Manish PandeyMy Look On The Web 2.0

Every now and then I keep coming across posts asking How to Increase Google PageRank and if it is important for search engine rankings? To give a simple and short answer, NO, it is not!

Why should you be worried about that green rectangle bar, when there are so many other factors. Google PageRank Died long ago, and when Google started to penalize sites it became obsolete.

Forget PageRank, what you should be more interested about is traffic to your blog or website. SEO is one of the most important ways that is used to increase traffic to your website, but that being said it’s not the be all end all process to bring in traffic. The Internet Marketing world has taken a total U-turn, with the increasing spam and Google has done pretty good to stop it. There are several different ways to increase traffic to your website.

The goal that you should have in your minds is that to get your name out there in everybody’s finger tips. The most of the business to any company comes from a referrer. Make new friends in your niche, who are as keen as you to socialize. Don’t worry about competition, both of you will not get the call from the same company.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Share This

When I wrote Top 15 Interviews of Link Building Gurus in September, I was thinking to put up a list of best blog posts in our Internet Marketing industry but as Aaron once said don’t wait for things just do it, never mind Tamar of Techipedia has done a heck load of work to make this list which she calls as Best Internet Marketing Blog Posts of 2007, and so here’s some link love for her! Good Job Tamar.

Among others, Darren Rowse’s Best of ProBlogger 2007, Jim Boykin’s Best of Jim in the Year 2007, Lee Odden’s Top Online Marketing Blog Posts in the Year 2007, Brian Clark’s Best of Copyblogger in 2007, Joost de Valk’s My 2007 Business Highlights, Rick Schwartz’s Rick’s Year End Post 2007 are the must to read.

A few more blog posts that lists the best articles are Derek Edmond’s Top 10 Most Influential Blogposts for 2007 and finally This Year in Blogs: The Definitive Marketing Posts of 2007 by The Grok.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Share This

There are several people online who make a mark upon you, with their posts, help and support. Not every person out there is worth listening to. There’s a lot of bad advice out there, from which you should keep away.

In my span of Internet Marketing and SEO life, I’ve been able to meet and talk to quite a lot of top SEOs guys. This post is a vote of thanks to the guys who have helped me learn, apply and reach the position where I am in.

Aaron Wall (Founder of SEOBook.com) - Aaron Wall, possibly the most reputed individual in the SEO industry. He has changed the meaning of Internet Marketing. Once a very tough thought work is now done even by kids. His blog SEOBook.com is the most resourceful place one could find on SEO.

Barry Schwartz (CEO of SERoundtable.com) - Barry also known as rustybrick in the SEO industry, is amongst the top guns. His blog SERoundtable.com is one of the most visited and acclaimed in the industry. If you want to get a piece of information then his blog is the first place to visit. It also hosts a good load of discussions within.

Bill Slawski (Founder of SEObythesea.com) - Bill Slawski is one of the earliest bloggers who writes about SEO, Internet Marketing and Advertising. His blog SEObythesea.com is one of the best blog on SEO. He is a very generous SEO and gives his best advice publicly, when others would charge a handful.

John Scott (CEO of v7n) - John Scott is an SEO expert from Japan. He is highly respected of his clear thoughts and proving them with his tests. His Webmaster Forum is amongst the top in the industry. While he is quite busy with the forums, when he gets some time he blogs about SEO and Link building.

Lee Odden (CEO of TopRankBlog) - Lee is a highly reputed SEO, a brilliant blogger and an amazing guy who is respected in the SEO industry for his work for the past one decade. Lee is one guy upon whom you could bank when it comes about applying SEO. His blog Online Marketing Blog deals mainly with Online Marketing and Promotion. He also writes about Social Media Marketing, Link Building and Blogging.

Michael Gray (Founder of Wolf-Howl.com) - Michael Gray also known as graywolf, is a person who has helped the community to grow to a big place. He has done everything to make SEO industry a better place, be it stopping Jason Calacanis from bad mouthing SEOs or taking interviews.

Michael Martinez (Founder of SEOtheory.com) - Michael Martinez one of the most respected SEO writers of all time. He blogs about SEO and Link building, only after he had done his own research. His blog is a very good place if you want to learn SEO and Link building as well as see what are the problems and their solutions.

Technorati Tags: SEO Experts of Year 2007

Popularity: 10% [?]

Share This

This is awesome! I’ve been picked up by Lee Odden, CEO of TopRankBlog to be included in the Big List of SEO/SEM Blogs. A brief info about the Big List, this is a list of over 400 awesome search marketing blogs from around the world, who offer quality and valuable thoughts.

An update of 8th December had my blog listed on it. This is a BIG gift to me. Thanks Lee!

