Bharati Ahuja

First It Was The TV And Now The Internet Too Targeting Children From An Early Age

The Internet is here to stay and is becoming a part and parcel of daily lives. Children too from an early age are using computers for games , academics and connecting to friends. They need guidance and their online activities need to be monitored not from the stalking perspective but to guide them and clear any misconceptions they develop while watching certain content for which they may not be mature enough to distinguish between what is good for them and what might harm them.

Image by Sam Howzit via Flickr

The activity which might create distorted impressions has the potential of giving the right options to the children too, it all depends how responsible you are as a marketer or developer .

All business schools emphasize on the social objectives of business along with marketing, sales , administration, etc. online business is no exception.

News - 07/14/2011

Do You Think You Need To Make A Choice Between Google+ And Facebook ?

Author : Bharati Ahuja
Image by Ruth Tsang via Flickr

I just read an article on the following link:

http://blog.socialwavelength.com/2011/07/it-takes-a-lot-more-than-the-initial-hoopla-my-thoughts-on-google/

and started writing my views as a comment but it went on to be so long that I decided to publish it as a blog post instead.

My thoughts on the article mentioned above:

I think Google is synonymous to search and FB is synonymous to social media but with the integration of social signals and search Google realizes the need to have access to some reliable social data that they can trust and also integrate easily in their search algorithms.

Google had access to Twitter data from October 2009 onwards and Google had announced the Real Time Search option but now in June 2011 that option has been deactivated as their deal with Twitter has expired. And at the very same time Google announced Google+ because they want to continue with their integrated results of search and social.

Google is very much focused on search and according to me the Google+ initiative is mainly aimed at enhancing the quality of search results which is very much affected due to the mal practices because of link building and content spamming.

As mentioned on http://searchengineland.com/as-deal-with-twitter-expires-google-realtime-search-goes-offline-84175

Google clearly has mentioned that ,”Our vision is to have google.com/realtime include Google+ information along with other realtime data from a variety of sources.” So if businesses want to be found on the real time search of Google having a presence on Google+ is a logical thing to do.

But that does not mean that they need not have a presence on FB as more than making a choice of being on FB or G+ it is more about how I can widen my out reach further by reaching out to my niche targeted audience via search and social media.

FB originated with a vision and mission of social out reach and connections Google started off with a focus on search which now is referred to as library search as social media has given birth to real time search so for Google it seems the most logical next step to take.

But as social media and SEO companies our objective is to help businesses have a maximum out reach on the web i.e on the search engines and also on sites where the netizens are spending more and more time.

Eventually as the most important aspect is the target audience, depending on your product, service or purpose of online promotion one will have to select the platform and as the title of the post says it is much beyond the initial hoopla, its true only time will tell whether Google is able to succeed in its third time initiative of social media after Orkut and Wave. So far it seems very promising as the Circles aspect of G+ does give you an easy choice to make regarding what you want to share with whom.

Moreover, Google is also experimenting with business profiles on Google+ which they might integrate further with Google Places which is another inviting feature for businesses to have a presence of Google+.

When Google had its humble beginning as a search engine nobody had thought that they would out do Yahoo or Altavista but due to their technical expertise and focus they have been able to achieve a monopoly for search. Only the future will say whether FB will be able to forge ahead as it is being doing for all this time as now they have true competition else there is full possibility that they can meet the same fate as Yahoo if their focus gets shifted.

Otherwise I think FB and Google+ can both exist together serving different purposes and niche targeted audiences.

There is a great insight on what happened to Yahoo when their focus shifted from their identity as a technology company to a media company on the following link:

http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html

Google / SEO / Social Media - 07/10/2011

Women In Tech – A Panel Discussion

Author : Bharati Ahuja

The following video has a great discussion about the women’s issues in the field of technology. One of our previous blogposts http://blog.webpro.in/2010/12/talk-by-facebook-coo-sheryl-sandberg-on.html conveyed similar ideas and sentiments but viewing this video gave more insight as it is a group discussion.

The talk is very inspiring but After viewing this video I am convinced that whatever the geographic location the issues related to women in tech are globally the same.

The members in the Women In Tech Panel Discussion held at Facebook Headquarters On 20th Of April 2011 Include:

Sheryl Sandberg - COO Facebook
Jocelyn Goldfein - Director Of Engineering - Facebook
Theresia Gouw Ranzetta - Accel Partners
Jessica Herein - CEO Founder , Stella And Dot.

