Many websites serve users from around the world with content translated or targeted to users in a certain region. Google uses the rel="alternate" hreflang="x" attributes to serve the correct language or regional URL in Search results.

This annotation enables Google and other search engines to serve the correct language or regional version of pages to searchers, which can lead to increased user satisfaction.

The Language Targeting section in the International Targeting in Google Webmaster Tools feature enables you to identify two of the most common issues with hreflang annotations:

• Missing return links: annotations must be confirmed from the pages they are pointing to. If page A links to page B, page B must link back to page A, otherwise the annotations may not be interpreted correctly.

• Incorrect hreflang values: The value of the hreflang attribute must either be a language code in ISO 639-1 format such as "es", or a combination of language and country code such as "es-AR", where the country code is in ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format.

Google has also moved the geographic targeting setting to this part of Webmaster Tools, so that all information relevant to international and multilingual targeting can be found in the same place.

The robots.txt file is the file which directly affects the crawling and indexing of the URLs on the site. It is the first file the bots like to read while crawling any site.Google WMT had a Block URLs section which showed the robots.txt file but now If Google isn't crawling a page , the robots.txt tester (Known as Blocked URLs earlier) , located under the Crawl section of Google Webmaster Tools, will let you test whether there's an issue in your file that's blocking Google.

According to an update on http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.in/2014/07/testing-robotstxt-files-made-easier.html :

In the robots.txt testing tool in Webmaster Tools you'll see

•  The current robots.txt tester, and can test new URLs to see whether they're being crawled or disallowed.
• Guide your way through complicated directives, it will highlight the specific one that led to the final decision.
• You can make changes in the file and test those too.
• Be able to review older versions of your robots.txt file, and see when access issues block crawling. For example, if Googlebot sees a 500 server error for the robots.txt file, we'll generally pause further crawling of the website.
• Since there may be some errors or warnings shown for your existing sites, we recommend double-checking their robots.txt files.
• You can also combine it with other parts of Webmaster Tools: for example, you might use the updated Fetch as Google tool in WMT to render and submit important pages on your website.
• If any blocked URLs are reported, you can use this robots.txt tester to find the directive that's blocking them, and, of course, then improve that.
• A common problem we've seen comes from old robots.txt files that block CSS, JavaScript, or mobile content — fixing that is often trivial once you've seen it.

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Last month John Mueller announced https://plus.google.com/+JohnMueller/posts/PDkPdPtjL6j that Google will be removing the profile photo and circle count from search results.

He posted on Google+ that:

We've been doing lots of work to clean up the visual design of our search results, in particular creating a better mobile experience and a more consistent design across devices. As a part of this, we're simplifying the way authorship is shown in mobile and desktop search results, removing the profile photo and circle count. (Our experiments indicate that click-through behavior on this new less-cluttered design is similar to the previous one.)

Does that mean that you should stop claiming authorship?

Some Of The Benefits Of Authorship Markup:

1. Authorship Markup establishes the identity of the author and correlates the content with that identity.

2. It builds trust as the reader has information about the author which is verified by the authorship markup process setup by Google.

3. It helps establish an authority and establishes thought leadership for the author online.

4. Helps combat plagiarism.'

Identity conceptual view (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to Google http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/authorship/ the benefits of claiming authorship and the method of linking your content are as follows:

Two simple steps:

1. Create a Google+ Profile

Remember to upload a high quality headshot and fill out some profile information such as hometown, etc.

2. Go to plus.google.com/authorship, sign up with your email and click on the verification link we send you.

If you don’t want to verify your email address, you can also link your content to your Google profile.
Why link your content?

· Distinguish and validate your content in search results.

· Get more followers on Google+.

· Help readers discover your other content on the web.

Good for the web

· Help users find high quality content on the web.· Empower them to engage with content authors through Google+.

Why You Should Still Setup Authorship Markup Though Google Has Removed The Profile Photo And Circle Count From Search Results ?

Identity Crisis (Photo credit: DBarefoot)

• Google has just stopped displaying the head shot of the author in search results but the benefits and correlation of the authorship markup remains the same. Hence it still makes sense to continue claiming authorship.
• I think Google just wants to play it safe and curb any spam related to the misuse of the authorship markup. They have burnt their fingers in the past with all the link spam which got rampant on the web due to the PageRank Technology. After the link building and other kinds of spam Google needs to update the algorithms for this kind of misuse of the Authorship Markup before it becomes difficult to handle and needs a major upgrade like the Panda or the Penguin update.
• Authorship Markup is about correlating content with the author and giving the due credit to the author to establish his/her authority and thought leadership and not about displaying pics. of business owners and people who want to just get their headshots displayed in SERPs.This kind of misuse totally beats the purpose of the Authorship markup and has a potential of again polluting the SERPs more than ever.
• The structured markup testing tool shows the detailed results about publisher markup and authorship markup . The only thing missing is the author pic. Hence all the reason to continue claiming authorship.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?q=http://blog.webpro.in/2014/05/why-smb-market-for-web-presence.html

• The Author stats. also continues to be displayed in WMT and Google is working on the Author Stats data under Labs so no one knows how this will be used by Google in future. Hence all the reason to continue claiming authorship.

