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Search Engine Optimization is my bread and butter and I really do not want to defraud anyone with my skills or the search engine optimization knowledge. If you care to read the following piece, it will take you close to 5 minutes, but it will help you decide in favor of organic and robust whitehat SEO.

At our organization (we are 8 years old), value of ethics drive our business and hence we use and live by the whitehat search engine optimization. You may be wondering as to what is whitehat Search Engine Optimization. Also called as ethical SEO, the whitehat SEO is designed to work organically and gradually (much like the organic vegetables) and improve your site rankings over a period of time. In these times of impatience, I can understand your next question is to ask why would anyone go slow?

This is because more than 200 ranking criteria are used to rank your website on Google, and if you have decided to SPAM the big Google with automated and uncontrolled backlinks, the chances are that your site is headed for a penalty or so to say, you are getting ready for the SANDBOX.

So, how do you avoid this kind of a situation or predicament? Use common sense.

If I was Google and I saw that you got a new site and suddenly there were 5000 fresh links to the site, I am not going to like it. I am sure you won’t either. Somewhere down the line, the SPAM filters within search engines will get active and your site shall get blacklisted and thrown out of the search engine data. This is something that nobody wants, at least not the business sites.

So, how do we go about the SEO when we know that 90% of the SEO activity is related to getting or making new links? The answer is themed backlinks.

What are themed backlinks?

The themed backlinks are the ones that are generated organically based on the value of your content. These backlinks come from multiple sources. Some of them being -

Article Directories, Press Release Directories, Social Bookmarking Sites, Social Networking Sites and the Web 2.0 Websites.

Why would you consider getting themed backlinks?

1. Because themed backlinks are contextual and related to your website.
2. This means that there is no way your site is going to be penalized (unless you start spamming search engines with the themed backlinks).
3. Also, most sources of themed backlinks are of very high Page-Rank value, and hence you get the link juice.
4. And finally, these backlinks are permanent in nature.

So, an ideal SEO organization should help their clients in getting the much important backlinks that are of themed nature and relevant to your website.

What is the difference between themed and paid backlinks?

Paid backlinks are the ones that you purchase on certain sites. Now, if you are smart you can transact without getting Google to notice the paid backlinks. We all know that paid backlinks are prone to being penalized and both, the site selling and buying links are dumped by Google. Look at what happened to a very prominent backlink player – backlink.com. Their site got penalized and de-indexed. And those folks that bought links from them are regretting because their sites got dumped as well.

As a business owner, can you trust your site with paid backlinks? No, for sure.

With themed backlinks, you are paying for the time and effort that goes into generating these backlinks. So, essentially, you may generate the backlinks on your own as well. We presume that you have adequate knowledge and time to do so. Even if you were to generate these on your own, there is a very big likelihood of you not being able to target the right themed link sources.

It becomes more efficient to let a professional handle the link building activity for your business website. As professionals, we know how to optimize your website across your web pages and across the entire web. Look at some of the advantages that you get:

1. You will get a dense keyword research report to unearth prized keywords
2. While you sit back and relax, our team works on generating the backlinks for you.
3. And, you get weekly progress reports that track search engine rankings of your website across multiple search engines.
4. You get professional strategy that is geared to improve your organic traffic and search engine rankings.

All this at almost 40% of the costs that you would bear elsewhere. Add to that the fact that you are working with a skilled and established company, than has tested the waters for more than 8 years.

All this makes it a compelling advice to use a professional Search Engine Optimization company that can take up your site and bring it to the next level. If you are ready to take the plunge, then this is the time to contact us and we will get on the job as soon as you want.

So, Matt finally broke the news that Caffeine gets ready for a full scale launch sometime after holidays. Oh…these few weeks will be one of suspense, action and strategies for all the seo experts and seo companies. Now that Caffeine has been successfully tested and is set for a first stage launch in one of the Google datacenters, it is time for everyone to welcome Caffeine and evolve the strategy for search and align it with the new expectations of Caffeine. This is especially going to be a long haul for a seo company like us.

You can read Matt’s note over here:

Google Caffeine Update

So, what does this mean?

