Blog and forum comments for participation and to establish connection

‘Blog comments’ - how effective are these for search engine page rankings?

Comments, notes on blogs and articles of others, feedback, opinions and reviews do help to establish a relationship with the writer. We can consider this an online ‘trust building exercise’.

The Internet domain is not different from the real-life world, where ‘real communication’ and social relationships matter the most. To create or run a weblog (along with a website) will be a better idea for businesses to stay connected with people.

No wonder, for online success – business enterprises not just maintain websites but also ‘blog pages’, to drive web-traffic through different sources and means.

Why not blog regularly and stay connected with the customer segment, in a better manner?

Some say their blog comments take time for approval (comment moderation). The reasons are obvious – SPAM. Google web-spam team may chase your sites. Thus, try to avoid spam posts/comments by all means and keep search engines less polluted.

Web Listings Inc requests comment on this thread. Thanks.

Inclusion of Sitemaps to help search engines decipher the website structure

It takes efforts to maintain online business in the competitive marketplace. People often ask us why Google does not index their website or slow to file/register their website in its directory.

Google is an automated search engine - and one does not require ‘manually’ submitting their websites to it. Try to include Sitemaps (an XML file/Extensible Markup Language) that help Google crawlers/robots to visit and index your website URL.

Google does not guarantee that the search engine will list all website URLs. Inclusion of Sitemaps helps to make spiders/crawlers comprehend the website structure.

In case after a site or URL modification/changes, one can update Google webmaster by submission of their website through the following, to ask the search engine crawl your page/website:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url

Old sites rank, even without dedicated SEO?

What to do if older sites rank, irrespective of any dedicated SEO efforts on it? The problem is not new to various online marketing companies that handle different client portfolios.

After Google Penguin 2.0 updates, web-page rankings of many websites took a toll. Some that ranked on Page 1 moved to oblivion. Some online businesses could not even save their businesses, even with organic SEO tactics (including fresh and quality content, long tail keywords etc).

On the other, there are many who did not focus much on SEO, but their websites rank high on Google search engine. One may wonder what to do in such cases – when old sites rank, out of the blue?

In such cases, one needs to: play safe. It is not advisable to tinker with the URL, by any means, except for change in look and feel of the website. Ascertain the site load time. A thought to change the URL structure at this point can be harmful.

In case one wants to change the URL, create 301 redirects to newer URLs/pages.

Social Media and Network Sites – Participation does help

With loads of players in the competitive business market, everyone wants to know tips and secrets to help their online business rank high on different search engines.

If some try a free business listing, then others seek web SEO companies to increase traffic on the website. Every strategy works, but campaigns need to be executed in a proper manner.

People often ask how social media and networking sites help one in SEO. Yes, it does help. Membership/active participation in various social media and networking sites (like Facebook, Twitter etc) would help to: spread the message across, to build trust and generate traffic from various sources.

Facebook even has an option [on site], which lets users promote their pages and get more LIKES on a daily basis by PAYMENT. Some may even wonder if this is an acceptable method to boost rankings on search engines.

What do readers think about it? Join us for this forum.

Is your website down? What about Google page ranking?

Is your website down due to any of the following reasons: browser related issues or DNS (Domain Name System) problems?

Have queries about your website, which was down for a day and doubt if it would affect your search engine rankings? The video (courtesy: Matt Cutts) should be of help. Take a look.

Yahoo with a strong market grip after many acquisitions

After MileWise.com, GoPollGo.com and PlayerScale.com in May 2013, Yahoo declared its intention to acquire Tumblr, the very month.

David Karp established Tumblr (micro-blogging site) in February 2007. On 20th June 2013, Yahoo completed the acquisition of Tumblr.

Innovation takes center-stage of Yahoo, this year. Under the leadership of Marissa, the California based technology company continues to do wonders by coming up with novel ideas for business growth and development.

After getting hold of Tumblr, Yahoo even expanded business in La Vista and filled in new positions at work.

Yahoo acquired the New York based Qwiki and San Francisco based Xobni, this July. Stay tuned for technology news and updates.