SEO Tips & Techniques

Look Through The Eyes of Google

2009-10-26T11:36:00.001+05:30

Google Webmaster Tools has announced the addition of “Labs” section which includes two new features for webmasters.

• Fetch as Googlebot &
• Malware details

It appears that Google is taking the ‘Labs’ route to introduce new features to a larger audience and thereby illicit more feedback and shorten the test phase. This also means that these features are not as robust as the others that are available in WMT and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Fetch as Googlebot
Out of the two, ‘Fetch as Googlebot’ is of more interest to SEO professionals as it enables them to see what Googlebot sees. It is different to seeing the cached version of the webpage, which can be retrieved by using the “cache:www.xyz.com” query in Google search, and then clicking on “Text-only version”.

It is also different from simply viewing the source code of the webpage because:

1. It shows HTTP header information which is not available if you simply view the source code. This information will allow you to check and test redirects implemented on a particular webpage.

2. It enables you to test if the server is returning any information differently then what it is supposed too.

3. It also enables you to find if the server returns a different page to Googlebot than that to the user. In order words, you will be able to determine if any “cloaking” has been done in the past or outside your knowledge.

All in all, this feature empowers webmasters to trouble shoot and test URLs specifically for cases related to Googlebot as it uses the same user-agent and IP range as Googlebot.

Malware details:
Previously, Google webmaster tools reported when a site was flagged for having malware. This feature takes it a bit further by providing snippet of codes that is/are considered to be malicious.

This will help you to quickly identify and eliminate any malicious code that has infected your website. It would thus reduce the probability of your website being flagged by Google as “This site may harm your computer” if your websites happens to be infected. You can read a detailed deliberation on this on Google Online Security Blog.

Both these features provide some much needed information along with ease of accessibility to webmasters and would certainly help us all in making informed decisions.

About Author – Kneoteric is a leading online marketing company providing SEO service, online marketing consultancy, PPC Services and link building service.

Google Recommendations to Move up in Search Results

2009-08-06T14:40:00.003+05:30

I just gone through with Google’s official view point about the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on Google Grants Blog, where Galen Panger, an Associate, Google Communications and Google for Non-Profits, has focused to bust the old myths about SEO like SEO is all about technical and one should not perform SEO, if he/she doesn’t have technical/programming knowledge. He also mentioned the same in his post “what you can accomplish with SEO doesn't require any programming or technical skills, but it does require a big-picture awareness of your issue.”

He has also recommended few points that one should consider while doing SEO for his/her website:

To obtain good results in search engine rankings, one must first require knowledge of keyword research and keywords popularity. Take the concepts and phrases in your site and compare them with related using the tools Google's Keyword Tool and Insights for Search. Make sure to develop related pages focused on what people are talking about and in the language they use.
Use these key phrases on the pages where they accurately match with the page content especially in page titles, section headings and in URLs. If you have added many pictures or graphics associate with that page, make sure to make an arrangement in a way that your most important content should be appear on the web page as Googlebot doesn’t read the images.
Finally, link popularity is the main factor that determines much of your ranking in search results. Link popularity can be calculated on the basis of how many quality websites are linking to your websites. To increase link popularity, post the informative content on your website so that others would love to link with your website. Use social media optimization activities to attract plenty of quality backlinks.

Top 11 Internet Marketing Tools that a Internet Marketer Should Use

2009-07-01T12:56:00.019+05:30

While looking for some internet marketing tools, I landed on Evan Carmichael's post The Top 11 Tools You’ve Never Heard Of for Internet Marketers - SEO University. I found these tools very important so featuring the same on my blog.

1) Firefox Extensions (https://addons.mozilla.org/en‐US/firefox/) - Add-ons are extensions of the browser that add new functionality to Firefox or change its appearance

Pros: Tools work right within your browser, very quick, very powerful, and very free
Critiques: None ‐ critiques usually resolved with extension updates
Cool: Audit a clients site live: SE issues, opt. improvement
Cost: FREE

2) IceRocket (http://www.icerocket.com/) - IceRocket is an Internet search engine specialized in searching blogs.

Pros: Real‐time monitoring of blogs/social media, Link, topic & trend tracking tools
Critiques: Can’t search videos directly, Some searches take up to a minute to load
Cool: BigBuzz Search
Cost: FREE

3) Google Geo Search (http://www.contentranch.com/google-geo-search-tool/) - The Google Search Tool is a simple tool that creates a url to the official google search page based on the location and data center you choose.

Pros: Search Google by region, Simple to use, quick and streamlined
Critiques: None
Cool: No ads, No clutter
Cost: FREE

4) Domain Report Tool (http://www.bruceclay.com/web_rank.htm) - The Domain Report tool will check Google, Yahoo! Search and Live Search to see how many pages for each site are indexed in each engine.

Pros: Tally & compare search engine indexing, Determine competitor search presence
Critiques: No export option, Can take up to 5 minutes
Cool: Free! Even without ‘Bruce Clay’ subscription
Cost: FREE

5) BackTweets (http://backtweets.com/) - Search for links on Twitter.

Pros: Search Twitter for links to your site, See’s through compressed URL’s, Sort results by date or user
Critiques: None
Cool: Set up regular RSS updates
Cost: FREE

6) Know’em (http://knowem.com/) - KnowEm checks the availability of your brand name, user name or vanity URL on 120 popular Social Media websites.

Pros: Check brand‐name availability for 120 social networks, Very quick and easy!
Critiques: Occasional network error when pinging site(s)
Cool: Promote brand cohesiveness, Monitor brand/identity theft, Can automatically register your username for extra$$
Cost: FREE

7) SpyFu (http://www.spyfu.com/) - Spy on your online competitors and download competitors keywords and adwords.

Pros: Great competitive insight on PPC & Organic, Works in browser, quick & thorough, Free stuff is good – though you can subscribe for more
Critiques: Busy interface, Not intuitive as to what a particular button/tool does
Cool: Dashboard: charts and data mash‐ups
Cost: FREE plus subscription options

8) Backlink Checker Tool (http://www.smartpagerank.com/pagerank-backlinks.php) - Enables webmasters to check their pagerank, monitor the PR of competitor’s backlinks, estimate a value of their site, and more.