Expect to see the following:

- A faster search performance, thus cutting down the time you take to search through maze of results

- A broader search index, implying that the number of pages that are indexed by Google will go up drastically. What this means is that the overall search library pages will increase manifold.

- Some sort of an adjustment in the way Google sees the backlinks. I am sure they cannot discount it completely, but the content of the site will form the first level of filter for search engine rankings.

- Expect a lot of changes in the way backlinks are weighed. Remember how the directory links were devalued? I think there is some sort of a devaluation that can be expected for other source of links as well. And, the Aim behind this will be to reduce spam that is generated in the name of backlinks.

- A new guideline on how the on-page optimization should be effectively handled to increase the search engine’s love. By far this might be the biggest change that will happen over the search. And, all those folks who threw the optimization books out of their windows will be rushing to grab them and learn the basics of optimizing the website content.

- And last but not the least, you can expect that site owners will be rewarded for original and inspiring content.

Well, to be honest, these are my expectations from Caffeine, and if some or all of these do not happen then I won’t be disappointed. Search, as they say, is evolving.

The launch of Bing has been a challenge in more ways than one for Google. Under pressure to come up to speed with the changes in Search Engine Marketing and the rampant abuse of the search engines by sauve Internet Marketers, Google made it clear that the future of search will be dictated by Google Caffeine. Well, the name sounds so intoxicating.And as time passes, rumblings of launch of Google Caffeine gain credence all round.

What is Google Caffeine and how can you make the most of it?

Before discussing about Google Caffeine, let us spend a minute in thinking about the intent of Google. With the FTC banking down on affiliates strongly, Google was already determined to concentrate on ranking higher those sites that have better content than better backlinks. In other words, the on-page optimization factors will play a very pivotal role in ranking of websites. What this means is that the backlinks will continue to enjoy a role in rankings, but the overall rank will be a blend of on-page and off-page optimization rather than the current scenario.

The aim is to make search cleaner, more relevant and friendly to the users. And eventually, break the cartel of spammers who put half-baked information on the web.

While nobody knows what will Caffeine bring, there are some rough assumptions that it will follow search ranking criteria that are closer to Bing, and evolve rankings by changing some of the criteria in the Algorithm. With more than 200 ranking criteria in the current algorithm, the ratio of on-page and offpage optimization seems to be headed over to some kind of a rejig.

For now, webmasters like me need not fear because we stand to gain with Google Caffeine. And if it turns out to be as lean and mean as it is being made out to be, who knows that you and me may be laughing our way to the Banks !!!

Well, there is some talk of the impending announcement at the Pubcon by Matt Cutts. You know Matt is quite good at pulling off coups like announcing the commencement of alpha, beta testing of Caffeine, and I love his giggle when he is pushed to the wall.

Here is to Google Caffeine’s success.

Well, it has been quite some time since it was known across the world (amongst enlightened SEO professionals) that Google does not care much about meta keywords. However, the irony was that one had to still put in Meta Keywords because clients will always ask about missing Meta Keywords. Without a proof, no client was willing to ignore meta keywords, so much so, that it became a critical problem of credibility for us.

I am thankful to Matt for cutting the issue to pieces. I am glad that we have a final acknowledgement from Matt Cutts that the big daddy of search engines, Google, no longer considers Meta Keywords in ranking parameters and this can be found out from his blog. The good thing is that I will not have to put Meta Keywords in optimization of sites.

So, if you are wondering as to why Google decided to overlook the meta keywords? Simple. Spammers had a field day in putting all sort of keywords in there and there was a tendency to go overboard with addition of loads of irrelevant keywords. So, it was wise to ignore the Meta Keywords for once and  all.

Another good thing is that Matt has stated that there are nearly 200 ranking parameters in the algorithm. So, your site needs to come good on multiple ranking parameters before it can reach the first page. Now, I am always a firm and steadfast believer in organic traffic and organic rankings. So, if you are looking to rank really nice, you need to work on getting your site to bring value to the website visitors and the search engine traffic. The value could be in terms of the content being provided by you or the information being offered for the benefit of your website visitors.

