Abhishek Bakshi

Tag: search engine optimization

  • Google PR is Case Sensitive

    Summary:
    According to web standards, all URLs should be case sensitive. This is the case for Google and other search engines, but unfortunatelly this rule is not respected by Microsoft servers. This means your website could be serving duplicate content on hundreds or thousands of pages. Read this article to protect yourself against this issue.

    <p>
    After a little digging up, I found enough evidence to believe that…</p><ol style=”list-style-type: decimal;”><li> Google searches are never case sensitive – as we already knew.</li><li>Google PR is case sensitive – as I suspected, according to web standards, URLs are case sensitive. Google and other search engines follow this standard.</li></ol>There have been a few reported cases of the same pages being in Google’s index 2 or more times because they were linked to with different cases (ie.: /ABC.htm, /abc.htm, /Abc.htm) – see <a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3240068.htm” target=”_blank”>this post</a>.<br><br>The root of the problem, as you may have guessed, is Microsoft’s ignorance towards web standards. Microsoft servers are set up in opposition to the web standard on case sensitivity in which /ABC.htm is different from /abc.htm. IIS ignores the case different and gives control of the request to wrong file.<br><br><b>My site is on a Windows Server, how bad is the problem?</b><br>Well, it’s not going to ‘bring down the internet’ as some lammers might suggest, but there are issues that need to be addressed. IIS’s choice to ignore case sensitivity means search engines (which are case sensitive) will index the exact same content for different URLs. It’s very unlikely a website would be penalized for this, but it can definitelly impair your website’s ability to rank well. It makes it specially difficult for the duplicated page to rank well for the terms it targets.<br><br>This is only an issue if there are two or more links point to the same URL in a different case. You can avoid this problem by always using lowercase in your link tags, but you can’t stop other websites linking into the same URL in capital letters – so something must be done on the server in order to deal with this issue.<br><br>How can I fix it?<br>I can almost picture you “URL Rewrite Junkies” jumping up and down with the solution on your hands, but as we all know, URL Rewrite is a feature only available to proper web-servers, nothing you’d expect to see in IIS.<br><br>A. <b>Server Component (IIS alternative to URL Rewrite)</b><br>Not free, not easy to setup and can only be installed on your own server. The only upside is that this would work for all files/scripts/directories on the website.<br>An alternative for URL Rewrite in IIS – <a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.isapirewrite.com/” target=”_blank”>ISAPI Rewrite</a>.<br><br>B. <b>Script (and a little permanent redirection)</b><br>It’s free, it’s easy to setup and can be installed on any server, not just your own. The only downside is that you can only enforce case sensitiveness for requests that are handled by this script. This means static HTML pages, directories, images, etc would still be exposed to this issue. HOWEVER, if with a little help from a custom 404 error page you can do just about anything. But that’s a whole other topic…<br><br>Here’s how you’d enforce case sensitiveness using VB Script:<br><div style=”margin: 5px 20px 20px;”> <div class=”smallfont” style=”margin-bottom: 2px;”>Code:</div> <pre class=”alt2″ dir=”ltr” style=”border: 1px inset ; margin: 0px; padding: 6px; overflow: auto; width: 640px; height: 146px; text-align: left;”>&lt;% <span style=”color: rgb(102, 102, 102);”>’ Force lowercase URLs</span><br><span style=”color: rgb(51, 51, 255); font-weight: bold;”>If </span>Request.ServerVariables(<span style=”color: rgb(0, 102, 0);”>”URL”</span>)&lt;&gt;LCase(Request.ServerVariables(<span style=”color: rgb(0, 102, 0);”>”URL”</span>)) <span style=”font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);”>Then</span><br>Response.Status = <span style=”color: rgb(153, 0, 0);”>301</span><span style=”color: rgb(102, 102, 102);”> ‘Permanently Redirected</span><br>Response.AddHeader <span style=”color: rgb(0, 102, 0);”>”Location”</span>, LCase(Request.ServerVariables(<span style=”color: rgb(0, 102, 0);”>”URL”</span>))<br>Response.End()<br><span style=”font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);”>End If</span><br>%&gt;</pre> </div>It doesn’t need to be the very first thing on every page, but in order to perform a proper permanent redirect, this has to be execute before any content is written to the response’s output stream, ie.: Before any HTML or Response.Write.<br><br>Hope this helps a few up-and-coming SEO experts (and <span style=”font-style: italic;”>wanna-be</span>s)

  • Google Page Ranking And The Value Of Links

    Summary:
    In todayís incarnation of the Internet search engine optimization or SEO is more important than webpage design skills. The best designed webpage has limited usefulness if no one visits it. A website is a product and a product that people donít know about doesnít sell. With the many search engines that are available it is important to know which are the most useful and how they are useful. Letís look at Google.

