Wow! Google Trends for Websites - They’ve done it

Not many days have passed since we last discussed about latest in Google Trends, and they’ve done it again. This time they have added a much-awaited feature, It wasn’t actually much-awaited because it wasn’t expected from Google in the first place anyway. Introducing Google Trends for Websites

Today, we add a new layer to Trends with Google Trends for Websites, a fun tool that gives you a view of how popular your favorite websites are, including your own! It also compares and ranks site visitation across geographies, and related websites and searches.

Where will it help?

It will be a great help in Buying/Selling of sites. Buyers would be able to confirm the traffic levels and Sellers could use it as proofs.

Great thanks to Google. I’m loving the tool.

Submitting Sitemap to Google - Harmful to Your Site?

I am confused, sometimes I think it’s impossible but at times when I see people complaining every once in a while, I am forced to believe that something is up with it.

In this post I’ll try to present an ongoing debate between the left and the right side of my brain with the help of two fictitious characters Mr. David and Mr. John. Both are webmasters and understand the working of search engines and importance of Google Sitemaps. Read more about John and David here.

David believes that submitting sitemap to Google can in no way harm his site, while John thinks that it’s quite possible. Here is an excerpt taken from their heated up debate happened last night.

When the debate turned bloody:

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The situation: John seems angry with something while he’s in front of his pc. David is sitting on a couch reading some ancient novel. Suddenly, John yells:

John: what the f**k? never thought Google could be so evil.

David : What happened?

John: I am seeing quite a few of people complaining decrease in their traffic after they submitted XML sitemap to Google.

David: what rubbish.

John: I can show you examples

David: sure. let me see them

John: see yourself, here and here

David: utter nonsense, I’d say these are just pure coincidences

John: No, I have seen more cases like this, this is too much now

David: Ok! but have you ever thought why Google would do this?

John: yes, because after submitting the sitemap, they can study the site more closely and try to find issues which were otherwise hidden from them.

David: But, not all people submit their sitemap, Google can’t do this to a handful of webmasters, it won’t be fair

John: yeah exactly, they can only fix what they can see

David: that doesn’t make sense at all. By the way, are you anti-Google?

John: Shut your f***ing mouth! you…

The agitated John throws his wireless mouse towards David, hits on his nose, starts bleeding…..

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Four interesting things coming out from the conversation deserve second look:

1. they can study the site more closely and try to find issues which were otherwise hidden from them

Hidden? not exactly. But still, they can study the site more closely with the help of a sitemap.

2. why Google would do this?

They want webmasters to use Webmaster tools. Then, how can they turn them off by doing such things?

3. it won’t be fair

David has a very good point. Not all the webmasters are sitemap aware. Google just can’t penalise some of the sites based on issues they come across while analysing sitemaps.

4. they can only fix what they can see

John strikes back here, again a vary strong point. May be Google has decided that they would fix the issues on first come first serve first fix basis.

By the way, which side do I support? John or David?

Both. That’s very diplomatic but I really have no idea. David’s points look more factual so I am more inclined towards his thoughts. But, I myself have seen quite a lot such cases where submission of SiteMap to Google had something to do with the SERPs, penalties and number of indexed pages.

Has it happened to me?

Yes, same thing happened to one of my blog. It was a new blog, getting 150 uniques a day. I thought of optimising more and submitted its sitemap to Google. Traffic dropped by 80% in next three days. However, the rankings came back after some 7-8 days.

To me, submission of sitemap and decrease in traffic seemed to be related to each other in my case. Still I can’t deny the possibility of a coincidence, it was a new blog after all and SERPs were shaky as expected.

Wait! What about John and David?

Fortunately, David and John have now become friends again after the bloody fight. They have agreed not to discuss about this topic again when they are together.

Ok, some other time, but we’ll surely try to shed some more light on this topic, as we study Google’s behaviour more and more while we come across more such cases.

This is it for now. David and John are around. So I better change the topic from Google Sitema…. Shhhh…

Common Myths About Google Sitelinks Part-1

Google SiteLinks have been drawing a lot of attention these days. Google has been a lot more generous in last few months in allotting them to even half-decent sites. SiteLinks used to be rare, but this is not the case anymore, you can see them frequently on one-two word phrases.

Google SiteLinks are important as I discussed; both to users and webmasters in a great way. In the last few I have done a lot of reading on SiteLinks, taken a lot of cases and analysed them, and more importantly I have documented the research.

I have seen a lot of inconsistencies in the way these SiteLinks are being allotted. Many a times they surprise me with their absence and at times with their presence. I am now going to present the first part of "Common Myths About Google SiteLinks".