Sadly, there is no short-cut over here.

So, for all those SEO Experts who have been making sense of the post on Matt Cutt’s blog and infering the impact on the day to day SEO practices, I will like to try and simplify the ‘page rank sculpting’ by offering a simple example.

We all know that a good SEO professional always takes care of the quality content on this website and his blog. There is a free flow of the page rank to internal pages of the blog or site as well. Given the fact that there is a tendency amongst people to spam the blogs using comments, I am a big supporter of ‘nofollow’. All comments on my blog are ‘nofollow’. Inspite of that, I get on an average 5-10 blog comments that send me kudos for writing such good content

So, coming back to the page rank changes. What Google seems to have done is that instead of dividing the page rank of a page based on total number of ‘dofollow’ links on that page, it is now calculating the average page rank passed to different links based on averages on sum of ‘dofollow’ and ‘nofollow’ links. I know it is a bit difficult to understand this on content. But is becomes simple if you take an example.

Assume your site has a page rank of 3 and there are 3 links on the page. Of these, 2 are ‘dofollow’ and 1 is ‘nofollow’. In earlier instance, the 2 ‘dofollow’ links would have got 1.5 page rank points. In other words, while doing averaging out of  PR, Google would simply ignore the ‘nofollow’ link. In the changed instance, each site accounts for the page rank point. So all 3 sites get averaged out and are entitled to 1 PR point. Since, 1 link is a ‘nofollow’ that PR point does not pass out and instead you or your site retains it. In other words, the link-juice being passed out of a high PR site will go down for the ‘dofollow ‘ links because of the modified averaging of PR points by Google.

What does this mean? To me, it does not mean much because I would like to continue posting content rather than anything else. If people come to the blog, that is fine and if they do not then also it does not hurt. However, for guys who are into selling PR links, this means the value of the PR points will go down. So, you will need all the more links. And, this in turn implies that getting caught with paid links becomes more a reality.

It also means, that Google expects webmasters to either keep the PR or share it with those ‘dofollow’ blogs or sites; there is no place for ‘nofollow’ links to get the PR via these links. Will this mean that sites that have already got PR on account of earlier algo will keep the PR or will their PR be downgraded? I am not sure, because I am not Google or Matt Cutts. So, go and ask Matt the question…and keep posting good content on your blogs.

SEO is a very analytical area of business. It requires a close analysis of variety of factors to identify as to who is the right SEO company or a wrong SEO company.

How can you pick an SEO company? If you follow the checklist below, you will be able to know whether the SEO Company chosen by you is the right company or not.

1. How old is your SEO company? Is it a new company or it a company that has passed the test of time and has been in good standing for SEO jobs done by them.
2. What is your SEO company’s rank on Google? Now SEO is a very very competitive term. And unless your SEO company is in the TOP-100, you can safely forget to do business with the so-called SEO company.
3. How many backlinks does your potential SEO company have? This is a very important factor to understand, note and appreciate. If your SEO company is running into 100000 of backlinks, skip them for fear of link-farms and black-hat techniques. And if it is running less than a hundred and has been in existence for sometime, give the company a skip.
4. Look at some of the testimonials and rankings attained by SEO company for other clients. Try to get references and try to make contact with the business owners to see if the company has delivered on its promises? Or whether it has under-performed? And, if you can talk over a phone call, nothing better. You get to know more from a customer over a conversation that an email.
5. Payment options? Does your potential SEO company provide you payment-terms on installments? If yes, it is good. If no, then it is quite possible that you may pay them a huge sum and end up losing money, time and energy on undelivered results

ALmost every White-Hat SEO consultant will vouch for backlinks, and one of the simplest ways to achieve backlinking for your website is in terms of the links generated by adding your site to directories.

There is no doubt that directories provide a ready backlink. However, the ease of building backlinks throgh directories has actually made the entire concept vulnerable to abuse. Almost anyone can buy a directory script and set up one for selling links on their website.

This makes it important for SEO companies and consultants to look at the feasibility and role of directory submission in SEO. Some of the things that need to be taken care of while submitting to directories is to understand and ensure:

- What is the page rank of the directory you are submitting to?