Pros: Quickly oversee a site’s backlinks, Show which links have the ‘nofollow’ tag, List anchor text for incoming links as well as their PageRank
Critiques: Don’t forget the ‘http://’ or it returns no results
Cool: Smartpagerank.com also has other useful tools
Cost: FREE

9) GSiteCrawler (http://www.gsitecrawler.com) - Windows Generator for Google SiteMap Files.

Pros: Crawl simulation provides detailed spidey‐vision, View canonical and duplicate content issues, aborted URLs, page, file sizes and more, Automatic XML sitemap creation
Critiques: Large sites may take a few hours and need to be run overnight, Crawlers will get stuck in a loop on sites with dynamic URLs
Cool: One‐stop audit shop, Exports multiple reports
Cost: FREE

10) Google Insights for Search (http://www.google.com/insights/search/#) - With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties.

Pros: Identify phrases by topic/brand/category you want to rank on, Geo‐target where to sell your products, Identify product seasonality, Identify if news stories relate to spikes in searches
Critiques: No “real” search frequency number only relative comparison
Cool: Breakout tool identifies phrases rising in search frequencies
Cost: FREE

11) Epiar Negative Keywords Lists (http://www.epiar.com/ppc-negative-keyword-lists/) - Negative keyword targeting is becoming increasingly popular to weed out worthless impressions and clicks in pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns.

Pros: Save 5% to 40% on PPC spend! And maintain/increase sales, Quick! Set of 14 or 19 online questions, Premium NKL custom keyword research per PPC campaig, Instantly generates list of top 2500 or 5000 negative keywords
Critiques: Not free
Cool: Premium NKL prioritized: Top 250 for Yahoo! or Top 65 for MSN
Cost: One time fee; no subscription

Google Changes and the Future of SEO

2009-06-03T12:36:00.001+05:30

The imminent death of SEO has been a hot topic amongst SEO professionals for quite some time now. Some SEO professionals worry that their careers are in jeopardy since search engines are continually making improvements to their technologies. Search engines are in the process of completely revamping their ranking strategies to fight spammers and improve user experience. For example, Google is currently improving intent and behavior-based search in order to provide more relevant search results. So what does this all mean for the future of SEO? Is the death of SEO an inevitable outcome of the advancement of search engines?

People have been predicting the end of SEO since the very beginning. While it’s certain that things on the SEO front are always changing and that search engines are getting smarter, SEOs will continually adapt to these changes just as they have in the past. As long as search engines list websites without requiring the websites to pay a fee, SEO will exist.

Google’s Improvements and What They Mean for the Future of SEO

In the quest to fight spam and improve user experience, Google is in the process of implementing a series of changes in behavior and intent-based search. Every person who conducts a search for a particular term will have different results based on their location and search history. As a result of these changes, SEO has to switch from only targeting keywords to focus more on increasing traffic and conversions. A possibility is that link building will become far less important in the future of SEO because Google will determine the value of a website based on how visitors engage with it. The ultimate goal of websites will be to provide compelling content that entices visitors to read, share, bookmark, and so on.

Social input through voting is another feature that search engines are tinkering with in order to provide user-controlled rankings. Search engine users might have the chance to vote for sites they like and sites will get ranked based on such votes. The model will be similar what’s seen on social voting sites like Digg and Reddit. Of course, search engines will have to find a way to ensure that votes are made naturally in order to prevent black hat SEOs from fooling the search engine bots.

Google and other search engines are raising the bar in SEO. Initially, this will make it harder for SEO professionals to do their job but the end result is positive. Spammers and black hat SEOs will have more difficulty succeeding in their unscrupulous efforts and search engine users will be provided with content that is more relevant.

Humans, Not Machines

As always, the aim of webmasters and SEO professionals should be to appeal to humans. People spend so much time trying to trick the search engines that they forget who they are ultimately serving: people! Your site should be optimized but your priority should always be to fulfill needs and provide solutions. Considering the direction that SEO is going, human actions and behavior will ultimately determine rankings. Your SEO success depends on your ability to engage people through great content and social media marketing.

Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/google-changes-and-the-future-of-seo-949419.html

10 Tips for Getting (or Keeping) Your Next Search Marketing Job

2009-04-24T10:26:00.000+05:30

As the economic climate worldwide has shown uncharacteristic elements of strife and turmoil, I've been getting more and more questions asked about finding and keeping a job in the Internet marketing space. As a CEO, and someone who employs quite a few folks, I think I can give some fairly detailed, albeit personal, advice on this topic.

So - if you want to keep the job you've got, or earn your next one, let me recommend these strategies:

Be Metrics Driven
If you can show a company that's thinking of hiring you that you know how to track metrics around search - whether it's rankings, competitive intelligence, PPC performance, etc. - and you have the pretty charts and graphs to show them from your last (or existing) gig, you're well on your way. Management at companies large and small love data, love charts and love "chrome" - seriously. The better and more robust your charts and datasets, the better off you'll be. Make Excel your friend and learn to love pivot tables (or just get really good at splicing Omniture/Google Analytics in smart ways).
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Show Initiative
You don't have to implement a new project under the table or in your spare time and then try to convince everyone it's great. In fact, management can often get frustrated by employees who use "spare" time on their own projects without running it past someone first. However, just an email every few weeks with a project idea, a way to speed up production, a test implementation of new technology, features or report layouts goes a long way. Your superiors will feel like you aren't just in this for the 9-5, but that you're actively trying to make a difference.

