May 2013 ~ Search Industry

May 30, 2013

Bing Launches New Sitemap Plugin 1.0

Download the Plugin

You can download the Bing XML Sitemap Plugin 1.0 binaries as well as the source code directly from the Microsoft Download Center or from the Bing XML Sitemap download page in the Bing Webmaster Help Center.
Bing XML Sitemap Plugin Features Overview

Sitemaps.org Compliant XML Sitemaps

The Bing XML Sitemap Plugin generates XML Sitemaps compliant with http://sitemaps.org/. In doing so, it creates two types of Sitemaps:
1. A comprehensive Sitemap based on recent traffic activity
2. A “delta” Sitemap that contains all pages that changed within a configurable time window.
(When we speak of “Sitemap” we mean the “Sitemap Index” and the actual XML Sitemaps themselves.)

Configurable URL Parameter Handling

By default, query string parameters that are seen by the plugin are not added to the sitemap URLs automatically. However, if your site uses query parameters to uniquely identify content you can easily include each significant parameter to the configuration file called normalization.txt.

Link rel=Canonical Handling

If your pages use link rel=canonical, then the plugin will use the URL value from <link rel=”canonical”> when found in the page’s HTML source as the URL to add to the XML Sitemap. Note: parameters that are part of the canonical URL will not be dropped regardless of whether they are listed in normalization.txt)

How does the plugin handle redirects?

The plugin will only add pages that return HTTP status 200 to the Sitemap. However, when you redirect a page after it was 200 previously, it will still show up in the Sitemap for some time, that is, until the configured time decay has passed (this is configurable using the VisitTimeoutSec setting).

404 Handling

The plugin also generates a Sitemap file that only contains requests that resulted in a 404 on the site. The location of this file is currently commented out in the Sitemap index file because it should not be seen as a regular XML Sitemap, but it can be used by the search engine to inform the index that these URLs are no longer valid.

The Plugin Honors Robots.txt Rules

The XML Sitemap Plugin honors the robots.txt rules you define in your site’s robots.txt in the sense that it will not add blocked URLs to the XML Sitemap.

More flexibility of what gets added: Disallow.txt

For added flexibility you can also add specific disallow rules for the Bing XML Sitemap plugin, using the same syntax as robots.txt in the file disallow.txt. Any disallow rules there will be observed by the plugin in the sense that pages matching the disallowed URL patterns will not be added to the XML Sitemap.

Automatic <priority>: How it is calculated

Since the plugin works off of traffic-based signals, it uses these to help establish a priority value for a given URL in the XML sitemap. Based on the premise that 0.5 represents the average priority and that more important URLs need to get awarded a priority higher than 0.5, the currently used formula to calculate priority is as follows:

In other words: the priority of the page is the visit count for the URL divided by 2 times the average visit count for the entire host site.

Longest period of time in seconds a URL remains in the Sitemap without being seeing any traffic. Default is 2592000 which equates 30 days.

Examples of XML Sitemaps Generated by the Bing XML Sitemap Plugin

Our partners at Microsoft use the Bing Sitemap technology at Microsoft, too. Two of our largest properties, MSDN and TechNet, which both contain millions of pages, have been using the technology to generate their Sitemaps since Beta, side-by-side with their prior systems.

(Note: You can see a working sample at http://msdn.microsoft.com/sitemaps2/trafficbasedsspsitemap.xml). These revisions, and this tool overall, should provide websites with a much easier way to build and maintain trustworthy sitemaps that are manageable across all scales.

source: http://www.bing.com/blogs/site_blogs/b/webmaster/archive/2013/05/23/bing-sitemap-plugin-1-0-launch.aspx

By: Prem On Thursday, May 30, 2013

May 24, 2013

Google Penguin 2.0- A New Spam Report Form

A most awaited penguin update, Penguin 2.0 has released just a day ago. And there are reports for these big changes. But, there is a gossip that still Google is ranking some spam ore low quality sites. This update can remove all those gossips.

Matt Cutts said this is the 4th Penguin update launched by Google in his blog. Since it is an updated algorithm (i.e, it is just not a data refresh), So it has been called as Penguin 2.0. About 2.3% of English US- queries has affected, penguin also varies with language. It means the sites with more spam has high impact of update.

Google's Web-spammer Matt Cutts tweeted about this new Penguin update, that they are providing a tool for remove those spam site. A new Penguin spam report has introduced, to control the spam sites display on results. This Form ask user to fill the form if he observe a unwanted or spam site.

URL of the Spam site
URL of the Google search result
And any additional information regarding this spam result

Penguin Spam Report Form

So from now, if any of you noticed any spam related sites also low quality sites, you can report to Google from Penguin Spam Report. So that they can take action to no more repeat of such spam sites furthermore.

As we heard earlier that this Penguin update is bigger one, the results are not changed as we expected. I mean we had expected a lot of changes would takes place on SERP, but actually it had not effected the results so much.

