Google PageRank Update : June 2009

Google PageRank (the visible toolbar PageRank that is) was updated around the web on the 23rd and 24th of June, changing the visible PageRank scores which appear on the toolbars of Google users all over the globe. Lots of publishers tend to use PageRank as a metric for judging the quality of their site, which I do not agree with, but toolbar PageRank is still relevant to many website owners and bloggers, so any update is still a big deal.

The last Google PageRank update I remember was during IM Spring Break in early April, and according to those tracking the Google Toolbar update frequencies, this update comes a bit early.

Google Profiles - Great for Reputation and SEO

Have you seen Google Profiles yet? If not, go set up you profile at http://www.google.com/profiles/



It's no secret that from time to time many of us have searched on Google for our name or someone else's. When searching for yourself to see what others would find, results can be varied and aren't always what you want people to see — whether it's someone else with your name, or the finishing time from that 5K you ran back in 2002. We want to make that better and give you more of a voice.



To give you greater control over what people find when they search for your name, we've begun to show Google profile results at the bottom of U.S. name-query search pages. These results offer abbreviated information from user-created Google profiles and a link to the full profiles. We've also added links so it's easy to search for the same name on MySpace, Facebook, Classmates and LinkedIn.

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Happy Birthday Gmail - Google’s Gmail now 5 years Old !!

Five years ago yesterday, Gmail starting giving people a gig. What started as an internal tool for Google employees is now used by tens of millions of people around the world in 52 languages.

In honor of the occasion, you may have noticed a little cake on the Gmail homepage today.


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Google PageRank Update for March 2009

The latest Google PageRank (PR) update is around the corner or it is just a rumor. Over the weekend, there are tons and tons of threads in several forums with webmasters and SEOs complaining that their PageRank score in the Google Toolbar took a dive. There are hot threads at DigitalPoint Forums and Google Webmaster Help talking about the ongoing Google PR updates. One thing for sure is that a lot of people are not happy with the new PageRank score they received.

Lots of SEO's (Search Engine Optimizers) have sworn off checking Pagerank and waiting around for updates, but I think we all know that these updates are still very interesting, and the numbers are still a very important part of SEO.

They can give us a peek at what kind of progress we are making with our SEO campaigns in Google, THE most important Search Engine for SEO, since a high ranking in Google is much more valuable than all of the other search engines combined.

Google PageRank (PR) and Back Links (BL) was last updated on 10th January 2009. This time no importance for Reciprocal link Building, sites Page Rank is changed. I think Google changed algorithm again.

2009 Jan 10 TBPR & BL Updated
2008 Dec 31 TBPR & BL Updated
2008 Dec 11 BL Updated
2008 Dec 4 TBPR & BL Updated
2008 Nov 12 TBPR & BL Updated
2008 Sept 27 TBPR & BL Updated
2008 Aug 23 TBPR & BL Updated
2008 july26 TBPR & BL Updated
2008 jun 25 TBPR & BL Export Expected date
2008 may 12 TBPR & BL Export
2008 Feb 26 TBPR & BL Export 47/47
2008 Jan 10 TBPR & BL Export 74/74

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Don't Over-Think It! Yes, You Too Can Do SEO

As someone who sells SEO as a service it is often not in my best interest to tell people they can do SEO on their own. But it's true. Just as changing the car's oil, fixing clogged pipes, or painting a house are all relatively easy, most business owners can SEO their website on their own. All it takes is some knowledge and time.

Knowledge can be found easily enough for free, and time, well, that's not something you likely have an excess of. Fortunately, SEO doesn't all have to be done at once, it can be implemented a little at a time, as you have time.

If you want to optimize your site yourself then you need to simplify. A lot of what you'll learn about SEO can be complicated. Especially when you start reading about .htaccess, robots.txt, 301 redirects, absolute links, and so on. This is all good information to have but you don't always have to start there.

If you're doing it yourself then start with the things that you can do yourself. Don't get caught up in all the complicated issues that go beyond your knowledge or ability to implement. The more difficult technical tasks may still be necessary down the road, but for now, do what you can with what you have.

Here are some things that you can often do easily enough on your own:

1) Customize all your title tags. If your site is big this may take some time. If its dynamically generated then you may want to have your programmers implement a template that pulls in and inserts keywords based on the page.