Case in point - today I got emails from three different people at SEOmoz pitching some new ideas for improving YOUmoz, building a new tool for Labs and re-organizing content in the PRO library. Not all of them can be pursued right away, and a few take dev time and resources, but they show dedication and interest - which is far more critical to the growth and success of a company in an emerging field like search.
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Pro-Actively Improve Your Knowledge
I absolutely love it when I find a skill in an employee that I myself haven't cultivated. It adds so much extra value to the organization, in everything we do (Q+A, tool development, guides, consulting, etc). Go out and find a niche you're passionate about, dive in, and report back with your findings. A quick email to your SEO or marketing team commenting on trends in acquisition of affiliates, building reputation management accounts, learning the Google image search algo more thoroughly, etc. is a fantastically positive indicator.
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Support Your Co-Workers
Trust me when I say that one of the biggest positives is when someone in the organization is overwhelmed and another team member can pitch in to tow the line. The teamwork that builds and the emotional positivity that flows from those types of actions is irresistable. It's the type of action that can make you a company favorite for months or years to come. So, if you see a co-worker drowning under the load, offer to help, dive in and kick ass. That's the kind of person every manager wants on their team.
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Don't Play Politics
Likewise, when rough issues arise, or feelings run hot, don't panic, don't over-react and do what's best for the company. It's easy to be selfish when you're feeling overlooked, under-appreciated or bad-mouthed, but standing strong and never swaying from a position of objectivity carries considerable weight. Let your potential new employer know that this is the kind of person you are and you'll remove a huge element of risk that every manager worries about.
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Don't Be Thrown Off By Logistics
The dev team doesn't have time to implement your idea. Management is too busy to approve a formal budget. Your co-workers' time is caught up with other projects. Don't worry. Take your idea and find ways to scale it down or re-think so that you can design/implement on your own. I know how hard the barriers can be to taking initiative in companies where times are tough and focus is tight, but if you can do it independently, you'll earn the respect and admiration of your execs. It's incredibly hard to let someone go once you know they can build value all by themselves, even if/when the rest of the team is swamped.
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Create Accurate Expectations
I haven't ordered these by importance, but if I did, this might be #1. In business, as in usability (and life), creating expectations and delivering on them is the most critical aspect to success and happiness. If you tell your boss you can have something done by a certain date, have it done on that date. If you deliver reports, analyses, written documents, blog posts, etc. at a certain quality level, don't suddenly produce something of lower value. Likewise, if you've just joined a new position and want to impress everyone (or are worried about your job and are attempting to compensate), don't create expectations in others you can't regularly fulfill. It's excellent to demand more of yourself and improve with time, but I believe false expectations are one of the biggest causes for dissatisfaction on both sides of the employment aisle.
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Maintain a Positive Profile in the Industry
There's no doubt about it - search is a strange industry. We've got cults of personality, popularity battles, people willing to go to extremes to get noticed and a lot of personal branding (much of it professional & positive and some the reverse). To prosper at a job in the search space and to help keep your chances for the next gig as robust as possible, keep your personal brand positive 100% of the time. Thinking about leaving a nasty comment because you felt slighted? Skip it. Want to post something harshly controversial on your Twitter account? Better think twice. At a bar with comrades who are speaking negatively about another individual - feel free to provide an opinion, but refrain from personal attacks and unprofessional comments. This industry is still tiny, and I can tell you that every day, comments come back to me about what person X said about person Y (especially if it was said "in confidence"). Keep your nose clean, and you've got a far better chance that others will do the same when it comes to your references and reputation.
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Provide Productivity Statistics
A few of the folks at SEOmoz have started a weekly email series describing their tasks, projects and accomplishments for the week. I absolutely love it. It's an easy way to get caught up on what's going on in their professional lives and in the operations of the business without feeling nosy or interrupting. It's also a fantastic tool for employees who are worried their efforts might be overlooked or under-appreciated. If I've got an email in my box telling me what you've been working on, I'm much more likely to give praise and direction than if those tasks (even the critical ones) fly under my radar.
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Bring Business to Your Organization
If you participate in the social web, attend events, have contacts in the field of business or even just go to a local meetup every few weeks/months and create a positive impression for your company, you're doing very smart things for your career. In a downturn, organizations seek to cut the excess; they don't want to potentially dismiss a direct source of revenue (even if it's just possible revenue). And for managers who aren't always great at accepting internal reviews or trusting their own judgement, external validation from a customer or partner goes a long way.

I hope these have proven valuable, and I'd certainly love to hear others from hiring managers, directors and CEOs of other firms in the space. I also now owe some quid pro quo and a blog post on how employers should treat their people in order to find and retain the best quality staff. After all, employment is a two-way street, and both parties need to be able to both give and receive in equal proportion.

PS: This Article is originally written by randfish

Befriending PPC for SEO benefits

2009-03-26T12:21:00.002+05:30

Pay per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) are widely used for search engine marketing, but are mostly performed in isolation to one another. The cross utilization of data is seldom seen, which if done, could potentially produce far better results.

The idea behind this post is to ascertain how best PPC can be used to gain useful insights, which when implemented in search engine optimization can help us derive improved results. Mentioned below are few tasks that can be performed better by using PPC to ‘test the waters’.

1. Keyword selection: There is no shortage of free and paid keyword research tools but the data presented by them is not always accurate. Many of us would have learnt this fact the ‘hard way’ – by optimizing for keywords that don’t deliver targeted traffic, or for that matter any traffic at all. It is a costly mistake both in terms of time and money.

PPC can be used to determine the ‘traffic generation capacity’ of keywords by mining raw data such as number of impressions for that particular keyword. This data can be extrapolated to predict the traffic yielding capacity of keywords. Optimizing the website for such keywords would therefore drive more traffic to the website.

2. Building a wider keyword portfolio: Every website has a set of core terms it wants to rank for, in addition to other semantically similar key phrases. High rankings for core terms will deliver maximum targeted traffic, but at the same time the importance of ranking for secondary terms cannot discounted.

By running a PPC campaign for core terms on broad match, we can identify keywords other than the core terms that trigger the ad. This will not only help in building a database of relevant keywords that are searched for, but also assist in ascertaining keywords that Google considers relevant to the core terms. Tapping these keywords along with the primary keywords would therefore channel more visitors to the website.

3. Judging keyword efficacy: As everything else in search engine marketing, not all keywords are made equal. It is a well established fact that some keywords convert better than others, but the only certain way of knowing keywords that convert better is to test.

PPC is a quick and efficient way to check the ‘conversion potential’ of both the primary and secondary key phrases. Optimizing your website for keywords that drive conversion is a sure shot way of generating more revenue.

4. Writing compelling descriptions: Meta description may have lost its importance as a ranking factor but plays a crucial role in enhancing ‘click through rate’ for organic listing. In short, it is the ‘ad copy’ for organic listing.