Author : Bharati Ahuja

SMBs are slowly but steadily realizing the importance of web presence and want to forge ahead online arena with great enthusiasm and hope. But, there are some factors which make them delay the decision.

The Indian SMB market is second largest globally and the SMBs are clustered across all the Indian states giving the local web presence providers their share of the pie and helps maintain healthy competition.

SMBs contribute significantly to the economy:

Many SMBs have a web presence on industry portals and want to extend this by having their own website and social media presence. But the main reasons stopping them is the cost and the lack of technical knowledge in-house for managing and maintaining the website.

According to a Survey in 2013 there were 40 million SMBs and only 1 million websites which surely shows the immense business potential available.

According to a White Paper in 2013 by https://www.verisigninc.com/ the methods of online presence by country is as follows:

As India experiences a rapid adoption of internet in all areas of business and everyday transactions, the number of small business owners taking to an online presence is also growing. Riding on this growth wave is GoDaddy, one of the world’s largest web hosting and domain name registration providers, with its new marketing campaign starring Bollywood dancing icon Mithun Chakraborty. The campaign made of two films has Mithun explaining small business owners how creating a website can bring them more customers.

Google too had already focused the Indian SMB market in 2013 by announcing its plans to get 50,000 Small and Medium Businesses in Gujarat to have an online presence by 2014. This initiative was a part of its new national campaign "India, get your business online" that offers free websites and hosting to small and medium businesses in India. As part of the initiative, SMBs could also get to have a presence on Google Maps and garner technical support from 200-plus Google-trained agency partners in Gujarat for hosting the website.

"Small and medium enterprises are a key driver for economic growth in India, but very few businesses have been able to utilise the benefits of the Internet. Gujarat houses the largest number of SMEs in the country.

The Indian web presence market was also an area of growth, increasing by a substantial 45 percent in 2012, reaching a market size of Rs. 2.7 billion (US$55 million) in 2013. However, overall use of websites is still low, even when compared to other developing countries, indicating strong continued opportunity in web presence and web applications over the next several years. Parallels expects the growth in web presence and web applications to remain high over the next several years, with the Indian SMB web presence market growing by at least 36 percent year-over-year, reaching Rs. 6.8 billion (US$137million) in 2016

According to a study by http://zinnov.com/

• India's domestic IT spend to reach USD 36 billion by 2015, growing at a CAGR of 12%
• IT adoption in SMB segment is growing at 15% and expected to reach USD 15 billion by 2015
• Domestic spend on IT currently stands at USD 24bn
• 20% of the total 50 million SMBs in India are technology ready today.

We have been offering web presence services since 2000 and have seen the bubble burst as well as also seen the increasing demand for web solutions in the recent past.

But the major reasons according to us that are stopping the SMBs to go ahead confidently on the web are :

1. Many think that the cost is too high.
2. If they get a website developed they think it is enough and stop there and do not invest in online marketing or SEO.
3. They lack technical expertise in-house so they shy away from integrating eCommerce or online payments on the website.
4. They have burnt their fingers in the past and it becomes difficult for them to invest more for online presence.
5. The ROI from online presence accrues over a period of time and needs a plan and a strategy to reap dividends but the expectations of quick returns many time dampens their spirits and they lose patience and interest in maintaining the search presence.

Author : Bharati Ahuja

If you are facing a turbulence in the rankings of many keywords then read the following information.

Chris Hooley drinkbaiting Matt Cutts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• Google is rolling out our Panda 4.0 update starting today.

Google is rolling out our Panda 4.0 update starting today.— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) May 20, 2014

• Dan Petrovic also mentioned on his blog:

Coming Up: The Biggest Google Update of the Year?

• Search Engine Land http://searchengineland.com/google-begins-rolling-panda-4-0-now-192043 mentioned that Panda 4.0 affects different languages to different degrees. In English for example, the impact is ~7.5% of queries that are affected to a degree that a regular user might notice.

