The New Bing

The new Bing has a three column design with Core Search, Snapshot & Sidebar panes. Core Search contains core web results which will help get results easier without cluttering it with social updates. Snapshot is the center column. It is between the web results on the left and the new sidebar on the right. Snapshot has info and services related to your search along with maps, reviews & others. This helps the users to take the intended actions. Sidebar is all about social information with info from friends, experts & others. Social results which were in core part have been completely moved to sidebar. You can even ask friends, experts and others from sites like Twitter, Foursquare, Quora & others to what they are saying about the search. This is a great search interface which will take search to the next level. With the rise of social media, social results appearing along with main search results has changed search results. More info can be had at Bing Community.

Google’s fetch as googlebot to Submit & Index sites faster

Google has launched fetch as googlebot, a new feature in Google webmaster tools, to submit & index the sites faster. It can be found under the diagnostics settings of the webmaster tools. This new feature allows google to index faster. There is a limit of 50 submissions per week for individual URL’s & 10 per week when URL’s & all the pages under it. This can be used in situations where if the page is launched new for some events & want it be indexed faster, to submit new sites & to replace a cached copy of the page in Google. It involves the following steps

1) Create a Google Webmaster Tools account for the website & verify it.
2) Fetch as Googlebot is given Under the diagnostics settings,
3) Add the pages to it & if successfull, you get the option for indexing the site
4) Root level or pages associated with it can be indexed.
5) After the indexing is successful, tool gets updated.

Google Launches Page Speed Test Tool

Google has launched Web Site Speed test tool to help know how fast the site/page loads. Included are the suggestions for the mobile & desktop. This is a great move by Google as it helps analyze the content of the page & how to improve the performance of the page. If the site pages load faster, it will help reduce the bounce rate & also increase in the conversion. How fast the page loads is one of the factors Google considers in ranking of the pages.

Google’s +1 vs Facebook’s Like

Google has introduced +1, similar to Facebook’s Like. Google has been taking the search experience more social with this +1. Google will be slowly rolling this out, however it is avaialble in experimental search site. +1 stands for “this is pretty cool”. By logging into the google accounts, you can add this feature from their experimental site. Go to google.com & search with a keyword. This +1 appears & you can click on to recommend it. All the +1′s you have made will be availble in your Google profiles. This is a smart move by Google with the increasing of Facebook’s like.

Google Algorithm Update – War on Content farms?

Google has made a massive algorithm update. Though the updates are regular, this time it is a massive one affecting almost 11.8% of the queries. Content farms are pages which have low quality content. Automated softwares which get content from other sites & post it in a page. Google has launched a war on this & has updated the search results. This will help increase the rankings of the sites with original & high quality content. This is initially launched in US & will be implemented globally overtime. This is an important step towards providing high quality search results.

is your search firm a white hat or black hat SEO?

After the NYtimes investigative report on JC Penny’s dirty search secreats, the question of white hat or black hat seo is being discussed a lot. There is also a middle line of grey hat seo, where the mix of White hat & black hat seo is used. Search engines have published a set of best practices confirming to which is like a white hat seo. Anything unethical & against the search engines guidelines is black hat. Search engines are refining the guidelines regularly, drawing a clear line between white & black hat. JC Penny has also fired its search firm over the methods the firm has used. Google also penalizes the sites found to be using the black hat methods.

The NYTimes Story on JC Penny’s Dirty Search Secrets

NY times has a great article on how JC penny ranked for a wide range of words in the top position & the little secrets of search. Google has been policing the Search engine optimization world since it went live. Black hat SEO techniques can be used to gain top rankings. JC penny has ranked for a wide variety of words in Google. Several sites have been linking to JC penny site through a wide variety of keywords. After the issue broke out, rankings of the site has gone down in Google. Also the company has fired its SEO consultant company.

SEO tools for Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis for SEO is one of the important aspects. It helps understand how the competitors are doing with respect to ranking, keywords, website & others. This helps implement some new strategies for your website. Some of it can be done manually in Google by searching for their website. There are also some tools available which helps in this process. Earlier Alexa was one of the important tools. Now a variety of free & paid tools are there for the analysis. Some of the free tools are 1) Alexa 2) Compete.com 3) Google ad Planner 4) Google Insights 5) Google trends for the website 6) Quantcast. These provide a wealth of information for the SEO purposes. This would help outrank your competitors website.

SEO Image Optimization

Image optimization for SEO plays an important role in ranking of the site & also traffic. Some of the important steps in Image optimization are

1) use the Right sized image as it helps load the site faster
2) Use keyword rich alt text.
3) text surrounding the text should be also keyword rich as it helps search engines rank it easily.
4) Also png files should be used. GIF & JPEG takes more time to load & this may affect the ranking.
5) Also try to get links from external sites to the images. This helps in backlinks.
6) Providing a HTML embed code will help spread the images virally.

Google vs Bing

With the transition of yahoo US & Canada search results being powered by bing now, it sets up a fight between Google & Bing. Bing has been improving phenomenally since its launch. It recently launched a version for Verzion android platform. Bing has improved its image search & google also changed its image search recently. There are also searches like oneriot, twitter which are providing the real time search. Yandex & Baidu are also coming out with the english search. All this points at a fragmented search industry but Google still leading the race.