PPC can be used to test different versions of ad copies and their corresponding click through rate. The best performing ad copies, based on their click through rate, can then be improvised to develop Meta descriptions that are likely to attract more clicks.

5. Testing landing pages: A website that does not have the potential to convert visitors into customers is no good.

In order to create a landing page that facilitates conversions it will need to be tested, modified, and tested in an iterative manner. Since PPC has the propensity to deliver quality traffic quickly, testing can be performed without waiting for organic rankings and the consequent traffic.

The whole exercise of leveraging PPC to build a high performing SEO campaign has an additional bonus attached to it – you get the ‘best of both worlds’ and here’s how.

It is a well established fact that an online marketing campaign produces best results when search engine optimization and PPC are implemented in tandem, and compliment each other.

After initial spillage and fine tuning, the PPC campaign that is being used to churn data will start to deliver positive return on investment. Synergizing the PPC campaign with your search engine optimization campaign will result in a holistic search engine marketing campaign. This is bound to deliver best results. And our philosophy is - why settle for less when you can get the best.

For more information, visit here

Online Reputation Management: Monitor Your Online Reputation

2008-12-11T13:16:00.002+05:30

At the time to use a service or buy a product, consumers and businesses use the Internet as a source of information and comparison. A recent study published by a renowned organization informs that 60% of users are in search engines to find information on a product and / or service. This means that the content of the Internet has a significant influence over the decision of consumers to make a purchase. That is solely depends upon your e-reputation i.e. How someone, something is seen on the Internet.

That is why the quality of content pages published on the Internet is increasingly important. It is crucial that potential customers are not getting pernicious information, which runs counter to your products and services. There are various online strategies to resolve this type of publicity damages, but the main thing is to know what is said about your business on the net.

If you are a victim of a pernicious and negative publicity in the search results in any form whatsoever. Search Engine Reputation Management (or SERM) tactics can help you to shelter your reputation from the negative search results that are visible on some important search engine queries. To do that you need to analyze each particular case and puts in place a strategy personally to resolve any problem of negative reputation. This will include a review of search results, forums and blogs for inherent opinions on company products or under your name.

How can you monitor your online reputation?

Search engines are probably the most important source to monitor your reputation. Use these search services for a search by name, company or product.
• Google
• Yahoo
• MSN

Blogs are becoming more and more influence on the services listed below, you can browse the blogosphere.
• Technorati
• Google Blog Search

News services quickly to show whether it is news about your company or its products.
Tip: Use the possibilities of a news alerts via e-mail that fit your supervised terms, to inform.
• Google News
• Yahoo News
• MSN News

Audio Indexing: Google listening

2008-09-17T12:17:00.001+05:30

No no. There is no spelling mistake in the title of this ticket. Google is not "to" listen to (whatever ... but that's another matter), but Google now has the ability to listen in terms of indexing. More specifically, it "simply" indexes, in videos or audio files, the content of these videos or files, "verbatim”. This service called Google Audio Indexing (Gaudi) this therefore allows the user to search "word for word" directly in those files. The experimental at the moment (it is still attached to the Google Labs) runs only on political speeches and videos of the contenders for the White House. This news is important because indexing audio is a crucial issue for those involved in information retrieval.

Google Updates Google Suggest

2008-09-09T13:33:00.002+05:30

Google Suggest is a feature designed to make searching both faster and easier. Whether you are typing into the search box on Google Toolbar or Google.com, or the Omnibox in Google Chrome, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time. So for example, if you type "bass," Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include "bass fishing" or "bass guitar." Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like "prog," Google Suggest might offer you refinements such as "programming," "programming languages," "progesterone," or "progressive." Again, these suggestions allow you to enter your searches faster, but also in a way that will more likely get you the results you're looking for.

That's what occurs on the surface of Google Suggest. Here's what happens under the hood. To provide its recommendations Google Suggest needs to know what you've already typed, so these partial queries are sent to Google. For 98% of these requests, we don't log any data at all and simply return the suggestions. For the remaining 2% of cases (which we select randomly), we do log data, like IP addresses, in order to monitor and improve the service.

However, given the concerns that have been raised about Google storing this information -- and its limited potential use -- we decided that we will anonymize it within about 24 hours (basically, as soon as we practically can) in the 2% of Google Suggest requests we use. This will take a little time to implement, but we expect it to be in place before the end of the month.

All data retention is a balance between user privacy and trust on the one hand, and security and innovation on the other. In the case of Google Suggest we decided it's possible to provide a great service while anonymizing data almost immediately. But in other cases - such as our core web search - storing data like IP addresses for a time is crucial to make improvements to search quality, improve security, fight fraud and reduce spam.

Source: Official Google Blog: Update to Google Suggest

Download Google Chrome now

2008-09-03T10:54:00.001+05:30

Google's new web browser Google Chrome is now now live and available for download.

Visit http://www.google.com/chrome to download and start exploring.

Chrome: Google launched its open source browser

2008-09-02T13:16:00.002+05:30

After the failed takeover of Yahoo by Microsoft, there is a new arm wrestling on the Internet with the response from Google. The giant search engines on Tuesday launched its Internet browser, Google Chrome facing Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Google has unveiled its official blog Monday evening: "We will launch the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in over 100 countries." This will be free software: you can download the applications without paying. Its source code is open; the software will be free, reusable and modifiable by any user.

Digg Soon In Bag Of Google?

2008-07-24T12:32:00.002+05:30

According to TechCrunch, Google and Digg reportedly signed a letter of intent, and would be (finally) on the verge of agreeing on a price of around 200M $ (200 million dollars, roughly 130 million Euros) .

This is actually several months as rumors of takeover revolve around Digg. Community website in 2004, Digg is experiencing great popularity that attracts necessarily coveted. But the sale is a possibility that does not like Digg users who have already threatened to desert the ranks if such event were to materialize. The creator of Digg, Jay Adelson, had had to calm the wind of revolt, saying that rumors of takeover by Microsoft or Google were unfounded. Yet, these same rumors back in charge.

SEO Recommendations By Google For Website Owners!!