The panel discusses issues about:

· Flex timings at work for parents when they have a child. (Paternity leave not maternity leave)

· Women choosing a technical career by opting for Maths and Computer Science

· More women as entrepreneurs on the social web

· To break away from the stereotype way of raising children by telling them that girls should play with Barbie dolls and boys should be aggressive

· Give equal access to technology and technological devices to your daughter as you would give to your son

· Intergating more industry experience into the curriculum along with the theoretical sessions for more real time exposure

· Entrepreneurship or a job whatever is your arena of work go out and reach out to your success if you believe in yourself and think that you deserve that promotion

Education / SEO - 07/07/2011

Personalized Search Results and Integrated Social Search Results - A Perspective

Author : Bharati Ahuja

What Is Personalized Search?

As the term suggests personalized Search Results means search as per the users preferences and as per the past search patterns generated by is search behavior .

Google also introduced social search in 2009 which they integrated in search results when they announced an update to it in Feb. 2011 when Google made Social Search more comprehensive by adding notes for links people have shared on Twitter and other sites.

Personalized Search in 2009 according to Google :

	Signed-in Personalized Search	Signed-out Personalized Search
Where the data we use to customize is stored	In Web History, linked to your Google Account	On Google's servers, linked to an anonymous browser cookie
How far back we use search history	Indefinitely or until you remove it	Up to 180 days
What searches are used to customize	Only signed-in search activity, and only if you are signed up for Web History	Only signed-out search activity
How to turn off	Remove Web History from your Google Account	Disable these search customizations

Many fear that this this way people would be get search results from their friends and network and everyone can view different results. This would further render SEO as useless and having a good content based site won't hold much of the value.

I agree to disagree on this point as to opt for search results or to opt out of search results is totally the choice of the user. The user today maynot be that search savvy but as the search engines are evolving so is the search behavior of the users. Today people want to get search results and the opinions of the people whom they know without spending much time and this kind of feature saves time and also backs a search result by what their friends and acquaintances have to say about it.

The average user is becoming more and more savvy day by day and wants the option and choice to search within his personalized search and save time or explore and search from a wider range of results by disabling the personalized search.

This kind of feature is a great help to content curators who have a set method of curating content within their personalized search preferences as this not only saves time but also gives a choice to the user.

In fact with this aspect of the user becoming more smart and search savvy and the search engines becoming more and more open to give wider options to the user, the SEO has a much wider connotation and implies complete quality web presence rather than only search engine presence.

Hence , SEOs have to guide and educate their clients not only about regularly giving quality content to their users but also educate them on how to connect on social media and have a wider outreach via social media sites, blogs, videos , discussions, participating in Q & A related to their industry, etc. In other words create an atmosphere of trust, authority, knowledge and information for the website and the social accounts representing their business.

Personalized search is not diluting or distorting search but helping evolve search to a more meaningful and target oriented search with the user preference as the focus.

SEO - 07/06/2011

Google Going Gaga Over Social And Search Newbie Launches In 2011

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Since January 2011 there has been a complete metamorphosis of the search and social integration by Google focusing on quality search results and the user.

Image Via Wikipedia

All these major launches and announcements indicate that Google is serious about social and search . It wants to focus on quality search results by integrating the social voice in the search results keeping the user at the epicenter.

In January 2011 Google announced that they will be taking the search spam very seriously Matt Cutts Said that “we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.” That change was approved at our weekly quality launch meeting last Thursday and launched earlier this week.

Google started tightening the noose on the quality aspect of search results with the Panda or Farmer Update for its search algorithm from February 2011 onwards. So far, the Panda schedule has been like this:

· Panda Update 1.0: Feb. 24, 2011

· Panda Update 2.0: April 11, 2011 (about 7 weeks later)

· Panda Update 2.1: May 10, 2011 (about 4 weeks later)

· Panda Update 2.2: June 16, 2011 (about 5 weeks later)

In February 2011 Google announced an update to Google Social Search
In March 2011 Google Announces its +1s recommendations
In May 2011

Google introduced the official search blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/introducing-our-official-search-blog.html

Google Social Search went Global.

Google shared its view about what count as a high quality site. http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

In June 2011 Google introduced

The authorship markup and the rel attribute.