By introducing the spam report form, we must be more careful while link building and content on your site. There is a chance to your competitor to submit your site in spam report. So, guys please keep in mind while work on your site.

By: Prem On Friday, May 24, 2013

May 18, 2013

Google Launches Diversity of Results

Matt Cutts discussed in a video about new change in Search results which gets diversity on search engine results page..

Matt said soon Google is launching new change that effect on same domain results. You can observe 2 to 3 results of same domain for some particular keywords, that means if the relevancy is not matched from other site, it shows multiple results from same domain.

Matt had explained, this update will prevent results occurring from same domain. Also there would be less probability to show multiple results from single site on SERP. Even though Google had introduced EMD Update, Penguin update and Panda Update there is no diversity in results.

Google added "Host clustering", which prevents the multiple results from same domain.Google then changed to show more diversity of results.

This update will show more diversity of results on 1st page of Google. Secondary other remaining pages may have less diversity of results (It may contain multiple results from single domain). Matt said, this update is introduced to satisfy more number of users.

Generally users are not interested to go and find the information from repeated domains. After Host clustering, there would be a chance of user to open 6 to 7 results.

By: Prem On Saturday, May 18, 2013

May 16, 2013

What are the Important SEO Meta Tags for the website

Meta Tags

In SEO Meta Tags play an important role. Without these these getting your results on search engine is very hard. These meta tags help you to outcome the result. All are familiar with tags like title, description, keywords and robots.

But other than these tags there are many which are important in SEO. Many of you may miss some of these tags, please check it and place on your website. All these has unique importance and these are some Google Search Engine related.

If you want your website be ranked on top of google, then you must check and place these tags on your website.

Title

Plays key role in search results. From this title only Google would consider the relevancy of the results. So without the title tag you can’t get the results on the 1st page.

<title>Search Indus Update- Latest Search Engine News </title>

Description

Meta description is known as snippet in SEO terminology. The description you would provide must attract the users to go into the site. The content is not fully stuffed with keywords. Just it gives clear idea about the idea or services of that particular page or website.

<meta name="description" content=" " / >

Keywords

Most of you believe that keywords has vital role in SEO. But it false, Matt Cutts clearly said that keywords will not play any role in SEO. Even though you can keep 3 to 4 related keywords to your web-page.

<meta name="keywords" content=" Search Industry News, Search Updates, SEO Updates" />

Header

After the above three tags the next important tag is Header tag. Header tag has most important in Search Engines. If you write your targeted keyword in Header tag, then that page can easily ranked on search engines.

<head> Search Indus Updates</head>

Robots File

Every Search engine has individual crawlers and bots. These bots will crawl all web-pages and content of that pages. Some sites have secure or important data in their page. You can restrict that data from crawling those bots. With this “robots.txt” file we can restrict the data visible to public.

User-agent: Googlebot/2.1
Disallow: /nogoogle.html
Sitemap: http://www.mysite.com/sitemap.xml

Follow & No-Follow Links

Google will consider only Do-Follow links. So be careful while link building to your sites. Yahoo may consider both Do-Follow and No-Follow links. You can also change the do-follow to no-follow links from rel attribute tag

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow">
<meta name="robots" content="index, nofollow">
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">

Google Webmaster Tools

You can check all your website data and links of your site. From this we can track all internal and external 404 errors. Notice all the site errors like meta title, descriptions, keywords etc. Website insights like Crawl Errors, Server Errors, Robots file can be known from it.

Most useful thing is Search Queries. From search queries you can track the keyword avg. positions, search impressions and clicks from Google. Also know the change in keyword impression and clicks.

<meta name="google-site-verification" content="oFEzayZqtYM_WLMVfzGmKC8WcfIy9gRtgxLR4GKWHao" />

Google Analytics

With this Analytics tool we can track each and every visit/view of the users. You can observe every click from analytics. You can increase your traffic or visibility of user from this report.

NOODP (No ODP)

ODP means Open Directory Project. Sometimes google display title from open directory project. If both the titles of open directory projects and your website are same, then there is no problem. If it is different then you must use this NOODP tag.

By adding NOODP tag, we clear say to Google that not to consider title from displaying Open Directory Project. You’re saying that your current updates title must considered as title in Search Results page

For Google <meta name="googlebot" content="noodp"/>
For Yahoo <meta name="slurp" content="noydir" />
For Bing <meta name="msnbot" content="noodp" />

Canonical Link Element (Duplicate Content)

Google would crawl all the sites on the net, and it can recognize who has pasted the content from others site. Search engine gives least priority for a copied content site, So be aware of using copied content from your competitor site.

Sometimes you may use the same data in your multiple sites. Then you can use this canonical tag, which tells to Google that these two are your sites and the data is common for these pages.
Same information or content can be used in multiple sites by putting this tag.