2) Customize your content. This can be especially important if you sell products. Don't settle for stock descriptions, and take the time needed to write somethign different for each of the 20 products you have that are simply different versions of the same thing. This customized content is essential.

3) Get content on all of your pages. If you have category pages that link to products or other information pages, put at least a paragraph of text on each page.

4) Link, link, link. Add links throughout your content to other pages and products of your site. Link back and forth between pages, add links to related products, link to your blog and from your blog.

5) Blog. Write content that your visitors will love. Don't just use your blog to pimp your products or services. Write helpful tips and tutorials or provide insight that your readers can use.

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Yahoo! to Launch New, Comprehensive Mobile Portal

Yahoo! will launch a new mobile experience called, wait for it, Yahoo! Mobile. It will be available via mobile web and downloadable mobile applications for the iPhone as well as smartphones powered Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Motorola. An app will also be available for smartphones with the Windows Mobile operating system.

Yahoo! Mobile will feature a ton of stuff including:
Yahoo! oneSearch - Yahoo!'s award-winning mobile search service providing the most current, relevant answers you need.
Today - The most interesting stories buzzing on the Internet right now, selected by Yahoo!'s editorial team.
Yahoo! oneConnect - Yahoo!'s service designed to provide consumers everything they need to stay in touch with the people about whom they care:
Email - Access to Yahoo! Mail and other popular email service providers, including Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and AOL Mail.
Pulse - Access totheir social networks, including Bebo, Dopplr, Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, Last.fm, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube.
Yahoo! Messenger - An upgraded version of Yahoo!'s popular mobile instant messaging service.
Yahoo! Address Book - Keeps consumers' contacts always handy and in sync.
Yahoo! Calendar - View, add and edit appointments when users are away from their PCs.
Yahoo! News - Breaking headlines across popular topics.
Yahoo! onePlace - Access and manage your favorite content, all from one location including news topics and sources, RSS feeds, weather conditions, sports scores, stock quotes, websites/blogs, horoscopes and movie theaters.

Smartphone apps will include:
Yahoo! oneSearch with Voice - Allowing users to launch searches by simply speaking.
Maps - Powerful improved tools that let consumers locate, learn about and get directions to points of interest.
Opera Mini 4.2 - An integrated version of the world's most popular mobile web browser, with easy return to the Yahoo! Mobile app, that launches when web site access is needed.
Widgets - Enhanced mobile-optimized experiences for services from Yahoo! and other brands. Users can browse, add and remove these at anytime according to their tastes.

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Timing of SEO in the Web Design Process

If you’re just starting to build your website now is the best time to start planning your search engine optimization and search engine marketing strategy. The best time to introduce the SEO planning of a website is when the site design is ready and the site is ready to be launched but there is no content yet for the site. Just before the site launches is the time to bring in an SEO consultant to provide some SEO services.


After the design of the website is done an SEO consultant can give you suggestions about what keywords and key phrases you need to add into the site HTML as Meta tags and where those tags should go. Once the site is tagged and the design and navigation has been tested it’s time to add in content. Having SEO content on your site from the start will give your web site a big advantage over older websites that might already have a bit of a following but haven’t had any SEO services by a professional SEO consultant.

For a new site where that site ends up on the search engine results pages can be critical to its success. In order for the site to get a high ranking on the search engine results pages it’s imperative that a professional and experienced SEO consultant creates search engine optimized content that is ready to be part of a broad search engine marketing campaign. It just makes more sense to get all your ducks in a row before you launch the site doesn’t it? Bring in an SEO consultant when you’re ready to start putting content on the site so that when the site launches your site will be instantly indexed by the search engine spiders and can start drawing traffic from search engines immediately.

If you have an existing site that is due for an overhaul or a design revamping then you should also consult a professional SEO consultant before the site is redone so that you will have a good idea of what SEO services that you need. Cosmetic work on the site is important so that your site doesn’t look outdated but changing up the content on the site will be very important. Most of the traffic that websites get comes from searches done by people who use Google or another search engine to look for website dealing with a particular topic.

You want your site to be at the top of or at least near the top every search that is done by a search engine for the topic that your site is about. In order to achieve that you need an SEO professional to write great search engine optimized content before the site launches. If your existing site has had the same content on it for more than six months you should get an SEO professional to write new content. Changing the content is a great search engine marketing strategy to draw new web site traffic and improve your search engine ranking.

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