Is it the Panda or Penguin?

Things are getting more complicated as far as Google search optimization is concerned. There are many animals in the search jungle. Panda and Penguin seem to be ruling the roost. While Panda update was more about optimization, which included onsite and backlink strategy, Penguin is about spamming. Many SEO experts are yet to differentiate between the two. Bloggers and blog owners are bitten more by the Penguin which is the latest Google update.

The Google Penguin update

The update was rolled out completely on 24 April 2012, though the tremors could felt even earlier. The Penguin update is about spamming which means it’s about onsite optimization. Many genuine, white hat SEO blogs have been affected by this update. This is due to several reasons. The most important reason is over optimization. You must understand that there is a very subtle difference between optimization and spamming. Google on its part feels that content on any blog or website should look natural. When the Google search spider finds a definite pattern where keywords are repeatedly placed strategically on a page, it classifies it as spam. This can and does happen all the time when you optimize your content. This means you are in danger of being penalized by Google. As far as Google is concerned, it’s ready to sacrifice a few good sites if it’s going to benefit the internet community at large.

Undoing what you have done

Typically, when we optimize a blog post, we include a keyword in the page Title. The main heading of the post also contains the same keyword(s). Good SEO practice suggests that the first few liens of the post must also contain the keyword(s). These keywords must be sprinkled judiciously in the post. All this was considered white hat and above board. But no more. If you have been doing this earlier you must start undoing it. Otherwise Google Penguin will penalize you. The keyword now is ‘natural’. You must unlearn all SEO best practices. Old SEO is bad SEO. New SEO means no SEO at all.

For example, earlier I would have used broadband experts in the title of the post and sprinkled the same keyword inside. But now I would be happy to use high speed internet just once inside the content.

How can Google do this?

Personally I think Google guys are going crazy. If they are try to convert the science of search into some kind of cult, I fear that we may find ourselves in a situation where everything on the net would only consist of patents and research papers. But we can hardly speak out against this new Hitler of search. For now we have to comply and change.

Conclusion

Bloggers no longer need SEO after the new Google Penguin update. No SEO is best SEO as of now.

Author Bio

Sarah lamb is an avid blogger and likes to dwell on the nuances of writing for blogs. In addition to writing she   is presently promoting Internet Providers for blazing fast internet browsing.

Do Bloggers need SEO after new Google Penguin Update? is a post from: AsioGroups.Com

All these websites seem to have different time period for maximum getting exposure, this could be because of the difference in the content curated on these platforms. The other day, more text based conversations take place on Twitter, whereas more visual content works on Facebook. I was reading the other day that images and quotes work well on Tumblr.

There are different time for different websites as well, for example, Twitter 1pm to 3pm EST, Monday to Thursday. For Facebook its 1pm to 4pm, on weekdays, whereas the links shared on Tumblr, get clicked the most after 4pm on Fridays.

If you choose to post something between 9pm to 8am on any platform, you are going to have the lowest number of visitors who click on the link.

Our blog also seems to follow the same rule as per the studies made by bit.ly. Out most reader engagement happens between 1pm to 4pm EST. I think this might be helpful to many others who are looking for maximum exposure for their time spent on Social Media, otherwise it can prove to be a big waste of time if you are spending it at no peak hours of these websites.

What is the best time to share links on Social Media to get maximum exposure is a post from: AsioGroups.Com

You can get a get Facebook like box plugin easily but the code which Facebook offers has got a footer link Facebook Social Plugin which helps users locate the source from where they can grab the codes for Facebook plugins for their webpages.

If you are a design conscious like me and want to remove that link, here is the code you can use.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19

<div style="max-height:160px; overflow:hidden; background:#FFF;">
<fb:like -box href="http://www.facebook.com/asiogroups"
data-width="300"
data-height="182"
data-show-faces="true"
data-border-color="#D6D6D6"
data-stream="false"
data-header="false">
</fb:like>
</div>
<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1";
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));
</script>

With the above code, you can also control the height of the box by entering height value in line 4

Remove “Social Plugin” Footer Link from Facebook Like Box is a post from: AsioGroups.Com

One tool that helped me improve my blog loading time was Google Page speed, which is a small web tool offered by Google for webmasters so that they can optimize their website according to the instructions given by Google.

Just head over to Google Page Speed tool page and put the website you want to improve. The tool analyses your blog’s current performance and suggest you some guidelines and instructions which can help you improve the speed of your blog drastically as it did in my case.

I simply followed all the suggestions made by Google Page speed. And was able to get my blog’ loading time from 8 second to 1 second.

Google categorizes the suggestions into four categories,

1) High Priority: These suggestions represent the largest potential performance wins for the least development effort. You should address these items first:

2) Medium Priority: These suggestions may represent smaller wins or much more work to implement. You should address these items next:

3) Low Priority: These suggestions represent the smallest wins. You should only be concerned with these items after you’ve handled the higher-priority ones

4) Experimental: These suggestions are experimental, but do not affect the overall PageSpeed score. Consider these items as points to an area to explore, but your mileage might vary:

According to Google, the speed of a webpage is also one of the 200 parameters that are counted to rank a page in search engines. This means, you are really serious about your Search engine rankings, and then you must take action to improve your blog’s speed.

