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.’"

Keyword Difficulty | Selecting Keywords To Optimize

What is Keyword Difficulty?

Keyword difficulty is a measure of the effort required to put a web page on the first page of Google for the desired key word or phrase.
The degree of difficulty will vary from word or phrase as well as for the same term across markets depending on it's popularity in that market and the level of competition. For example trying to rank for the term "golf balls" will be more difficult in the UK market (google.co.uk) then it is in the Indian market (google.co.in)

Factors Affecting Keyword Difficulty

The keyword difficulty varies from market to market as explained earlier. Firstly a market is selected and an analysis of the top 10 rankings (First Page results) is done. To get in the first page we have to replace one of the existing top 10 results on the front page.
There are several factors that affect the degree of difficulty. They are on site and off site factors. Among the important on site factors are the title and the H1 tags of the pages that are currently in the first page of rankings. Another factor is the age of domain. The important off site factors are page rank and back links for the page. There are also several other factors which affect the rankings and all these are taken into account and an average calculated.

Other Reliable Indicators of Keyword Importance

The Keyword Tool from Google displays the number of searches worldwide as well as in the selected market, the advertiser competition and the average cost per click for that keyword or phrase.
Another indication is whether advertisements are displayed along side the search results or not.

Keyword Difficulty Calculations Using Popular Tools

The first example is of the term Golf Balls in the UK market using Traffic Travis

The example below is of Goa Sightseeing in the Indian market using Traffic Travis

And finally using the Seo Chat online keyword difficulty tool the last example is of Search Engine Optimization in the US market

Selecting Keywords To Optimize

For a new site or a website with low page rank the keywords to be targeted initially are those which are not very difficult and are phrases that contain the words with a high volume of search. For example if you want to target cricket balls in the long term initially target red cricket balls and white cricket balls.
And do not forget long tail words. After all they bring 70% to 80% of all traffic to a website.

SEO Process | Search Engine Optimization Steps | On Page Optimization

Unless your website is visible, you are not going to get any visitors. If no one visits your website it is virtually useless. SEO is the process of making your website visible to potential customers.
SEO is essentially the process by which the impediments to high rankings are removed and the site is properly promoted on the internet.

Steps For SEO - The SEO process For On Page Optimization

Observations Of Website Structure

The website structure is observed. This is done by viewing it in a text based browser such as Lynx. Detailed observations are done whether it is possible to browse the site without any impediments. This is because the search engine bots spider the site in a similar fashion.
Viewing in Lynx is recommended by Google in their advice to webmasters. A report is prepared on the deficiencies and alternatives suggested. If the website structure is bad, the whole site may have to be scrapped and a new one developed.

Keyword Research

Here all the possible keywords that potential visitors may use to search for content on the website are carefully researched.
This process is done for each page. The keyword research is done by using several keyword research tools like Word Tracker, Keyword Discovery, Wordstream and Google keyword Tool External. Besides these there are a few more less well known keyword tools. Finally the words to be targetted for each page are shortlisted.

Content Rewriting

The content for each page is then rewritten with the targeted keywords.

H1, H2 and other Header Tags Optimization

The next step in the SEO process is the Optimization of header tags. While writing the content, each section has to have an optimized header which is relevant to the content and has keywords in it.
In addition the page has to have an optimized heading which relates to the content in it.

ALT Tags Optimization

The images present on the page have to have appropriate and relevant ALT tags. Use keywords wherever appropriate.

Title Tag Optimization

The Title tag is the most important element in On Page Optimization.Use a relevant title which contains the keywords that you are targeting for that particular page.

Optimizing The Description Meta Tag

The Description Meta Tag often appears below the title as a snippet on the search result. The description has to be an accurate summary of the page content. INCLUDE KEYWORDS IF RELEVANT. You can also include a call to action here.

The Title and Description Meta Tag Optimization

Title Tag Optimization

Title is the most important factor for On-site optimization. The title tag has to accurately reflect the content present on your page. The sweet spot is currently is 10 words for the title tags. This will however depend on the length of your words. Extremely long titles running into sentences should be avoided. Google is known to avoid indexing the title altogether if it runs into many sentences.
    Do not repeat any word unless absolutely necessary.

A Spam Title

Here the same keyword is repeated several times. This should be avoided at all costs. Currently some sites seem to get away with this, but sooner or later there will be a crackdown on this by the search engines. The figure below gives an example of a spam title. Note that this is a fictitious example. Resemblance to any site is unintentional and purely coincidental.

Optimizing The Description Tag

The Description Tag has to be a brief summary of the content of the page. Descriptions usually appear below the title in the search results. They have therefore to be written in such a way so as to encourage people to click on your search result in the results page.
   
It is also beneficial to have a few keywords in your description but do not be paranoid about it. You can also include a call to action in your description tag.

Choosing A Suitable Domain Name For A Website

Which Domain Name Should I Choose for My Website

If you are thinking of starting a new website, the first thing that will come to your mind is what should be the domain name – Should I use my brand name i.e. if you have one or should you think of a brand name if you do not have one or should you just go for a keyword rich domain name. All these questions and more will be answered in today's Blog.

Advantages Of A Branded Domain Name

If your business is in existence for several years and your company's name is already well known throughout your area of operation then it is advantageous to use your company name as a domain name. To get a little extra mileage you can add the place where it exists e.g. hotel(YourName)delhi.com , where (YourName) is the name of Your Hotel. Since the company name is registered such a domain name will be unique and no one else will be able to register a similar name as the trademark will be protected. Moreover since a lot of people already know your company's name they may search for for your website using the company's name. A good example is hotels e.g ABC Hotel Delhi.

Choosing a Keyword Rich Domain Name

In case you want to setup a website or a blog primarily to provide information or to advertise and promote products in a certain field or an online shopping site and are planning to set up a new website having a keyword rich domain name is a much better alternative. This is because keywords in your domain name give a boost to your search rankings.

Structure And length Of A Domain Name

The domain name should not have any spaces (not permitted) or dashes or underscores as it makes it difficult to remember. Choose a domain name that is like mydomainname.com .Keep the domain name to 20 characters or less.

What Top Level Domain (TLD) Should I Choose?

The generic top level domains consists of COM, ORG,NET, GOV, EDU, and MIL. Besides there are also two letter country code based top level domain names like .UK, .US, .IN.

    A commercial organization should choose a .com domain name only as people generally associate any website with a .com extension. if a .com is not available and you plan to operate in only one country then choose a country based TLD.

Concluding Remarks: Domain Name Selection

If you have an existing company or brand and are planning to set up a website to promote it online It is better to choose your company name as part of the domain name. Otherwise you can go for a keyword rich domain name. Adding your place where you operate to the domain name is also a good idea in both cases.