Digital Musings

Are you a Part of these Google Experiments?

Before I proceed, if you are not aware,what Google Experiments are, let me tell you about it briefly. Google has a wonderful concept called as Google labs,which is basically a playground for all the “Beta” web applications that Google is currently developing. I am sure you must have heard about Google labs. “The Google experimental” is a part of Google Labs, where the latest ideas that Google is working on are displayed. Google has always preferred participation and feedback from the users for improvement of the services. All the latest projects in which users can participate are listed in Google Experimental.

Some of the Projects that are included and are under development in Google Labs are:

• Google Code Search
  Search public source code
• Google Music Trends
  See what music is popular among Google Talk users
• Google Page Creator
  Create your own web pages, quickly and easily
• Google Web Accelerator
  Save time online by loading web pages faster
• Google Suggest
  As you type your search, Google offers keyword suggestions in real time
• Google Trends
  See what the world is searching for.

There is special note that tells us these Apps are under development can work erratically at times. It says:
Please note: These technologies are still in the beginning stages of development, so they may disappear without warning or perform erratically. If something’s not working on this page, please come back and try it again later.
On the right we see a list named as Google Graduates. These are projects started in Google Labs and now are fully operational. A few projects that have been completed are listed below.

Some Mega Google Web Applications which were developed by Google labs and are fully functional:

• Web Alerts
  Find out about new web pages on a topic of interest
• Google Desktop
  Find all your information, whether it’s on the web or stored on your computer, from one convenient location
• Google Scholar
  Search through journal articles, abstracts and other scholarly literature
• Google Maps
  View maps, get driving directions, and search for local businesses and services.
• iGoogle
  Add information you care about to your Google homepage
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets
  Create, store and share documents and spreadsheets on the web
• Google Reader
  Use Google’s web-based feed reader to keep track of your favorite web sites

The Google Experimental Section:

As I have said above Google Experimental are the latest ideas in Google Labs and allow user participation. Most of these experiments are aimed at, you guess it, making Google search even better. The participation is optional. Guys who are really interested in checking these features should join in, and check them out. Also only one experiment can be joined at one time.Some of the latest projects in Google Experimental are:

1) Alternate views for search results

This is an interesting concept. If you join this experiment, you can alter the view of your search results. In this, you can view search results as a time-line or even on Maps. Also the third parameter is viewing additional information.

Time-line & map view works best for searches related to people, companies, events and places. Info view shows all the data found for each result, to help you select the best choice.

2) Keyword suggestions

If you sign on with this experiment Google displays different keywords to improve your search results. As you type your search query, Google’s technology provides alternative suggestions to your queries in real time. Other application that provide this feature are Google suggest and Google Labs itself.

I have tried this and it helps in using the keywords in different and also helps one understand what other related keywords are popular.

3) Keyboard shortcuts

If you join this experiment you can navigate through the search results quickly and easily, minimizing the use of your mouse. Current keyboard shortcuts include:

4) Left-hand search navigation/ Right-hand contextual search navigation

As the names suggest, we have additional search options for any searches that we make once we join any of the two experiment. You can search deeper in a particular type of content—patents, products or news, for example. Google searches across all kinds of content, then ranks results by relevance.

These are a few new concepts that are being developed by Google for making the search even better and are good to join if you want first hand understanding about how the Google search is changing. Also I think every guy interested in SEO should join and try these out.

I would be joining these experiments and would provide a review of any of these on this blog. If you want to stay updated you can subscribe to the blogs feed.

Link for Google Labs is here. Link for Google Experimental is here.

So now that you know what the Google experiments are, which one interests you? Would you be willing to participate and know more about them?

If you like this post then please consider subscribing to my Full RSS feed. Join the Discussions about Blogging and Social Networking in the Forum.Thanks for visiting!

Posted in Google, Innovation, SEO | 8 Comments »

A Detailed Page Rank Update Report for Top 25 Blogs about blogging Past Predicted and Present

I guess its time to change the name of Blog-O-Sphere to Google-O-Sphere, as a tribute to the Page Rank Update buzz everywhere. Every blog I read today has a post dedicated to this Subject. I was going to write about it immediately, but instead of taking the “reporting only” mode I decided to go into the “analysis mode”, wait a bit, see what this hoopla is all about and then write a relevant post. I call this the PPP Report. Not Pay per post, but Past, Predicted and Present (PR) Report.

This post is divided into two parts:

1. Table showing the Past, Predicted and Present PR of TOP 25 Blogs about Blogging.
2. Table showing the corresponding back-links to these Blogs to get an Idea how Google is distributing the PR weightage.

Lets start from Table one. Its lists blogs in the order of Importance which is determined by 4 factors: 1. Google page Rank. 2. Technorati Links 3. Alexa Traffic 4. Subscriber Base.

Since we are discussing about Google Page rank, Only that factor is displayed in the Table below. Orignal list is can be found at Daily Blog Tips

This table is made specially for self analysis (no its not tiresome) by you. If you see the Titles, they are “Clickable” and would sort the Ranks from highest to lowest and vice versa. For example if we see Past Title and click on it is sorted according to the Past Page Rank Sorting from Highest to lowest and vice versa. And the results are:

PAST: 1.Performancing. 2. Build a Better Blog and 3. Problogger.