Myth1: A website needs to be old enough to be eligible for SiteLinks.

Not at all, I have seen SiteLinks being allotted to a mere 6 months old site. However, the age factor still matters depending on the level of competitiveness in the niche. I give you an example, my friend’s blog TroubleFixers.com launched in December 2007, has already gotten SiteLinks, its niche is fairly competitive. Myth1 goes in dustbin.

Myth2: SiteLinks stay.

Wrong, we should never take them for granted once they are allotted, I saw a lot of cases where SiteLinks were lost. E.g. Only4sms.com used to have SiteLinks uptil May-end, I am not seeing them now.

Myth3: I’ll get SiteLinks if I get heaps of incoming links.

Had that been the case, I’d be seeing SiteLinks on a lot of sites that I know which have a lot of good quality links in good volumes. Sitelinks are allotted taking a lot of factors into consideration. Links alone aren’t sufficient. Those ‘a lot of factors’ may include but not limited to:

• CTR in search listings
• Time of stay
• Bounce rates

There can’t be any certain common threshhold requirement with incoming links. I’ll emphasize again on the point of competitiveness. A high competitive niche will require more links, this is for sure. But links alone can’t produce SiteLinks.

Myth4: A site needs to be W3C compliant.

This is the most stupid myth. Most of the site are not W3C compliant usually. Google spiders are intelligent enough to understand even cruelly written code. W3C compliancy can in no way be any eligibility criteria for SiteLinks. However, I strongly recommend you to have your code clean enough and at best W3C compliant because in SEO every minute factor counts.

That’s all for this post, I am still working on more points. Will post more of them in Part-2 of this series. I hope we’ll bust a lot of myths about SiteLinks.

Where I see my blog six months from now

It’s been just a few days of blogging and I have started thinking about next six months. Six months is indeed a lot of time in blogging, I’d probably have added 200+ more posts by then (of course only if I keep myself motivated enough till then). Setting goals is good, they give motivation and make one passionate.

I am someone who enjoys pessimism, I always try to underestimate things so that I could cheer when I do even Ok!, because that OK! will most probably be better than my under-expectations. Having said that, I admit that I am pretty bad in estimating. Let’s see where I expect TechnoDiary standing 180 days from now.

What I expect from this blog in next six months?

RSS Subscribers: I am pledged to provide quality content everyday, that leaves you with no reason for not subscribing to my RSS Feed. Haha!, now that’s too much to say, nonetheless, I am serious about the quality content part. I expect somewhere around 250 Subscribers six months down.

Traffic: 500-1000 uniques a day. Yeah, this is what I expect. I’ll be happy if I get to this point in 6 months. I feel that I am heading towards a somewhat competitive niche and this traffic I think will be a good start.

Money: Did you just ask me about money? As I wrote in my opening post, I don’t expect this blog to make a lot of money. My motives are far beyond money. Of course, I’ll try.

Brand: I am sure that a bunch of people will flock to me asking for an autograph whenever I’ll goto some public place, and they will wait days and nights to get a slight glimpse of me. Wink! I don’t know why I am exaggerating so much today, that’s totally opposite to my nature. But Ok! it’s fun.

On a serious note, I hope some fellow bloggers will be able to recall me via my name whenever I drop a comment or two on their respective blogs (and they might give me a link or two every other day :P).

What about PageRank, Alexa?: whahahahaha! Need to say anything else?

Ok, so this is what I am expecting from TechnoDiary. I am coming with some another serious post about Google SiteLinks. Don’t tell me you don’t know what they are.

Why The Blogging Idol Contest Isn’t Perfect

I am thankful to my idol Mr. Daniel Scocco for conceptualising this wonderful contest named "Blogging Idol" where winner will be the one who gains most number of new RSS subscribers in the 30 days period. Daniel, you have always been creative, and Blogging Idol contest is yet another example of it.

I liked the idea, because it is going to be a win win for everyone; the participants will get some motivation, will get to know about some less popular but great blogs, and don’t forget the linklove. It will be a good linkbait for Daniel too. Whilst I think it is a wonderful opportunity for me, I am still skeptical about it’s fairness and logic.

The whole idea is to increase our RSS subscribers by white hat techniques. Also, an important clause states that only those bloggers are allowed who have a subscribers count of less than 1,000. Well, that makes me eligible as I have zero subscribers at the moment.

So, what makes it unfair?

Those participants who have subscribers count around in the range of 500-1000 at the start of competition will enjoy some undue advantage. They can easily jump to 700-800 in 30 days by applying simple techniques (of course whitehat). I won’t talk about the tehniques but it is clear that established blogs will have advantage right from the start.