- How old is the directory?

- Does it provide you with a relevant category to add your site?

- Does it offer immediate placement of your link on directory or is there a human-review that is taken to ensure only quality links are added to directory?

- Does the directory sell links?

If you come across a directory that is selling links on its space, then stay clear of it. And if you are looking at a directory that is pretty new, stay clear again. Any directory with automated addition of websites to directory index is prone to be abused by spammers. It is advisable to stay clear of such directories.

The important thing to bear in mind is that you need to add your site to a good and clean directory. If you add it to a worthless directory, there won’t be any benefit to rank well. However, you may end up being penalized for association with link farms and fakes.

This is another reason that we always encourage manual directory submissions rather than automated ones.

Have you ever thought of  the importance of the ‘Title’ tag on your web-pages? It is the one of the most important on-page factors that can assist you in getting a good ranking on Google and other search engines.

For the lesser mortals who do not have any interest in technology, ‘Title’ corresponds to what you see on your browser while visiting a website. So, for instance, in case of our site, you will see

“Seo India | Seo Company India | How Long should the Title be?”

This corresponds to the title of our blog.

It is quite simple actually, and forms the fundamentals of a good SEO campaign. I simply hate sites that have ‘Welcome’ as the ‘Title’. More than the website owner, it reflects poorly, infact very poorly, on the people who designed the website.

Now, if you visit Google or Yahoo, and search for any site then the first thing that you will see on the results page of Google or Yahoo is the Title of your website. So, you can imagine very well the importance of having a good and descriptive title to your website.

Normally, as a benchmark rule, we will let the ‘Title’ stay under 65 characters at all times. If you have a longer title, it becomes unreadable for the Google Bot and therefore it loses any significant chance of being read and ranked by the search engines.

So, the next time whenever you are putting up a new site, make sure that you design your site and lay an equal emphasis on the length and content of your title tags.

And, if you are looking for SEO from India or an SEO Company in India, please do contact us to help you.

SEO in India is still in nascent stage when you compare against the SEO companies that operate in the US. SEO in India is also the least significant factors that are taken into account while designing sites. If only the business takes more care in looking into the quality of the SEO of their website, the results will be different.

Have you ever wondered how easy it would be if you can look at the overall score of the optimized website and a non-optimized website. Surely, it will look like an interesting thing.

I will point you to a website that you can use to find out how well or how bad is your site from search engine perspective. It will also give you an idea on SEO strategy for your website.

So, if you actually click on this link, it will take you to a website that allows you to see the score of your website. While this is not the most authoritative way to say that your site is good from SEO perspective and should rank on the top for a keyword like ‘Plastics’, but it does give you an idea on how well your site is made out for the search engines. If your score is less than 40, then your site is more of a disaster from SEO point of view.

I will also advise that this is by far not the last word. There are so many other parameters that will be needed to be analyzed before getting a top rank. But, it is a good start towards an intelligent SEO campaign in India.

SEO or Search-Engine-Optimization is basically an art and a science. It involves making your site friendly for search engines.

SEO has multiple flavours to it, but you can broadly classify SEO activities into on-page optimization and off-page optimization activities.

The on-page optimization activities relate to tweaking, modifying and updating your web-pages to ensure that search engines receive them well. The content should be good and authoritative. And it should be easily indexable. This is the precise reason that ‘Flash’ sites find it very difficult to rank on first page of Google or any other search engine.

Some of the on-page activities include the meta tag revisions, body content analysis and updation and image content analysis and updation. You may be wondering as to how the images can contribute to your rankings? The fact is that all search engines look for optimized images and this can improve your on-page factor.

The off-page optimization is more of acitivities that are done out side your website to improve search engine rankings. There are so many off-page optimization activities that can be done to improve the quality of search results. Some of these are article marketing, directory submissions, Web 2.0 Social Networking, Blogging etc.

It is always advisable to involve SEO professionals for both activities to ensure that your SEO campaign adheres to the white-hat principles and does not cause your website to be sand-boxed.