Google announces search by voice, text or image

Updated and evolved the design of the search page

Highlighted Content Creators In Search results

The mega social Media project Google +

Google / SEO - 07/06/2011

The Purpose Behind Commenting On Blog Posts

Author : Bharati Ahuja

In continuation to our earlier blog post on The Art Of Commenting On Blogs we would like to share our perspective on the The Purpose Behind Commenting On Blogs.The user generated content in the form of comments is something that every blogger looks forward to when a blog post is published. As this content is the indication that the post has been read by the visitor and the visitor has found it compelling enough to share his opinion about it.

The main purpose of sharing your views or opinion in the form of a comment is to voice your thoughts about the topic which will carry the discussion further and enrich the post with more knowledgeable information which you may be able to add because of your experience and knowledge about the subject matter.

Each value- added comment adds to the info. about the topic of the post and every reply takes the discussion further. It also indicates the popularity and readership of the blog to a great extent. This mode of interacting with the people in your niche industry and sharing knowledge has been the prevalent even before the people started using social media sites like face and twitter for sharing and interacting with each other.

Comments on the blog give an idea to the blogger about his style of writing and encourages the blogger as blogging is not only putting forward your opinion but also being open about listening to other people’s opinion all over the globe which may generate fresh perspectives and ideas about a certain topic by initiating conversations and discussions by way of comments and replies. This can be between the blogger and the readers or the readers amongst themselves.

Each valuable comment is a contribution and shows respect for the blogger as it proves that the visitor to your blog who may have reached the blog via whatever media, whether he is a new or a repeat visitor he has spent time in adding to the content and proving that he has read the post. Hence the metrics like the no. of comments on the blog, no. of visits (new and repeat – as more no. of repeat visits to the blog indicates that people want to come back to the site again to read more about what is the latest being shared by the blogger on his blog) are important in judging the popularity and acceptability of the blog in that niche industry .

But just like every coin has two sides, people instead of these objectives behind commenting are resorting to comment spamming just like we had the keyword spam and the link spam.

What is comment spam and how can the blogger help to avoid such a spam?

According to Google on http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=81749

Comments are a great way for webmasters to build community and readership. Unfortunately, they're often abused by spammers and nogoodniks, many of whom use scripts or other software to generate and post spam.

If you've ever received a comment that looked like an advertisement or a random link to an unrelated site, then you've encountered comment spam.

Here are some ideas for reducing or preventing comment spam on your website.

· Turn on comment moderation

· Use "nofollow" tags

· Disallow hyperlinks in comments (Or have a Link Policy)

· Block comment pages using robots.txt or META tags

· Think twice about enabling a guestbook or comments

· Use a blacklist to prevent repetitive spamming attempts.

· Add a "report spam" feature to user profiles and friend invitations.

· Monitor your site for spammy pages.

Blogs are usually created for sharing , expressing and voicing certain thoughts, opinions and information to reach out to more and more people , comments on the blog prove that this exercise has been fruitful and has a multiplier effect on the outreach. Every valuable comment benefits the blogger and commentor but only if the true purpose of blogging and commenting is kept in mind while commenting.

SEO - 06/26/2011

Authorship markup And The rel Attribute

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Image via WikipediaGoogle early this month announced that they now support authorship markup—a way to connect authors with their content on the web.Great quality content is written by experienced and knowledgeable authors and associating the content on the web written by them to their name is quite a logical thing to do. Some authors become synonymous to authority and reliable info. about the topics they write on and deserve the credit due to them on the web. Google now has a focus on fresh quality content on websites as a major factor with its Panda Update and this piece of micro data can help Google to sieve out the grain from the chaff easily .Since Guest Blogging has also taken up in a very big way on the web, this Authorship Markup is surely a great help to all those who write extensively as Guest Bloggers on the web on various blogs. As this markup gives an identity to the author and acknowledges his/her work on the web.

This is a markup that enables websites to publicly link within their site from content to author pages. For example, if an author at a reputed blog has written dozens of articles, using this markup, the webmaster can connect these articles with that blog author page. An author page describes and identifies the author, and can include things like the author’s bio, photo, articles and other links.

Google Webmaster Central on
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1229920 gives the following information :

To identify the author of an article or page, include a link to an author page on your domain and add rel="author" to that link, like this:

Written by Matt Cutts.