This is the BIG official badge that I could use here on my blog to let my visitors know about the Big List.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Share This

This was always on cards. Google is now keeping an eye on blogs that sell links which pass pagerank. I gave my readers few points which they should keep in mind when buying blog reviews. With more than 250+ comments on Matt Cutts’ article on selling links that pass page rank it has been a hot topic, since the very beginning.

Matt also wants bloggers to disclose that they are doing a paid review of the site (which is something scary) or use a nofollow tag to the links which are outside of the actual domain. Will people do this? I think, they won’t!

Matt says this as:

In the same way that a regular surfer would want disclosure to know if a post were paid, all the major search engines also want to make sure that paid posts are adequately disclosed to search engines as well.

Why would people disclose that they sell paid reviews? This would be like confessing to the police that I’m the culprit. What I can’t understand is, how in a world Google or Mr. Matt Cutts know that money has exchanged hands if you don’t tell about it! Here are the points I’m putting for you all to strictly keep in mind so that you don’t face thier penalty.

1. Don’t put ads that you sell reviews. Remove those big, fancy PayPerPost, ReviewMe or SponsoredAds banners from your blogs. Seeing those banners will put you on their penalty list.

2. Review the sites that are closely related to your niche. Be very picky, with reviews. Well if you have a blog about SEO/Internet Marketing and you do a review on shoes, this won’t look natural. So, write original reviews about your niche, not some crappy posts. See the website, look what they offer and what you could write in your review, and then just go ahead and write an original, honest review!

3. Don’t just write review posts. Mix them up with your own articles. Make it a habit to write a review, and then a useful article. It should look natural. Well Google looks for natural stuffs so give them natural reviews.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Share This

Is this some kind of a joke or Jason Calacanis is serious! Jason Calacanis calls himself as one of the best SEOs. It would be nice to see Jason Calacanis give us some more insights and tutorials on SEO, so that it could be helpful to us!

The last time he was on top of blogosphere I remember was when he called “SEO is Bullshit!“, quite a non explanatory comment. To this Neil Patel, threw an open challenge to him by saying:

I can take your blog and increase your daily search traffic by a minimum of 10 to 20% after 30 days of putting my changes into effect.

The reason for such a comment was to make a controversy. Well this really gave him a wildfire acknowledgement in the blogosphere, so the work done! In terms of SEO, we call this a Controversial Link Bait, but using SEO technique against us is never welcomed, so please mind it Jason! Had you praised the SEO industry or given us something worth, then we would’ve really love to respect you as well as keep you on our finger tips, as the names of Aaron Wall, Danny Sullivan, Andy Hagans, Lee Odden, Jill Wahlen, Bill Hartzer, Matt Cutts, Jim Boykin, John Scott, Mike Dammann and the list goes on! These people are a constant source of good information. I respect them and would praise them whenever I find time, and so does many people around. This industry has given us so much. It is so helpful and caring.

Next time you want to bad mouth SEO industry, please don’t do it! We love what we do, and will keep doing it forever and ever as you love your work!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Share This

I was getting too many queries asking what to do in SEO, so I thought that I’m going to write an article about it.

Definition of Search Engine Optimization:
According to Wikipedia:
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.

Forums that you must join!
I love!
v7n Forums <- I'm one of the mentor's there, just PM me!
Web Talk Forums <- My friend Zap and Colleen's good forum, very friendly!
Ozzu <- Brian has done very good to keep it at the top!
Web Work Shop <- PhilC one of my friend's very nice forum!

Other good ones:
Webmaster Talk
Sitepoint Forums/
for more just visit http://www.google.com/search?q=webmaster+forum

Blog that you must visit!
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog <- Matt Cutts a Google engineer shares his knowledge!
http://www.seobook.com <- Aaron's blog. Marketing and SEO.
http://www.wolf-howl.com/ <- Michael Gray's blog. Social media and SEO.
http://www.seobythesea.com <- Bill Slawski's blog, learn how to socialize.
http://www.seroundtable.com <- Rusty Brick's blog.
http://www.davenaylor.co.uk <- DaveN's blog. One of the best SEOs.
http://www.stuntdubl.com <- Todd's blog. Great link builder.
http://www.jimboykin.com <- Jim's blog. Great link builder.
http://andybeard.eu/ <- Niche marketing and social media marketing.
http://www.seo-theory.com/wordpress/ <- Michael Martinez's blog. One of the best SEOs.
http://blog.v7n.com <- John's blog, an outstanding SEO.
http://www.joostdevalk.nl/ <- Joost de Valk's blog. He's a web developer cum SEO.
You should add them to your feed as well as on your favorites!

Social Media Sites You Must Join and Take Part!
http://Digg.com <- Huge potential, but could be really time consuming for newbies.
http://propeller.com <- Huge!
http://vIndianz.com <- In it's early stage, has huge potential.
http://del.icio.us <- Always bookmark your favorite stories there.
http://reddit.com <- Save and share! Huge!
http://StumbleUpon.com <- Always share your favorite links to StumbleUpon. Huge!
http://plugIM.com <- For internet marketer's.
http://Sphinn.com <- For search engine marketer’s.