2008-07-18T12:19:00.007+05:30

I was reading an article on Google regarding What is an SEO? Does Google recommend them? And I found something very interesting there. Initially that article was mainly focused on providing negative information about SEO like SEO scam information and the disadvantages of SEO. But now they have re-written that article and supported the SEO techniques and valuable services.

Google have recommended some valuable services of SEO for website owners in its article. That includes:

Reviewing and providing recommendations on your site content or structure
Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
Content development
Managing online business development campaigns
Keyword research
SEO training

Google have also suggested the website owners regarding when they should hire a SEO for the website. In its article, Google recommend that an SEO should be hired at the starting level of website design or before the website launching. So that a website owner and SEO can make a website Google friendly and remove all the technical errors/reasons from the website that could affect negatively to the website in the future.

Important questions to assess the quality of your site

2008-07-11T12:44:00.005+05:30

Here is a checklist of some important questions to evaluate the quality of your website:

Accessibility

Are the content structurally separate elements of navigation?
Is the site compatible with all browsers?
Is it compatible with the coding standards W3C? Is it valid HTML / CSS?
Alt tags are in place on all important images?
Alternative text being put in place to transmit vital information in images and multimedia files?

Navigation

The text visible on the links provides a clear indication of where they lead?
Depth - what is the maximum number of clicks it takes to reach a page in the depths of the site?
Responsiveness to click - is this a response is given immediately (0.1 seconds) after a click is made on a hyper link?
Is it intuitive to navigate? Are there any links or buttons understood as text, which are not click able?
Readability (already discussed somewhat): the type and size of fonts used.
THE GOAL of the site is clearly identifiable? The objective should become clear within a few seconds without need to read a lot.
A call to action on each page, not dead.

Design

Is the design of the site is aesthetically attractive?
The colors used are they harmonious and logically linked?
Is the choice of colors are visually accessible? (For example have a fairly high contrast to help color blind and partially sighted people to read the site appropriately)
Is the design is adapted to your audience The standard size of the text should be legible, for visitors who do not know how to adjust their browser.
The policies must be easily legible and degraded with elegance. This should give good results with various screen resolutions.

Content

Whether your website subject is brief and informative as well?
Is the writing style of the site is suitable for the purpose and "speaks" the target audience?
The body of texts is limited to less than 80 characters per line?
The contrast between the text and background color is it enough to make reading easy?
In the articles, there should be links to more detailed explanations on specific issues or definitions of terms jargon. Do you do that?
Have you about page identifying the author of content or credits to the source for articles that were not written by the site owner himself?

Security

No obvious security hole?
Your forms are resistant to the special characters?
Your private directories are protected by passwords via the file. Htaccess?
Whether the public directories (cgi-bin, images, etc.) are indexed or do you have in place permission settings to block access?
The customer data are stored online, if so, this database is adequately defended it against external access?

Other technical considerations

Does the site load quickly - even for users with a modem?
Are all the links (internal and external) are valid and active?
The scripts are free of errors?
Is the site free of errors on the server side?

Other considerations Marketing

The site is properly optimized for search engines (essential text stressed, title tags relevant, as the text presented to H1, reliable and outgoing links contextually linked, etc.)?
Is the home page encourages visitors to go further in the site or to the basket?
Does the site contains elements designed to encourage future visits (i.e. with a contest, a newsletter, the "tell a friend", a forum with an option ' registration, a toolbar download, RSS,
The file Robots.txt is it configured?
The Sitemap: is it available?

Newbie Bonus: Almost Everyone is Entitled

2008-06-11T15:28:00.002+05:30

When Google index a new website, the particular website receives a bonus for a period of two to three months that is known as “newbie bonus” in the SEO jargon. This literally means "Bonus for new".

Google places the new site on the first pages of results for related keywords, sometimes even in the top 10. Thus, the webmaster has got the opportunity to prove itself and demonstrate that its site is interesting and can sustain the current positions in Google rankings. Depending on the number of visits during the first month and the evolution of content, Google decides if the site should be removed from the top 10 or not.

So to get good positions over Google, It is important to ensure that regular changes in the content should be made so that search engines can observe that it's a living site and not a ruin and you could be benefited by newbie bonus provided by Google.

Google Included Hindi In Its Translate Service

2008-05-06T17:23:00.002+05:30

Google has launched the Google Translate in Hindi. This feature will give an ease to users to convert from English to Hindi.

Users can avail this service at http://www.google.com/translate_t and view any page from English to Hindi. In addition you can also type using your normal keyboard. For example if you type “aap”, it will automatically convert into Hindi. You do not need to use any special keyboard to type Hindi sentences.

Also you can add an iGoogle Gadget and get access to Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam and create their own scraps or blogs in these languages.

Presently Google Translate Service allows for translation of English into 14 languages including Arabic and Hindi. The company announced on its web site that it is working to include more languages.

"We're working to support other languages and will introduce them as soon as the automatic translation meets our standards. It's difficult to project how long this will take, as the problem is complex and each language presents its own unique challenges," Google added.

Digital Marketing - A New Era Of Marketing

2008-04-24T13:31:00.004+05:30

The term digital marketing has emerged recently in the world of professional marketing. Whilst digital marketing include so many technique and practice enclosed within the Internet Marketing, it extends beyond this by including other channels with which to reach people that do not require the use of The Internet.

Indeed, there was no terminology to describe the actions of companies made to reach their prospects / customers across all digital media (computer, mobile phone, podcast player, video games and display dynamic - billboard outside & TV point of sale). The digital marketing is a discipline designed to promote products and services using a medium or a digital communication channel to reach consumers in a personal way, ultra-targeted and interactive for a reasonable cost.

In view of the rise of new media companies are entrain to change their marketing organization. Thus, the Internet marketing experts see their scope of responsibilities grow to encompass the issues of digital marketing. They must learn to target consumers not only on the Internet, but on all digital media. Those responsible for advertising will also have to learn to control this area. As an example of the evolution of media consumption, an American teenager spends more time playing video games than watching television. To reach these consumers in grass, companies will therefore have to seek ways to be present in an intelligent manner in video games.