This tells search engines: "The linked person is an author of this linking page." The rel="author" link must point to an author page on the same site as the content page. For example, the page http://example.com/content/webmaster_tips could have a link to the author page at http://example.com/authors/mattcutts. Google uses a variety of algorithms to determine whether two URLs are part of the same site. For example, http://example.com/content, http://www.example.com/content, and http://news.example.com can all be considered as part of the same site, even though the hostnames are not identical.

If you have added the authorship markup you can check its validity on

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

SEO - 06/24/2011

Understanding And Adapting To The Google Panda Update - A Simple, Systematic, Straight Forward Approach

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Image via WikipediaGoogle keeps on updating their search algorithms time and again in order to improve the quality of search results on a regular basis. Way back Google announced a PageRank technology to display quality search results as the webmasters were misusing the keyword tag extensively and there was a lot of black hat which was affecting the quality of results on the search engines.

Recently we have the Panda update which is a major update to the algorithm affecting the SERPs.

Google mentioned on its blogpost when they first announced (Feb. 24 2011) the Panda Update 1.0 that “This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

It also added “we’re very excited about this new ranking improvement because we believe it’s a big step in the right direction of helping people find ever higher quality in our results.”

On April 11th 2011 Google made this a global update and said Google's quality guidelines provide helpful information about how to improve your site.

In May 2011 and now in June 2011 Google has further updated and tweaked the algorithm for applying it more efficiently and reward site which follow the guidelines , are rich in quality content and are a source of valuable information for the user (searcher).

So far, the Panda schedule has been like this:

· Panda Update 1.0: Feb. 24, 2011

· Panda Update 2.0: April 11, 2011 (about 7 weeks later)

· Panda Update 2.1: May 10, 2011 (about 4 weeks later)

· Panda Update 2.2: June 16, 2011 (about 5 weeks later)

An Algorithm is a set of mathematical equations or rules that a search engine uses to rank the content contained within its index in response to a particular search query.

The Google Algorithm is the mathematical formula that Google uses to create the results (SERPS) when you do a Google search.

As Larry co-founder of Google said long ago, we want to give you back “exactly what you want.” On June 14th 2011 at the Inside Search Event Amit Singhal said that speed is something Google is obsessed about Google wants to make the search experience and browsing as smooth and as fast as like flipping a magazine and even avoid the delay of 5 secs. which usually is the case when a query is entered and the search results are displayed.

The Panda update is an effort to achieve both these objectives of quality search results and speed. The main focus is on quality content and the usability of the site for the user. Google wants to reward sites with quality content and are created with a focus on the user convenience of use and navigation.

So, the million dollar question is :

What Is Quality Content?

Google has even answered that on their blog by posing 23 questions for a site:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

Point-wise And In A Precise Manner The Content Reflects High standards Of Quality If the content is :

1. Trust worthy

2. Written by an expert

3. Not duplicated with other variations on the same site

4. The site can be trusted for credit card payments

5. Does not have spelling and style errors

6. The topic is in sync with what the readers want to read about

7. Is original

8. Adds value to the topic

9. Checked for quality standards to provide good UX

10. Unbiased and give both sides of the story

11. Hosted on Domain Authority

12. Is not mass produced

13. Is edited well

14. Trust worthiness related to important matters like health

15. Reflects brand authority

16. Is complete and offers an overall view about the topic

17. Stating facts or discussing the topic with insights

18. Is it worth sharing

19. Having a lot of Ads. Loses the true essence of information and knowledge

20. Is the content worth being printed

21. Is it long enough to be informative

22. Is attention given to detail

23. Is published with good UX

If your site meets the above requirements, does not have the violation factors as mentioned on the SEO Periodic Table , has a good download speed and ensures a good UX (User Experience) then your site is well adapted to the new Panda Update.

Hence, instead of hastily modifying the on-page factors : Focus on :

· developing quality content

· sharing more valuable information with your visitors

· improving the technical factors (Page Download Speed , Internal Architecture And Navigation, Bounce Rate , Engagement of the visitors on the site ,Time On Site) of your site.

If your site helps Google achieve its objectives of 'QUALITY SEARCH RESULTS' then the Google Algorithm helps your site achieve its objectives of SERPs and Search Visibility.

SEO - 06/22/2011

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