As I mentioned above, you must take part in the community by voting and submitting others post also, not just yours alone. What would be the meaning of socializing, otherwise?

Well if you are dedicated enough and want to become one of those who make the difference, then you must be updated!

SEO has huge potential in India, as it still is in it’s early stage! Once Indian companies understands it, they will surely apply it and well that is the day I’m waiting for and keeping my Inbox open and Mobile always on!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Share This

The recent PageRank update from Google was the longest ever. Generally it takes three months to see your updated PageRank, but this time it was more than six months. With the recent buzz about Google devaluing sites which sell PageRank, this update has made a buzz in the whole blogosphere. Andy Beard wrote a good article where he found the Digg’s favorite sites that were hit by this update, and explains it with the Google’s Guidelines to the SEOs. Which states that:

Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

Loren Baker also explains what he feels might be the reasons for this drop in the PageRank. His own site SearchEngineJournal a very strong PR7 site has dropped to PR6. He points out paid links, massive linking, as the reason for this effect, which he called the “Halloween Effect”.

What I personally feel is that there might be some updates still going around on the Google. Well the sites which has dropped links does fit the reasons put by Loren, still I feel that it may be due to the increased number of posts (hence links) on the main page. Well this might be true for Problogger.net, which recently got a new design which has an increased number of posts on the front page and hence the link juice is distributed among the posts itself. The future will tell, if this perception is true or not!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Share This

Blog reviews have become a good source of advertising and to obtain contextual links. Just getting reviews done by spammy blog networks is not good enough to improve your rankings. Rather, be very cautious to choose which blog you would go with. In the way, be sure to keep these six points in your mind before you consider any offer.

1. Are they indexed: Check how many pages are indexed on Google. Check which post was indexed recently. This would tell you when would your own review would get indexed and help in improving your rankings.

2. Do they actually have a PR: Check how many sites link to this blog. Does they actually have the amount of links to support their being high PR or are they using some tricks to fake the PR.

3. Which ones to go with: The best blogs are the blogs which offer unique content. Which don’t have the Pay Per Post tags all over. I’ve a feeling that these blogs might not get value in future. Google is becoming smart everyday and hence you should keep away from the blogs that have Pay Per Post tags.

4. Quantity of posts: Check how many posts does the blogger make in a day. Bloggers which make 10 posts daily are certainly the ones to keep away from. As after the 10 posts the page shifts to next page. Which would not give you full benefit. Daily 2-4 posts are good enough for me.

5. Quality of posts: Does the blogger writes a quality post. Does he actually know about your niche. If they don’t then how could they review your blog. You could help him out by telling him about your website and services so that it would be easier for him to write a review. On the other hand you could write your own review of your website and send them to it, well because who could know your site better than yourself?

6. Advice for bloggers: Check the price, think and rethink. Price anywhere from $10-$20 are the one to go with. Anything bigger might refrain people away from opting. Don’t make blog reviews the only source of your income. It’s an additional source, so keep it as an additional source.

Also note that, always go with varied anchor text links on blog reviews too. Just have the feeling that too much of identical anchor text links may get devalued. So it is highly recommended to use varied anchor text or synonyms.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Share This

How many times have you linked to a new blog giving good information on a certain topic or simply which is helpful to the community? May be not too many times
.
And people say, write good articles so that you would get linked calling it as a link bait, well that could work as a vote of thanks to the writer’s hard work. Isn’t it?

There are so many good writers who are going online everyday, they work so hard to find useful information around the big web of internet to share it with us and what do we do just pass from it, instead of sharing it with others. Is that fair from our part. No, I guess.

What the biggies should do is set up an example to others by praising the hard working newbies, hence giving equal place to everybody. What I mean is there shouldn’t be anybody’s monopoly. Everyone should get a fair chance to prove himself. This would help everyone to discover or invent something unique which would in turn, help the community.

We always see people like Matt Cutts, Danny Sullivan, Jim Boykin, Aaron Wall, Peter Da Vanzo, Andy Hagans, Lee Odden, John Scott, David Naylor, Gray Wolf (Michael Gray), Mike Grehan and lot more discuss everything, with due respect I’m not offending any of the above listed people they are the best in the industry and I highly respect them. They do a lot of hard work to research things and help the community for which I am very thankful to them but there are also people like Mike Dammann, Zap, Michael Goldman, Prashant Vikram and there are so many others who work so hard to help people around the world but how many of you know anybody above. I guess not many knows about them. So does that mean they are not helping the community or are any less SEO than the biggies. No, not at all.

See I am not here to advocate anybody what I am trying to say is we should applaud hard work of people. So that he gets encouragement to work more and add up to help the community. Wouldn’t that be good? Just think!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Share This