    Google uses a particular search algorithm that assigns a value …

    In todayís incarnation of the Internet search engine optimization or SEO is more important than webpage design skills. The best designed webpage has limited usefulness if no one visits it. A website is a product and a product that people donít know about doesnít sell. With the many search engines that are available it is important to know which are the most useful and how they are useful. Letís look at Google.

    Google uses a particular search algorithm that assigns a value to websites called PageRank that is one part of how it ranks pages. The PageRank value is determined by several things but the most important are the values derived from the ingoing and outgoing links in your page. Letís look at that first.

    The links in your website allow Google to navigate the pages on your site and index more of the content. Keep in mind that it is your pages that are ranked and not your site. You could conceivably have one page ranked higher than all of your others put together. This is the biggest reason to make sure that all of your pages have links into and out of them and that you never have dangling links or pages that can be linked to but not out of. This is why the navigation structure of your site is vitally important.

    With that covered letís look at the main factors used for PageRank. First of all a page on your site has to be indexed by Google to even have a PageRank. At that point the page has an intrinsic PageRank value. That page has links to your other pages. When one page links to another page it increases that pageís PageRank value without deceasing its own. It is almost like one page voting for another without penalizing itself. This is why you want to avoid any dangling links because although that page would have an increase in PegeRank it could not do the same for another page. With this in mind it is prudent to direct more links to your most important pages to increase its value. Then from that page the visitors to your site can link to the other pages.

    The best strategy for increasing PageRank is to link pages to each other with a single link. By doing this you avoid splitting the value between multiple pages. However you want to make sure that all of your pages are linked together so that you can navigate your entire site from a single starting point.

    Remember that in SEO you must learn as many aspects of it as possible as they are ever evolving.

  • Google Page Rank Updates

    Summary:
    Many webmasters are obsessed with the Google Page Rank. Articles and books have been written about Google PR (Page Rank). Forum postings cover the topic over and over again and about every 3 months tensions are rising when a possible Page Rank update is eventually happening. Page Rank updates are an interesting experience watching a small group of webmasters go a little crazy.

    Many webmasters are obsessed with the Google Page Rank. Articles and books have been written about Google PR (Page Rank). Forum postings cover the topic over and over again and about every 3 months tensions are rising when a possible Page Rank update is eventually happening. Page Rank updates are an interesting experience watching a small group of webmasters go a little crazy.

    It all starts with somebody noticing the PR update in progress. This event will find its way into forums and newsgroups fast. Within minutes and hours the Internet community becomes aware of a Page Rank update. As Google.com uses several different data centers for its search engine services and also updates them in different intervals webmasters all over the world will see different results when looking for Page Rank results. A Page Rank update will also not complete within an hour or a day. For several days results will fluctuate.

    With that in mind it is a funny event watching the hype surrounding a PR update. Webmasters get nervous if the PR of their website suddenly changes. A change can mean that the PR completely disappears or that the webmaster sees different (conflicting) results. As a high Page Rank can mean higher amounts of traffic and eventually higher income from a website this event often feels like a rollercoaster ride for the people who depend on having a successful website. Imagine the website you worked for so hard suddenly going up and down in Page Rank during a PR update. Now the same people start posting questions and comments in forums and newsgroups. The more experienced webmasters know the game and react professionally. They know that the publicly visible Page Rank is just a moment in time to display a snapshot of what is in Google’s database. They know that PR actually updates daily or weekly internally, but that these more frequent updates do not show up as publicly visible PR updates. But no matter how often it is pointed out that the publicly visible PR is not important – the hype around this topic by a large group of webmasters does not quiet down. “How many links does it take to get a PR 5?” – “Why does my PR suddenly went down? I added x number of back links to my site.” – “I hate Google for doing this.” – These and many other comments or questions will show up. But in the end it all comes down to: Public PR is just a snapshot in time of what is in Google.com’s database. PR changes much more often than what is showing up in the Google Toolbar.

    And so it comes as no surprise that about every 3 months the tensions go high up in newsgroups and online forums when it comes to discussing Google Page Rank. If you are on the hunt for a high Page Rank for you site – don’t waste time looking for the publicly visible PR. Use the time the others need to discuss PR to actually work on the Page Rank for your site. Establish high quality back links to your site. Grow these numbers slowly. A large increase in a short amount of time is not natural. Back links grow slowly and that is what Google is looking for. Be smart – be in it for the long run and not some short-term PR gain that won’t last.

  • Google manipulates search results: A boost for small business?