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/" />

New tags will be updated regularly. Follow updates by clicking on "join the site" button on right side of the page. For more SEO information Click Here

By: Prem On Thursday, May 16, 2013

May 14, 2013

9 Things Can Expect this Summer on SERP: Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts in Video reveals that you can expect 9 things for coming weeks on SEO. He had given some tips and answers for future Penguin update. Also changed the factors on considering the black hat SEO with different angles and variety of areas.

Here are nine points which can effect on Search and SEO changes. Webmaster can look into it.

1. Penguin Update

2.Advertorials

3.Spam Queries

4.Upstream linking

5.On Hacked Sites

6.Authority

7.Panda

8.Changing Cluster of Results

9.More information for Webmasters

source:http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2267962/Matt-Cutts-Talks-SEO-for-Google-9-Things-You-Should-Expect-This-Summer

By: Prem On Tuesday, May 14, 2013

May 13, 2013

Be Ready for New Google Maps Feature

As you know that Google has became a Major Search engine all of all. Even though at searching the locations in cities or country, Google offers more relevant routes and places.

And now it again introduces its new Google Map interface by adding more pictures and friendly nature.

This update will remove the sidebars and also change the colors. It would display everything on top of the full-screen map. And one of the new feature is to restrict local search results to places recommended by top reviews or your Google+ circles

In between your destination and starting point if there are any Hotels, Building, Banks, Theaters, Shopping Malls etc it may show the address near to it as you zoom on to it.

But from next coming weeks by implementing the new Google Map interface you may also get their corresponding Google+ pages, Communities etc if the they had been added by the owners.

An important thing is maps results displaying on SERP page are majorly changed according to the reviews and comments of their Google+ circles given by Users.

Relative Links:

New Image Results for Google Ads

Traffic Updates by Google with Smartphone Applications

By: Prem On Monday, May 13, 2013

May 11, 2013

Yahoo Announces to Strengthen it Market with New Search Tools

Just a day after it comes the news that Yahoo wants to break the agreement with the Microsoft. Yahoo's Senior vice president for Search Laurie Mann comment on new search tools and and upgrades that they want to launch over the coming months. May be some of the updates may come together with Microsoft.

“ We've got some really cool things in the pipeline, which we’ll be announcing and rolling out over the coming months,” said Mann.

After playing a key role in Google as the world’s most popular search engine, Marissa Mayer has been driven to increase Yahoo’s share of the search market since accepting the role of Yahoo CEO in July of 2012.

Google is still an undisputed winner in search. According to Com-score report Google earns 67 percent, Yahoo earned 12 percent and Microsoft took 17 percent of all the search queries.

By recent comments by Mayer, she believes that Yahoo has still chance to gain the market share more than Google.

comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report

By: Prem On Saturday, May 11, 2013

May 08, 2013

You Tube Launched Trend Maps Feature

A doubt has arrived whether You Tube also launch the Maps or not? Most of you are in dilemma...??

But its true that You Tube started Trend Maps feature for the users. For example if a viral Video has shared in You Tube, it is seen in the state or it has seen by throughout the country is observed in world.

Here this feature bring the options to know which are the videos are watched by several age groups and gender.

You can also filter the videos according to the gender.

For example, You can search the videos watched by women between 30-40 age. It also has feature to break down the show the shares and views of a particular Video. The age and other demographics can be known after 48 hours uploading the video. So, if it's a new video you can see the demographics breakdown after 2 days of uploading.

What Videos are Trending in Which Places

But this feature is available only in US at present. Later they would cover all the countries.

This feature may be helpful to those who can target the videos according to specific ages or people. Also know which videos are watched in most of the countries and which city watch more shares and views.

By: Prem On Wednesday, May 08, 2013

May 06, 2013

What Happened to Yahoo Home Page????

Hey, did you notice Yahoo Home Page from a few days, if not just check it once.

Yahoo had changes its Home page feature, it looks to be great. May this can be more competitive for the future Google Home Page.

Yahoo's front-page news stream now displays personalized ads alongside news articles and other features. Stream Ads, the new ad product, is already garnering interest from various advertisers and comes just a few months after Yahoo introduced the news stream on its home page.

By: Prem On Monday, May 06, 2013

May 04, 2013

Android Application Activity is Merging with Google Search Results

Google search results may going to be a friendly related. You can easily adopted by its upcoming new features.

Search Engine Giant Google is going to add Android applications activity on Search results. I mean along with search results you can also get the related android related applications.

If a user is going to search for you/your site or an application, then it will display these app activity on it. All applications would require Sign-in with Google. Firstly they are going to implement on these

They are rolling out this feature on desktop Search results on next few weeks. These are started with a limited music and movie apps like Deezer, Fandango, Flixster, Slacker Radio, Songza, SoundCloud and TuneIn. And later they would add apps frequently.

It seems to be more happy for having a great change in search results in coming days. May be this year Google I/O had gone a lot of change.

Let see an example by searching as Fandango.

You can see a lot of change, this below image can be expected after introducing the apps activity on Search Results

By: Prem On Saturday, May 04, 2013

Search Industry