‘A’ – A malicious file is placed on hosting accounts at this provider. No two files have the same name.

* At Hosting Provider ‘B’ – A file is uploaded listing the infected domain names and unique file names from provider ‘A.’

* At Hosting Provider ‘C’ – A malicious “scareware” site is placed on compromised accounts

2. After the attackers put their files in place, they use Hosting Provider ‘B’ to trigger the malicious files on Hosting Provider ‘A.’ When triggered, the malicious file:

* Scans the hosting account for any php file

* Injects malicious content, installing malware that directs to Hosting Provider ‘C’

* Removes any trace of itself from ‘Hosting Provider B’

3. The attack is complete when an infected website receives a visitor. The visitor, if not adequately protected, will have malware installed on their machine.

4. The malware will alert the infected computer to purchase fake anti-virus software, located at Hosting Provider ‘C.’

Go Daddy and many other hosting and security companies are aware of this attack strategy. One point of the attack we are all working to stop is the malicious file from being placed on Hosting Provider ‘A.’"