Optimize Webpages with Google Page Speed is a post from: AsioGroups.Com

One of my blog was affected with Google Panda update and it lost over 80% of the traffic. Google AdSense revenue was also went down to just 20%. There are countless stories like this if you are in a mood to listen to them. Google introduced this update for make their search results better and to offer better search experience. But Panda update ended up being enemy of Webmaster.

Then again there was an update called page layout algorithm which penalizes a webpage if it is not offering the content above the fold, or the ads are taking too much space above the fold instead of the content. It again affected many websites.

Now be prepared for Google next update, Google Penguin Update, which is aimed to cut down webspam. It is not a replacement for the Panda update rather it joins Google panda update. The Panda update affected 12%of the total search queries where is Penguin update is said to affect over 3.1% of search queries.

Here is an excerpt from Google search blog:

The opposite of “white hat” SEO is something called “black hat webspam” (we say “webspam” to distinguish it from email spam). In the pursuit of higher rankings or traffic, a few sites use techniques that don’t benefit users, where the intent is to look for shortcuts or loopholes that would rank pages higher than they deserve to be ranked. We see all sorts of webspam techniques every day, from keyword stuffing to link schemes that attempt to propel sites higher in rankings.

So, what do you think of Google new algorithm changes, is it going to help your blog rise in the Search Engine it is again going to kill it like Google Panda did. Please share your views in the comment section.

Google Brings Penguin Update | An Update to Fight WebSpam is a post from: AsioGroups.Com

In simple language, the more distance between the visitor and servers, the more time it takes to load the files. This is where CDN helps you out. CDN put your blog files at multiple servers in the world, and connects the visitor to their nearest sever, which results in fast loading of your website. CDN also helps in shedding the load on your server by distributing the visitors load on different locations.

Using CDN was one of the things I used to increase the speed of my blog by 500%

There are many Paid CDN networks which offer remarkable service and features but if you are running a small blog and you don’t need bandwidth in TBs, then you can also use Free CDN for your blog. I am listing 3 Best CDN that I have tried on my blog.

Cloudflare

Apart from optimizing your blog’s speed, Cloudflare also offers features like threat control, country based blocking etc. The uptime is 99.99% and the serve is very easy to configure.

Speedy Mirror

SpeedyMirror offers a free account with 50GB limit, which I think is enough for many blogs out there. Even if you passed beyond that limit, you can always buy more space.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud storage service which offers 2GB space with free account. Dropbox can also be used as a CDN by using a plugin for WordPress called Dropbox CDN.

There are many other Fee CDN out there such as Coral CDN, or Incapsula etc. but I haven’t tried them, you can let us know about any other Free CDN in the comments section.

3 Best and Free CDN (Content Delivery Network) for your Blog is a post from: AsioGroups.Com

We also know how important Branding is for a business. We should create a Facebook page only by keeping at all those things in mind, and if you are trying to rebrand your business of blog. Facebook makes it hard to rebrand your page as you cannot change its name whatsoever.

However, it is not impossible to change the name of your Facebook page. Facebook offers an easy way for pages with less than 200 likes. This is for people who feel that they have misspelled their Facebook page name or any other reason, but if you cross that 200 likes mark and get even 201 likes, this this option closes for you (but you can dele some likes and get the number down to 200 again).

For few days, Facebook was offering the other option which was quite hard and required Facebook approval. This that case, Facebook asked for documents which show the proof that you actually have changed the name of your business. But it seems the option is closed by Facebook now. The only option to change the name of your page is to delete and create a new page, which is quite frustrating for business which had more likes, sometimes even more than 10000.

I too had more than 2200 likes of my Facebook page and changed my Facebook page name by bringing the likes fewer than 200.

It was a tough decision to make and took over 3 to bring the likes to 200. But for the purpose of branding, I am happy I did it.

How I Change the Name of My Facebook Page is a post from: AsioGroups.Com

Before starting off, I want to tell that I did a lot of research and asked a lot of bloggers for the feedback and helping me out with my quest to get a fast loading blog. Many of them were really helpful when I put them in action.

Few People told me to change my theme as but I didn’t want to change it so early. I decided to keep my theme even though taking this theme off could have decreased the load time a little bit more.

Cutting down the Plugins

I was using over 27 plugin and few of them were just for showing page numbers, showing related post and stuff like that, these things can easily be done using a single line of php code inside the blog. Do a Google search and you will find tons of information about it. But, people go ahead only if you understand a little bit of .php and html.

Moving Scripts to the Bottom

There were few scripts which are in header.php, which is the first thing that loads with the blog. I simply moved all the codes to the footer.php. IF you are using Google Analytics, you should put the codes in footer.php instead of anywhere else.