Spammy Robots List

2008-04-07T11:07:00.005+05:30

Here is a list of some unwanted robots, that crawl your web pages for email address to spam you with advertisements. They can also be referred to as Spiders, Web Wanderers, and Web Crawlers. You can block these by using this code:

Code:

User-agent: aipbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: ia_archiver
Disallow: /

User-agent: Alexibot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Aqua_Products
Disallow: /

User-agent: asterias
Disallow: /

User-agent: b2w/0.1
Disallow: /

User-agent: BackDoorBot/1.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: becomebot
Disallow: /

User-agent: BlowFish/1.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: Bookmark search tool
Disallow: /

User-agent: BotALot
Disallow: /

User-agent: BotRightHere
Disallow: /

User-agent: BuiltBotTough
Disallow: /

User-agent: Bullseye/1.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: BunnySlippers
Disallow: /

User-agent: CheeseBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: CherryPicker
Disallow: /

User-agent: CherryPickerElite/1.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: CherryPickerSE/1.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: Copernic
Disallow: /

User-agent: cosmos
Disallow: /

User-agent: Crescent
Disallow: /

User-agent: Crescent Internet ToolPak HTTP OLE Control v.1.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: DittoSpyder
Disallow: /

User-agent: EmailCollector
Disallow: /

User-agent: EmailSiphon
Disallow: /

User-agent: EmailWolf
Disallow: /

User-agent: EroCrawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: ExtractorPro
Disallow: /

User-agent: FairAd Client
Disallow: /

User-agent: Fasterfox
Disallow: /

User-agent: Flaming AttackBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Foobot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Gaisbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: GetRight/4.2
Disallow: /

User-agent: Harvest/1.5
Disallow: /

User-agent: hloader
Disallow: /

User-agent: httplib
Disallow: /

User-agent: HTTrack 3.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: humanlinks
Disallow: /

User-agent: IconSurf
Disallow: /
Disallow: /favicon.ico

User-agent: InfoNaviRobot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Iron33/1.0.2
Disallow: /

User-agent: JennyBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Kenjin Spider
Disallow: /

User-agent: Keyword Density/0.9
Disallow: /

User-agent: larbin
Disallow: /

User-agent: LexiBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: libWeb/clsHTTP
Disallow: /

User-agent: LinkextractorPro
Disallow: /

User-agent: LinkScan/8.1a Unix
Disallow: /

User-agent: LinkWalker
Disallow: /

User-agent: LNSpiderguy
Disallow: /

User-agent: lwp-trivial
Disallow: /

User-agent: lwp-trivial/1.34
Disallow: /

User-agent: Mata Hari
Disallow: /

User-agent: MIIxpc
Disallow: /

User-agent: MIIxpc/4.2
Disallow: /

User-agent: Mister PiX
Disallow: /

User-agent: moget
Disallow: /

User-agent: moget/2.1
Disallow: /

User-agent: MSIECrawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: NetAnts
Disallow: /

User-agent: NICErsPRO
Disallow: /

User-agent: Offline Explorer
Disallow: /

User-agent: Openbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Openfind
Disallow: /

User-agent: Openfind data gatherer
Disallow: /

User-agent: Oracle Ultra Search
Disallow: /

User-agent: PerMan
Disallow: /

User-agent: ProPowerBot/2.14
Disallow: /

User-agent: ProWebWalker
Disallow: /

User-agent: psbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Python-urllib
Disallow: /

User-agent: QueryN Metasearch
Disallow: /

User-agent: Radiation Retriever 1.1
Disallow: /

User-agent: RepoMonkey
Disallow: /

User-agent: RepoMonkey Bait & Tackle/v1.01
Disallow: /

User-agent: RMA
Disallow: /

User-agent: searchpreview
Disallow: /

User-agent: SiteSnagger
Disallow: /

User-agent: SpankBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: spanner
Disallow: /

User-agent: SurveyBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: suzuran
Disallow: /

User-agent: Szukacz/1.4
Disallow: /

User-agent: Teleport
Disallow: /

User-agent: TeleportPro
Disallow: /

User-agent: Telesoft
Disallow: /

User-agent: The Intraformant
Disallow: /

User-agent: TheNomad
Disallow: /

User-agent: TightTwatBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: toCrawl/UrlDispatcher
Disallow: /

User-agent: True_Robot
Disallow: /

User-agent: True_Robot/1.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: turingos
Disallow: /

User-agent: TurnitinBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: TurnitinBot/1.5
Disallow: /

User-agent: URL Control
Disallow: /

User-agent: URL_Spider_Pro
Disallow: /

User-agent: URLy Warning
Disallow: /

User-agent: VCI
Disallow: /

User-agent: VCI WebViewer VCI WebViewer Win32
Disallow: /

User-agent: Web Image Collector
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebAuto
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebBandit
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebBandit/3.50
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebCapture 2.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebCopier
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebCopier v.2.2
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebCopier v3.2a
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebEnhancer
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebSauger
Disallow: /

User-agent: Website Quester
Disallow: /

User-agent: Webster Pro
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebStripper
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebZip
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebZip
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebZip/4.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebZIP/4.21
Disallow: /

User-agent: WebZIP/5.0
Disallow: /

User-agent: Wget
Disallow: /

User-agent: wget
Disallow: /

User-agent: Wget/1.5.3
Disallow: /

User-agent: Wget/1.6
Disallow: /

User-agent: WWW-Collector-E
Disallow: /

User-agent: Xenu's
Disallow: /

User-agent: Xenu's Link Sleuth 1.1c
Disallow: /

User-agent: Zeus
Disallow: /

User-agent: Zeus 32297 Webster Pro V2.9 Win32
Disallow: /

User-agent: Zeus Link Scout
Disallow: /

Robots.txt - Stop Search Engines To Access Your Private Files

2008-04-05T19:00:00.005+05:30

The robots.txt file is a text file containing commands to the engine crawlers research to clarify their pages who may or may not be indexed. Thus any search engine began its exploration of a website seeking robots.txt at the root of the site.

Format robots.txt

The robots.txt (written in lower case and plural) is an ASCII file that are at the root of the site and may contain the following commands:

* User-Agent: allows you to specify the robot affected by the following guidelines.
* The value means "all search engines".
* Disallow: allows you to specify the pages to exclude from indexing. Each page or path to exclude must be on a line at hand and must begin with. The value / sole means "all pages."