On the other side, new bloggers like me will have hard time jumping from zero to the likes of 100ish or 200ish count. No, I am not complaining, I am going to participate happily in even in the current format any ways.

Some people would suggest to count on percentage  increase instead of absolute numbers, it does make sense at first, but on second look we get to know that gives unfair advantage to the blogs with low subscriber count. And what about those with zero initial count? calculating percentage increase will be impossible in those cases.

And what makes it illogical?

Subscribers isn’t the only metric for a successful blog (or blogger); we all know that. Gaining subscribers in entertainment niche is a cakewalk, while it’s very hard in Make Money Online niche. There will be no restriction on the niches in the competition I hope, and that makes the criteria of ‘Subscriber Gain’ a  bit illogical.

Ok enough, tell me the solution.

Now you are talking, one solution I would suggest is that the winner should be chosen based on three factors.

Factor 1. Absolute increase in subscribers count.

Factor 2. Community voting

Factor 3. Daniel’s vote

Daniel himself is a part of community then why give more weight to his vote? You may ask. Well, Daniel will be the one who will be regulating and tracking the participant blogs more closely. So his vote deserves more weight.

Let me show you an example:

Let’s assume there are three participants.

1. Person XYZ gains 200 subscribers.
2. Person PQR gains 300 subscribers.
3. Person ABC gains of 400 subscribers.

The highest increase in count gets 100 points straight away, ABC gets it in this case. And points for others can be easily calculated with respect to the highest increase in count. Like XYZ’s gained 200 subscribers which is half of ABC’s, so he gets 50 points. At the end of 30 days period community will vote based on the 150 words weekly mails from participants and also by analysing their blogs over the time.

Result:

PQR is the winner, although his absolute increase in count is less than that of ABC. In this case Daniel and the community had probable seen that ABC’s techniques were not in good taste.

So, we have the real winner Mr. PQR, my heartiest congrats to him.

But, One Problem:

- Community voting is only possible if they analyse and read all the blogs over the competition period, is it feasible if we get 50+ competitors?. But, one can argue that it’s participants own responsibility to draw people’s attention, whoever gets succeeded in doing it will surely get more votes.

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Sorry for making it a lot more complex but I hope it makes the contest more fair and less prone to get Gamed. Let’s see how it goes.

Why Google Sitelinks are Important

Google Sitelinks, as you probably know are the extra links provided below the first positioned site for some search queries.

Sitelinks were first tested by Google in Mid-2006 and they officially gave the name SiteLinks in September, 2006.

As per my personal experience the SiteLinks were allotted to only a few of the sites before 2008. Nowadays, I am seeing them on a hell lot of queries. This proves that Google has come to know that their SiteLinks algorithm really works and it is actually enhancing the user experience. I am damn sure they have used toolbar data to analyse the user behaviour like bounce rates, time of stay on SiteLink’ed pages.

While searching on Google these days, I am always inclined to trust on the sites that have SiteLinks below them. I admit that, I am starting to believe in the authority of sitelinks.

Just for an example, last night, I was signing up for some CPM networks, I signed up straight away on a network which had Google Sitelinks for its name. On the other hand, when I searched for some other CPM network, sitelinks didn’t come up and I became a bit skeptical about their network’s credibility. This is too much, but it’s a fact that my search experience has changed due to the inclusion of these set of links below listings.

The algorithm for extracting sitelinks is completely automated (atleast this is what Google says) at the moment. I have seen a lot of inconsistencies in the way they are choosing and allotting sitelinks. I’ll also talk about some common myths about Google Sitelinks in my coming posts.

So, why are they important?

As said above, they have changed my search experience in a great away. I am a heavy searcher and I think sitelinks will affect the user behaviour of those users who are heavy searchers like me. But over the time, normal users will also tend to believe in the authority of sitelinks. And I hope the algorithm will keep going better and better as Google studies more about user behaviour through Google Toolbar and Search Listings Click Through Rates. So this is how Google SiteLinks are important for users.

Not only do sitelinks tells the user about the authority, they also let the use save his time by directly going to the page he wants (of course if that page comes up as a sitelink). Personally, I never used these links as shortcuts.

Ok I see, Sitelinks are good for users, but, what about webmasters?

I know how I felt when I saw SiteLinks on one my blog. Some 10 months ago I used to rank #2 for a term and was getting some good traffic from it. After a month or two my site was promoted to #1 and the traffic increase was unexpected. Roughly two months ago Google allotted SiteLinks to my site for that keyphrase, I wasn’t expecting the traffic to increase much because I was at #1 anyways, but, again it surprised me with a 20% increase in traffic for that term.