PREDICTED: 1.Copy Blogger 2.Lorelle on WordPress 3. BusinessBlog.

PRESENT: 1.Copy Blogger 2.Lorell on WordPress 3.Build a better Blog

As we can see during the 1st Update ProBlogger was nowhere to be seen in the Top 10, but after the revised update its back in Top 3.As in the Tables you can see several authoritative blogs have dropped their PR. Several reasons have been sighted for this PR Drop. The Google data centers are still reporting scattered data, so it is difficult to know what will be the Page Rank of some sites involved in the previous penalties. I would be keeping a track of this and If anything changes, well one more column in the table (Its getting wider and wider, Hope Google makes up its mind soon, before I run out of space.)

Page Rank Report for Top 25 Blogs about Blogging

A Detailed analysis of the Page Rank on Todays Most Influential Blogs about Blogging.

Page Rank Report for Top 25 Blogs about Blogging

The reason for the penalties it not entirely clear yet, but Darren said that he got confirmations from two sources at Google that the penalties were being given exclusively for paid links, and not for cross-linking inside blog networks. This latest furore has all been about the selling of links and is a warning shot to bloggers and webmasters who engage in the practice. Of course not everyone who sells links has been hit (there’s no way Google will get everyone) but it’s a sign of what Google are continuing to crack down on.

With this table we get a hawks eye view of who was Where, What was predicted and What actually happened!! A lot of other blogs have made such lists but no where the data is comparable in these 3 modes and also none of them allow sorting and let any do any self- analysis.

After the Page Rank analysis, Its imperative that we look at the factor that helps one to improve the Page Rank : Back Links.

The table below displays the number back-links these Top Blogs have and how many back links you require to actually get a specific page rank. There is a Column included which shows the Back Links detected by Google. And the other two show the Total back links by All Search Engines combined.

Corresponding BackLinks Report for Top 25 Blogs about Blogging

Corresponding BackLinks Report for Top 25 Blogs about Blogging

If we see at this Table we get to see and compare some really interesting statistics. Problogger has the Highest number of Back links that amounts to 13000. The second position goes to Performancing that has 7350 links which is about 5500 less than Problogger. Now the interesting thing is Performancing has a PR of 7 and ProBlogger s on 6 . Now why could this be?

Number one reason: The kind of back links that you have. Obviously the back links for Performancing have sites that have a high PR occurance i.e many of the blogs/websites that link to it have higher PR than the ones that link to Problogger. Another interesting fact to note is that the Blog with the least amount of links, 151 links, I help you blog has a PR of 4, and which is less than almost 13000 links but only a difference of PR 2. This helps us understand how important it is to build Quality Links. From there on in the table we observe that the PR increases as the back links increase.

The source for the Page ranks and the Back-Links are SmartPageRank and IWebTool.I will be updating the list with more sites, and for any changes in data centres over the next few hours.

You might wanna bookmark or save this Page or Subscribe to my Feed, as I am going to write about the Page Rank changes of top 25 SEO blogs. Lets see how the Big Boys who teach guide us how to do Search Engine Optimization are doing!!!

BTW, Digital-Musings.com jumped from PR 0 to PR 4 today. So guess I am not doing too bad Eh!

Posted in Google, News, Popular, SEO | 3 Comments »

So the Google Page Rank is finally Updating.

So what is your current Page Rank? If it has been stagnant, and you have been waiting desperately for it to change, now might be the time. Recently there has been a lot of buzz regarding the page rank update, in various forums and many famous blogs are writing about it.Read about this first on Yaro Starak’s Blog. As far as I am concerned I am not very hopeful for a increase in rank, as I didn’t get enough time to start building links and let them mature with time as old links carry the maximum weight, and give the maximum benefit for a better page rank.New blogs must concentrate on building links as in you have started a blog or website 2-3 months back, chances are slim that you would notice any change in your Page Rank.

At the moment, several Blogs have seen a drop in their page rank, rather than an increase. Most probably, Google has made a few modifications in rules regarding, how page rank is to be designated. I am looking around for more information in various forums and hopefully would be able to post information regarding it soon enough. Keep Reading, more information coming up soon.

Posted in Google, SEO | No Comments »

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) For Newbies.

Although many articles have been written about the importance of SEO, the information given below is aimed at helping a new guy gain a foothold in this Bad Bad SEO Battle!

According to recent study on search engines by Iprospect.com 57% of the internet users surveyed, reported that searching the internet has become more important for their use of the internet as opposed to last year.

According to others studies, 80% of the Internet users start their surfing for any topic by first searching for a relevant website.So its important for a newbie to understand that Search Engine Optimization is vital for him, if he wants to bring new and quality traffic to his website.

Now for a newbie to get into SEO can be a bit tough as there is a plethora of information and jargon one has to understand before one can really start doing something.This is a on going process as well, as Search Engines keep on updating their rules time and again.

When one has just started out on Search Engine Optimization, he/she just needs to follow these basic steps first and rest will follow:

1) Selecting the Correct Keywords (Keyword Optimization)

2) Optimizing your pages for your selected Keywords (Web page optimization)

3) Getting Quality Inbound Links (Off site Optimization)

The systematic approach to SEO is explained below:

(more…)

Posted in Internet, Popular, SEO | 5 Comments »