Removing useless functionalities and JavaScript

You should keep in mind that the more functionality you add to your site the more time it will take to load. So you will have to make a choice and set some priorities about what you want to keep and what thing you want to remove from your blog. Features like Post slider, image slider, tabs and many other flashy things require JavaScript files, which will add load to your site. I decided to remove those which I did not need.

Using W3 Total Cache Plugin

After trying few Cache Plugins, I decided to go with W 3 Total Cache Plugin which is super easy to configure and offers powerful features like browser compression, database compression and ability to minify CSS, HTML and JavaScript to compress and speed up your blog’s performance

Optimizing Images

We all know that simple text doesn’t add much weight to the load to the site speed, but the codes and images. You can minify your JavaScript, CSS and HTML and optimize your images. While you can minify your CSS, HTML and JavaScript using W3 Total Cache, you can use Smush.It for optimizing your blog images.

Using CDN (Content Delivery Network)

If your blog is getting visitors from various locations around the world, using  CDN is a great Idea, what it basically does is, it stores your blog’s file at multiple places and the visitors gets connected to the nearest server which results in increasing the speed of your blog. Here are 3 best Free CDN you can use for your blog.

The above 6 methods were used by me on my blogs to boost their speed and I am very happy with the results. I still keep checking for the best settings I can do to make it even faster but as I said, you can’t get the speed and functionality both at the same time.

Google also offers a small web tool which can help you improve your webpage speed.

How I Increased My Blog Loading Speed by 500%. is a post from: AsioGroups.Com

There are many ways to build traffic to your blog for free, but it will take a little bit of work on your part, but remember it is completely free.

You actually gain more than just more traffic if you follow a few of these tips, which I am not about to give you.

1). Article marketing.

This is a great way to build traffic to your blog, because you are actually doing more than just boosting your blog traffic. With article marketing you are also able to either promote your product or your blog. It is a great way to reel in customers, because you can give a more detailed description of your product or site. This can help to make people interested in what you have, and they will most likely visit your site.

2). Directory Submission for free.

Submitting your blog to a directory can really build traffic to your blog, because they are the root which a search engines searches through first. There are a ton of free directories, and you should look into both the website directories and blog directories. If you have some money to spare, then here is where I would spend some. Paying for a placement in a directory guarantees you a spot on their list, and it is the fastest way to build traffic to your blog.

3). Entrecard a bloggers heaven.

Entrecard is a community for bloggers, where each person helps each other out. You gain points, and thought these points you can buy advertisements on other blogs, which is a great way to build traffic to your blog. Simply do a Google search on Entrecard, and check it out for yourself, you can build a lot of traffic through this site.

4). Link building.

Is a great free way of getting traffic to your blog, having a link on another blog will make search engines pay more attention to your blog. There are many different ways of link building, and worth looking more into.

5). Commenting on others blog can also build traffic to your blog.

When you comment on other blogs, there is a good chance that they will check your blog in return, to see what you are offering. The more you engage with other bloggers, the more exposure you’ll get.

6) Improve Writing Skills

Another way to build traffic to your blog is simply by improving on your writing skills. Writers try different things, such as different titles, to see which attracts more readers.

Extra note:

Each time you update your blog with a post, you should ping your blog, because this lets all the search engines know, that you have just updated your blog. So as you can see, there are a few ways to build traffic to your blog for no money at all, and it doesn’t take that much work from your part either. Why miss out on these great opportunities to build traffic to your blog, and each one is free. You can read more to know how to get traffic from Search Engines

About Author:  This guest post is written by Fazal who writes tech news on richerornot.com and he also reads very useful information on coretechsg.com. You can also submit your guest post on the blog, check out guest post guidelines. 

6 Ways to Build Traffic To Your Blog is a post from: AsioGroups.Com

Blogger Friends

They don’t have to be a professional blogger themselves but they surely can help you a bit. Everyone these days seem to have a personal blog may be a BlogSpot or a WordPress blog ask them to add your blog link to their blog, this could get your blog some link juiace to rank well in Search Engines.

Social Media Friends

I bet every one of your friend must be using Facebook and they might be helping you out with sharing your posts every now and then. This helps a bit as your post is exposed to their friends and you can easily create a ripple effect which can get you loads of followers.

But even imagine how friends Search Engine Traffic? Well, the activities of your blog in Social media might or might not affect your Search Engine rankings but Google’s new feature called Search Plus your work can surely do some changes.

Google Friends

Search Your World Plus is nothing but a feature to personalize your searches. According to Google, users might trust the content more if it is +1 by their friends. It means if the friends of your friend search for something, which you have written on your blog and it is +1 by your friend, the post will be shown in their search.

The search result will have also show the information that it is +1 by your friend. Which means, if you’ve got plenty of friends, you can ask them to plus your content if their find it great and if that does create a ripple effect then the traffic would be bombarded to your website.

How Friends Can Help You Increase Your Search Engine Traffic is a post from: AsioGroups.Com