    Summary:
    As more and more businesses strive for a top ten Google ranking, it’s becoming harder and harder to achieve. This is especially true for smaller businesses that simply don’t have the budget for a big link popularity campaign. But hope may be just around the corner. If a top ten ranking for your primary keywords has been eluding you, then read on!

    As more and more businesses strive for a top ten Google ranking, it’s becoming harder and harder to achieve. This is especially true for smaller businesses that simply don’t have the budget for a big link popularity campaign. But hope may be just around the corner. If a top ten ranking for your primary keywords has been eluding you, then read on!

    Google manipulates the results

    Google is trialing an ‘enhancement’ to the way it displays its results. Instead of showing the top ten results for the exact words you enter, in the trial Google suggests three related results that you might want to check out. Where does it display these suggestions? It shunts (or replaces) results 6, 7 and 8 !!!

    In this article, I refer to these results as ‘intruders’.

    To see some ‘intruder’ results in action, search for “piggy bank”. Results 6, 7 and 8 are actually ‘intruder’ results; they’re the top three results for the more specific, less popular search, “piggy bank lyrics”. Google assumes that people searching for “piggy bank” will probably be interested in results of a search for “piggy bank lyrics”.

    On first impressions, it’s tempting to think that this makes it harder to get into the top ten (because now it’s really the top seven, and the last two results may be easily overlooked). But it may actually make it easier – especially for smaller businesses. Let me explain why…

    The advantage for smaller businesses

    It all comes down to who can rank in the top ten for the most popular searches – like “computers”, “cars”, “doctor”, “pets”, etc. For anyone in these industries, a top ten ranking for these keywords is the holy grail. Unfortunately, these sorts of searches are presently dominated by big corporations with hefty search budgets. Most smaller businesses don’t even try to compete. Instead of focusing on these hotly contested keywords, small businesses tend to focus on much more specific keyword phrases – like “computers boston”, “second hand cars ohio”, “female doctor new england”, “discount pets for children”, etc.

    But Google’s trial may change that. Remember, it’s replacing results 6, 7 and 8 of a popular, broad search with results 1, 2 and 3 of a less popular, more specific search. If the trial becomes a standard feature, a search for “computers” might well include three ‘intruder’ results from a search such as “computers boston”. As discussed above, results 6, 7 and 8 are likely to belong to big companies, whereas results 1, 2 and 3 of the more specific search are more likely to belong to smaller businesses. Therefore, when the switch occurs, it’s out with the big and in with the small!

    In principle the enhancement appears to work in favor of small businesses:

    1. Big business dominates popular / general search results
    2. Smaller businesses have a greater chance of dominating less popular / more specific search results
    3. General search results are replaced by specific search results
    4. Big businesses are shunted out of the top ten by smaller businesses

    Now I hear what you’re saying: “Why wouldn’t the big companies simply start optimizing for the more specific searches?” Granted, this is a possibility; but for most big companies, it would be a monumental task. Big companies tend to service a large geographic region, and they typically offer numerous products and services. Even a hefty search budget would be stretched to the limit if it was required to bankroll optimization for every single product, every single service, and every single location. And this is what would be required to dominate all of the more specific results, thereby gaining back their number 6, 7 or 8 position. It’s far more likely that they’ll simply try harder for a position in the top 5 of the popular/general search. This approach would be less complex and probably more rewarding.

    The fine print

    Of course, where Google is involved, nothing is ever that simple. I’ve oversimplified things above to make the trial a little easier to understand. In reality, the situation is a bit more complex because of the way Google chooses which search the three ‘intruder’ results come from. Take the “piggy bank” search for example. Google assumes that most users who search for “piggy bank” will also be interested in results from a search for “piggy bank lyrics”. This assumption is based on the fact that thousands of other people are searching specifically for “piggy bank lyrics” – in fact, it’s one of the most popular searches containing the original term “piggy bank”. And that’s why it gets the nod.

    In other words, the intruder results come from popular searches (less popular than the original, but still popular). This means you’d already have to rank highly in a very popular search before you’d become an intruder. So, in reality, the above “computer” example is a little simplistic; the intruder results for “computer” are more likely to be from a search for something like “computers ibm”. In reality, the top three results for “computer peripherals boston” are more likely to appear as intruders in a “computer peripherals” search.

    Conclusion

    The important thing to remember is that if this trial becomes a standard feature, it will be implemented on all searches. And the more specific the original search, the easier it would be to become an intruder in that search. In theory, it has great potential to help smaller businesses reach the next rung of the search engine ladder.

    Other Examples

    Here are some further examples if you’re interested:

    * Search for “add url”
    * Search for “on demand”

    Happy shunting!