Here are the previous confirmed Panda updates, note, that we named them by each refresh and update, but 4.0 is how Google named this specific update:

1. Panda Update 1, Feb. 24, 2011 (11.8% of queries; announced; English in US only)
2. Panda Update 2, April 11, 2011 (2% of queries; announced; rolled out in English internationally)
3. Panda Update 3, May 10, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
4. Panda Update 4, June 16, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
5. Panda Update 5, July 23, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
6. Panda Update 6, Aug. 12, 2011 (6-9% of queries in many non-English languages; announced)
7. Panda Update 7, Sept. 28, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
8. Panda Update 8, Oct. 19, 2011 (about 2% of queries; belatedly confirmed)
9. Panda Update 9, Nov. 18, 2011: (less than 1% of queries; announced)
10. Panda Update 10, Jan. 18, 2012 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
11. Panda Update 11, Feb. 27, 2012 (no change given; announced)
12. Panda Update 12, March 23, 2012 (about 1.6% of queries impacted; announced)
13. Panda Update 13, April 19, 2012 (no change given; belatedly revealed)
14. Panda Update 14, April 27, 2012: (no change given; confirmed; first update within days of another)
15. Panda Update 15, June 9, 2012: (1% of queries; belatedly announced)
16. Panda Update 16, June 25, 2012: (about 1% of queries; announced)
17. Panda Update 17, July 24, 2012:(about 1% of queries; announced)
18. Panda Update 18, Aug. 20, 2012: (about 1% of queries; belatedly announced)
19. Panda Update 19, Sept. 18, 2012: (less than 0.7% of queries; announced)
20. Panda Update 20 , Sept. 27, 2012 (2.4% English queries, impacted, belatedly announced
21. Panda Update 21, Nov. 5, 2012 (1.1% of English-language queries in US; 0.4% worldwide; confirmed, not announced)
22. Panda Update 22, Nov. 21, 2012 (0.8% of English queries were affected; confirmed, not announced)
23. Panda Update 23, Dec. 21, 2012 (1.3% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
24. Panda Update 24, Jan. 22, 2013 (1.2% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
25. Panda Update 25, March 15, 2013 (confirmed as coming; not confirmed as having happened)

Even the tracking tools are all over the place MozCast, SERPS.com shows major activity on Saturday, so does SERP Metrics and Algoroo.

We all know that the Panda Update targets sites with low quality content and prevents them to sneak their way to get a good search presence and algorithm updates are nothing new. In fact they are the much needed boost for genuine SEOs as with every update true SEO campaigns get a push forward and spam gets a beating. Looking forward to track and monitor search results in the coming weeks.

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Webmasters use ‘Redirects’ when they want to forward visitors from one page to another on the same site or from one domain to another domain.

Search engines have been wary of such redirects because, though redirects are a normal part of how the web operates, and are very valuable when well used but can mislead the search engines and if sneaky may result in spam on the web.

Google guidelines support the ethical and correct use of such redirects but Google may respond negatively to misleading and manipulative practices of such a facility.

Basic Google Quality Guidelines Are As Follows:

• Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.
• Don't deceive your users.
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you, or to a Google employee. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
• Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your website stand out from others in your field.

There are many good reasons to redirect one URL to another, such as when moving your site to a new address, or consolidating several pages into one. However, some redirects deceive search engines or display content to human users that is different than that made available to crawlers.

Redirects are particularly useful and considered as ethical by search engines in the following circumstances:

• You've moved your site to a new domain, and you want to make the transition as seamless as possible.
• People access your site through several different URLs. If, for example, your home page can be reached in multiple ways - for instance, http://example.com/home, http://home.example.com, or http://www.example.com - it's a good idea to pick one of those URLs as your preferred (canonical) destination, and use 301 redirects to send traffic from the other URLs to your preferred URL.
• You're merging two websites and want to make sure that links to outdated URLs are redirected to the correct pages.

The Redirect can be determined as a correct one or a sneaky one depending on the intention of its redirection.

Some examples of sneaky redirects include:

• Search engines shown one type of content while users are redirected to something significantly different.
• Desktop users receive a normal page, while mobile users are redirected to a completely different spam domain.

Types of Redirects:

• 301, "Moved Permanently"—SEO Friendly
• 302,  "Moved Temporarily"
• Meta Refresh
• JavaScript Redirect
• URL Redirection Service

301 Moved Permanently

The 301 redirect is a permanent redirection. It indicates that the resource has moved permanently and people should update their information for this URL. A 301 redirect passes between 90-99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.

302 Moved Temporarily

A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect. It passes 0% of link juice (ranking power) and, in most cases, should not be used.

Meta Refresh

Meta refreshes are a type of redirect executed on the page level rather than the server level. They are usually slower, and not a recommended SEO technique. They are most commonly associated with a five-second countdown with the text "If you are not redirected in five seconds, click here."