The robots.txt file should contain no blank line!

Examples of robots.txt:

* Exclusion of all pages:

User-Agent: *
Disallow: /

* Exclusion of any page (equivalent to the absence of robots.txt, all pages are visited):

User-Agent: *
Disallow:

* Authorization of a single robot:

User-Agent: nomDuRobot
Disallow:
User-Agent: *
Disallow: /

* Exclusion of a robot:

User-Agent: NomDuRobot
Disallow: /
User-Agent: *
Disallow:

* Excluding one-page:

User-Agent: *
Disallow: / directory / path / page.html

* Exclusion of several page:

User-Agent: *
Disallow: / directory / path / page.html
Disallow: / repertoire/chemin/page2.html
Disallow: / repertoire/chemin/page3.html

* Exclusion of all pages of a directory and its subfolders:

User-Agent: *
Disallow: / directory /

Marketing Public Relations in 3 Easy Steps

2008-03-01T15:17:00.012+05:30

Step 1

Develop a news-worthy, informative release that both introduces your company and informs a targeted audience about anything from new key hires, new service offerings, how a political climate affects your small business, or promoting your attendance of an event.

The key in step one is to write the release so that it both informs without sounding promotional and uses key words, a couple of links, and an About Us.

Step 2

Prepare the release, select related topics, identify relevant keywords and target its distribution based on geography and interest.

A targeted release will result in more valuable traffic. What you don’t want to do is submit releases that drive a tremendous amount of traffic that never convert to something more.

Step 3

Choose a delayed send of the release. The release should be timely, but sending the release out on a Friday night will result in it being seen as “old news” by the public come Monday morning.

Conclusion ::

Your online press release is as easy to distribute as cut and paste. It’s more powerful than self-serving online banner ads and it’s much less expensive than you might think.

Give online press releases a try. You’ll see that it’s really pretty easy.

Page Rank(PR) Algorithm

2008-02-11T13:45:00.002+05:30

PageRank is a registered trademark and patented by Google on January 9, 1999 which protects a family of algorithms used to assign a numerical relevance of the documents (or web pages) indexed by a search engine. Its properties are discussed by experts in search engine optimization. The PageRank system is used by the popular Google search engine to help you determine the importance or relevance of a page. It was developed by the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University.

The initial PageRank algorithm where their creators presented the prototype of Google: "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine":

PR (A) = (1 - d) + d (PR (T1) / C (T1) + ... + PR (Tn) / C (Tn)

Where PR (A) is the PageRank of a page; PR (Ti) is the PageRank of pages that link to you A, C (Ti) is the number of outbound links on the page you; d is a variable factor which can be between 0 and 1.

PageRank relies on the democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of the value of a specific page. Google interprets a link in a page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But Google looks beyond the volume of votes, or links a page receives and also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages considered "important" worth more, and help to make other pages "important". The PageRank of a page is defined recursively and depends on the number and PageRank of all pages that link.

Benefits of Online Marketing Public Relations

2008-02-02T16:04:00.002+05:30

Aside from possible media exposure, online press releases are an extraordinarily easy way to increase your website’s reach and rank within search engines.

The reach of your website is dramatically increased as your promotional press release makes its way all over the web through news distribution sites. This larger reach opens up numerous channels for traffic to get to your site.

In addition to increasing the reach of your site, online press releases also increase your site’s rank. Search Engines rely on more than keyword frequency within a site to determine if the site should be displayed or not. They also rely on the number of sites linking to your site. The thinking is that the more sites that link to yours, the more likely your site stands as credible and expert.

Whenever you submit any press release.Within minutes the release is featured all over the web from new-related sites to industry blogs. Overnight your site will be seen by search engines as being linked to by not one or two sites, but hundreds. This increase in the number of sites linking to your own will both increase the number of channels for traffic to make it to your site, but also increase your site’s rank, achieving a higher position in related search engine queries.

Optimization For The Yahoo Search Engine

2008-01-22T17:12:00.002+05:30

Most companies today take advantage of the internet as a major marketing and information dissemination tool. To maximize the use of the internet, companies rely on search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure that their websites and web pages muster enough traffic. Although search engine optimization aims to have websites at the top of almost all search engine result pages (SERPs), it’s quite common to see search engine optimization focusing on major search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo.

--- Giant Search Engines Targeting ---
It is hard to do search engine optimization resulting to a good ranking in almost all search engines since every search engine relies on different basis and categories on ranking sites. In other words, different search engines make use of different algorithms to determine every site’s importance. Criteria that search engines set for result ranking vary from search engine to search engine. As a result most SEO service providers opt to maximize sites for search engines that can provide the most ideal volume of traffic.

--- Google-centric SEO is Short-Sighted SEO ---
Most SEO’s would basically focus their efforts to maximize websites relative to Google because it is the most commonly used search engine. But if you take a closer look into the matter, you will conclude that disregarding the searches done through Yahoo could mean a considerable amount of lost traffic. Although Yahoo does not process as much searches as Google, it still consists a good fraction of the searches done on the internet.

--- Balancing Google and Yahoo SEO ---
Both Yahoo and Google depend on keyword density to rank a website. The only difference is that to optimize your site with the Yahoo search engine, a higher keyword frequency is required. Keyword density is more important a factor for Yahoo than it is for Google; although you don’t need to use the same word or group of words to attain the ideal keyword density. Yahoo will consider synonyms and other word variants that are of the same or related meaning to the given keyword to make up the keyword density calculation. Even the plural from of the keyword is still counted when considering keyword density.
Taking the keyword factor into consideration, though, Google and Yahoo possess a very different approach in keyword density. Since Yahoo is very much keyword-based, you may fear that stuffing your site with too many keywords would endanger your site ranking with Google. However, this is not really the case.
It is true that Google may turn its back on your site because of overwhelming keyword count. But as stated above, your site does not need to contain the same keyword form to attain the keyword density for Yahoo. Taking advantage of the fact that Yahoo counts synonyms, plural forms and variants in assessing keyword density, your site could justify both Yahoo’s and Google’s keyword requirement.