Google SiteLinks also increases the value of your site. This is what I am seeing on Sitepoint Marketplace and DigitalPoint Buy/Sell forums. Sites with SiteLinks are being sold at some premium over the actual market value. This is how SiteLinks are important for webmasters:

• Increased Traffic
• Strengthening of brand/credibility
• Increased asset value
• Feel-good factor (priceless)

Now that we have seen the importance of Google Sitelinks for both; users and webmasters. In my coming posts you will see some common myths about SiteLinks being discussed.

It was a long post, wasn’t it? yes, comparatively but not really :)

Google Trends now showing Numeric Scales. Great!

You probably have used Google Trends, I am mad about this tool and use is heavily everyday. For those who don’t know about it:

"It is a great tool which lets you see the trends of searches for a particular search term, and you can even compare the trends of multiple terms by comma separating them. However, it doesn’t show you the absolute number of searches, you need to have some reference search term if you want to get some idea of search volume for some other search term"

So what’s new?

They have just rolled out a great feature which shows the trends on numerical scales. For example when I tried to compare trends of cricket Vs. football It showed me that average search volume for football is 4.2 times that for cricket. Nice!. I am now going to watch football 4.2 times I watch cricket. 

I am still not sure how I would use this feature or if it has any real use in the first place, but, still loving it. Now, I don’t need to look at the graphs, instead I’ll just see the scale values straight away.

I hope someday they will add absolute volumes of searches too. That’ll be fantastic, it’s very unlikely to happen though.

So go ahead and check out this nifty feature.

Some Great Blogs I Frequent

I have been an ardent reader of some great blogs covering wide variety of topics. I forced myself so many times in last 12 months or so to use an RSS reader to keep track of latest news, but failed everytime. I still love the traditional way of visiting blog after blog, one by one. Let me show you all the blogs I have been reading in the last 1-2 years.

I never knew I read so many blogs. :D. I am sure I have missed quite a lot of blogs in this list. I will keep updating it as I start reading new great blogs and drop some of the listed ones.

Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger Interoperable?

Not only did Google and Yahoo! announce a Non-Exclusive Search Agreement between them today, they have also announced the upcoming interoperability between their popular Instant Messaging Services, i.e. Google Talk (Gtalk) and Yahoo! Messenger of Google and Yahoo! respectively.

In addition, Yahoo! and Google agreed to enable interoperability between their respective instant messaging services bringing easier and broader communication to users.

We saw a similar agreement between Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger last year. Users actually liked it. Now with Gtalk also getting connected with Yahoo! Messenger, that may breed some possibility of compatibility with Windows Live Messenger in coming months too.

Earlier the connectivity between Y! Messenger and Gtalk was only possible with the help of third party hacks, but now everything will be official. Yahoo! Messenger users will be extra amused with this announcement because they would be able to talk with both Windows Live Messenger and Google Talk users.

We hope, at some point of time AOL also announces integration of their popular instant messaging service AIM with other services.

What’s my niche by the way?

Ok, I have installed the latest version of Wordpress, uploaded a great looking theme and published an opening post. What’s next? Should I expect visitors rolling in from everywhere and subscribe to my RSS feed straight away. I won’t complain if this happens but let’s come back to reality.

There are millions (or may be billions) of blogs, many of them are well established and have reached a stage where what we can call them the Authority Blogs. Every niche has its leader(s), be it Make Money Online, Health, Internet Startup News, Programming or Entertainment. This crowd of well established blogs in every niche is good enough to lower down the morale of newbies. But I am extra confident (not over; or may be huh!) that new blogs can sustain very well if they provide real value to the audience.

Am I late in starting blogging?

No, I don’t think so. There’s nothing like late, I don’t think this word exists here. People want new (and even old) things presented in new and innovative ways, and they will continue to do so.

Ok, then what exactly is my niche?

I don’t know at this point of time. I’ll keep on trying different things until I settle on a specific niche, which suits me the best. I want to enjoy writing while keeping the content useful for a large audience. Maintaining the balance between the volume of potential audience and my comfort is what I think will be the most critical part.

I am not blessed with the capability to write on things which do not interest me. And I don’t complain about this, I am happy that so many things interest me. I love Search Engine Optimisation, so, don’t be surprised if you see a lot of posts on SEO. I’ll try to present some neglected but important aspects of SEO. I’ll also talk about Web 2.0 services, AJAX interests me a lot.

Keeping things simple, let me tell you that I am here to stay and to experiment. Having said that, let me to think more about my next post. Signing Off.