JavaScript Redirects

JavaScript can cause a redirect by setting the window.location attribute, e.g.:

window.location='http://www.example.com/'

Normally JavaScript pushes the redirector site's URL to the browser's history. It can cause redirect loops when users hit the back button. With the following command you can prevent this type of behaviour.

window.location.replace('http://www.example.com/')

As per google Using JavaScript to redirect users can be a legitimate practice. For example, if you redirect users to an internal page once they’re logged in, you can use JavaScript to do so. When examining JavaScript or other redirect methods to ensure your site adheres to our guidelines, consider the intent. Keep in mind that 301 redirects are best when moving your site, but you could use a JavaScript redirect for this purpose if you don’t have access to your website’s server.

URL Redirection Services

A redirect service is an information management system, which provides an internet link that redirects users to the desired content. The typical benefit to the user is the use of a memorable domain name, and a reduction in the length of the URL or web address. A redirecting link can also be used as a permanent address for content that frequently changes hosts, similarly to the Domain Name System.

At times a hacking attack can result to sneaky redirects. Hackers might inject malicious code to your website that redirects some users to harmful or spammy pages. The kind of redirect sometimes depends on referrer, user-agent, or device. For example, clicking a URL in Google search results could redirect you to a suspicious page, but there is no redirect when you visit the same URL directly from a browser.

If your site has been hacked or infected with malware, you should act quickly to repair the damage. Google recommends reviewing the recommendations provided by the organization antiphishing.org.

Author : Bharati Ahuja

In 2014 anyone serious about search and online presence needs to create an online persona and establish a brand online.

The way your brand presence is established is an offshoot of the SEO efforts put in by your SEO company.

We keep on analyzing the analytic reports and regularly focus on visits (Now Sessions) , unique visitors (Now called Users) , rankings, bounce rate, landing pages, search queries, etc to judge the SEO performance but SEO has another very important deliverable i.e ‘To Establish Your Brand Online’ with every footprint they help you create on the web.

The task of establishing the brand presence is not an independent task but is woven into the on-page, off-page and technical factors of the SEO deliverables.

Every little task performed by the SEO to make the SEO campaign successful helps to promote your brand or harms the brand presence.

10 Things To Check If Your SEO Is Establishing Your Brand Online

Do a brand name search and see the results. If the SEO campaign is in the right direction the search listings on the first page should be about the pages where your brand name is mentioned or is majorly correlated to. Many times it will show the social media pages of the company and of course the website/blog will be listed in SERPs

2. Use Google Alerts to monitor your brand.

Apply for Google Alerts for the brand name search and be notified whenever people mention the brand name on the web.

3. Check the analytics trend for branded search queries and keywords
Use the filter option in Google Analytics to find out the search queries and keywords which have the brand name included in.

 4. Check Sitelinks In SERPsDo a search for your brand name or your brand name + Your Country

If Google has allocated site links then the search results may be as above. The site links can be more in no. as seen below:

5. Schema For Logo And Address

Check if the logo schema has been added to the page . This helps in correlating the logo image of the company to the brand.

The code for logo should be as follows:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">
<a itemprop="url" href="http://www.example.com/">Home</a>
<img itemprop="logo" src="http://www.example.com/logo.png" />
</div>

The code for Address is as follows:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">

<span itemprop="name">Google Inc.</span>

P.O. Box<span itemprop="postOfficeBoxNumber">1234</span>

<span itemprop="addressLocality">Mountain View</span>,

<span itemprop="addressRegion">CA</span>

<span itemprop="postalCode">94043</span>

<span itemprop="addressCountry">United States</span>

</div>

6. Knowledge Graph

With the Knowledge Graph, Google is trying to make search more intelligent. The results are more relevant because the search engine understands these entities, and the nuances in their meaning, in the same way the user does. This makes the search engine "think" more like the user.
Knowledge Graph Example:

7. Local Search

Check if you have a presence on local search and for queries having a local intent. Search for your brand name or any targeted search query and your local area name and see if you have a presence on local search results.

8. Google Suggest Auto Complete

Check and see what the Google Auto Complete suggests for queries related to your brand. This reflects the reputation the brand is gathering and getting correlated to over a period of time on the web.

9. Publisher Markup

Publisher Markup should ideally be added to the home page of the blog and the Authorship Markup to the blog post pages. This gives due credit to the company and the authors of the blog.
This correlates the company logo and gets displayed in the SERPs when the home page URL of the blog is listed and the blog post pages when listed show the author image.Check this using the Rich Snippets Tool:

10. Social Media Account Page Designs

Check if the Social Media Account pages convey the brand message and display the logo clearly.Any genuine SEO will give priority to these aspects when working on the On-Page, Off-Page and Technical factors of SEO during an SEO Campaign and as a website owner your priority should be to check how your brand evolves on the web first and then check for other metrics.

Related Blog Posts :

In March 2011 we had written about The Importance Of Creating An Online Brand and in October 2013 we wrote about Content , Branding, Research and Strategy As The Root Of Any Internet Marketing Activity.