--- Yahoo SEO Special ---
Content is very important to attain a good ranking with the Yahoo search engine. This refers to both quantity and quality of your site’s contents. Be mindful of relevance of your site’s contents to a given keyword and at the same time make sure that your site is full of it. Adding relevant contents from time to time would also be a good strategy to take the top spots with the Yahoo search engine results pages.
Aside from content, format should not be taken for granted if you want to have Yahoo on your side. Unlike Google’s web spiders, Yahoo’s bot doesn’t dig deeper into your sites pages to index them. It is therefore very necessary for you to create a very good site map to guide this very lazy animal!

And lastly, even though Yahoo is very much into your site’s content when it comes to ranking in the SERPs, don't forget that inbound links are still very important. Aside from making sure that your site does well with Google when it comes to links, Yahoo will also need the help it gets from inbound links to index your pages.

Increase your online business with PPC advertisements

2007-12-18T17:01:00.002+05:30

PPC advertisement is the most important way to attract targeted traffic to your site that results increased sales and ROI. Mostly online business companies today prefer PPC advertising in order to get better sales and revenues. In this article, you will learn the 4 ways to maximize your sales and profits through PPC advertising:

1. Understand deeply the market trend and your potential clients. Identify the keywords that bring more profit and use them in your PPC campaign. To make your campaign more targeted, analyze your target market. Identify their gender, their buyer power, their needs, and the keywords they are most likely to use whenever they use search engines. These will guide you in making a suitable PPC campaign that is highly targeted.

2. Meet the needs of your target market. Identify the problems that your target markets are currently facing and what products or service you can offer them to resolve their pressing issues.

3. Optimize the landing page of your PPC campaign. Your landing page is a very crucial element in ensuring successful sales, thus it is equally important that your landing page is enticing. You can do this by posting strong recommendation or unbiased reviews of your products. You can also post testimonials of your satisfied clients to further entice your online visitors to purchase from you.

4. Evaluate the performance of your PPC ads and your landing page. Monitor, track and evaluate each aspect of your PPC campaign. Are you getting more than enough clicks but not making a sale? Then, there must a problem with your landing page.

PPC advertising, when done in the right way, can bring enormous sales and traffic to your site. Thus, you must know how to use this tool properly in order to augment your profits.

Submit Sitemap to MSN, Google and Yahoo

2007-11-17T13:32:00.000+05:30

In November 2006, Google, Yahoo! and MSN joined forces to support a new industry standard for sitemaps: Sitemaps 0.90 (see MSN announcement here). As long as webmasters follow the protocol, they can ensure their sites are fully and consistently indexed across all the major search engines (a real step forward). This article is important for all those with missing or poorly ranked pages.

The official site for the joint venture is at http://www.sitemaps.org/ and contains a lot of info about the new standard and it's syntax. What the site singularly fails to do is explain correctly how to submit your sitemap to the big three! The format suggested on the site of:

http://search-engine-url/ping?sitemap=your sitemap_url

does not currently work at any of the three sites! Until it does, We provide instructions for how to (a) create your sitemap and (b) how to submit to each of the three search engines...

Creating your Sitemap

Some hosting providers(for example 1and1) provide utilities via their web control panel, to create your sitemap, so you should always check with your provider first. If this service is not available, then make a visit to http://www.sitemapspal.com/ and enter your site URL into the generator box. Copy-and-paste the resulting sitemap into notepad, then save-and-upload to your site with the file name: sitemap.xml

If you want to validate the XML prior to uploading to the search engines (useful if you have made any manual amendments), pay a visit to the SmartIT XML Sitemap validator where you can put in the URL of your sitemap and check it against the standard.

Submit sitemap to MSN

MSN have yet to implement a formal interface for Sitemap submission (as at April 2007). To monitor the situation, please visit (from time to time) the following pages:

MSN Site Owner Help
Livesearch official blog (where future announcements are likely to be found)

Whilst MSN have yet to implement a front door, there is a recognised back door for submitting your sitemap to the MSN Search index; namely moreover.com! You should use the following syntax directly in your browser URL box:

http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://yourdomain.com/yoursitemap.xml

For example, to submit the sitemap for this site, the correct entry in the browser is as follows:

http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://www.seo-expert-services.co.uk/rss.xml

Since February 2005, moreover.com have been the official provider of RSS feeds to the myMSN portal (see press release) and reliable evidence suggests that submission to moreover.com will result in MSN spidering your pages within 2-3 weeks.

Update 18/07/07: MSN still do not support direct submission but now suggest on their blog that you add a reference to your Sitemap into your robots.txt file (something now supported by sitemaps.org). For example:

User-agent: *
Sitemap: http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
Disallow: /cgi-bin/

This would tell MSN (and all other engines) to crawl your sitemap file but not to crawl your cgi-bin directory. For more info on how to implement a robots.txt file (in the root of your site webserver) please visit: http://www.robotstxt.org/

Submit sitemap to Google

Google originally developed the XML schema for sitemaps and have developed a dedicated portal for webmasters, from where you can submit your sitemap:

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

First, you need to tell Google all the sites you own, then verfiy that you indeed own them. The verifiaction is achieved by adding a metatag between the head tags on your site homepage. The syntax for the tag is as follows:

<meta content="unique code advised by google" name="verify-v1">

There are full instructions on how to do this on the Google site.

Submit sitemap to Yahoo

Yahoo follows a similar approach to Google. Again, there is a dedicated sevice for webmasters (Yahoo! Site Explorer) and a procedure for verifying your ownsership of the site. First go to:

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

Add a site, then click on the verification button. You can then download a verfication key html file - which you will need to upload to the root directory of your webserver. Then you can return to Site Explorer and tell Yahoo to start authentication. This will take up to 24 hours. At the same time you can also add your sitemap by clicking on the manage button and then adding the sitemap as a feed.

Submit sitemap to Ask

Ask follows a simpler approach to the other three. To submit you sitemap, you simply enter a ping URL, followed by the full URL of where your sitemap is located:

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

After clicking return, you will get a reassuring message from Ask that they have received your submission. Very neat!