Google Quality Raters Handbook – does it exsist?

The below information as received in part from SearchEngineLand and written by Barry Schwartz

Brian Ussery has discovered a revised copy of the Google Quality Raters Guidelines, which he archived on his own site.

The documents are used by Google Quality Raters to aid them in classifying queries, measuring relevancy, and rating the search results. To do so, the Quality Rater must understand how Google works and this document has a bunch of that. Let me pull out some of those details in easy to read bullet points.

Three Query Types:

* Navigational: someone searching for a site, such as a search for IBM.    

* Informational: someone searching for information on a topic of interest, such as finding out more information on Danny Sullivan.    

* Transactional: someone searching when seeking to purchase something either online or offline, such as searching for ‘buy ipod touch.’

Quality Rating Scales:

* Vital: This is the highest score a web page can receive for a query. A vital result comes from a query that is most likely navigational and the resulting page is the official web page of the query. When searching for ‘ibm’, the vital result would be www.ibm.com.    

* Useful: This is the second highest score a web page can receive for a given query. A useful rating should be assigned to results that “answer the query just right; they are neither too broad nor too specific.” One of the examples given for a useful rating would be a search on meningitis symptoms with a resulting web page of http://www.webmd.com/hw/infection/aa34586.asp    

* Relevant: This comes after a useful rating, and is used for results that return less useful results. The guidelines say the result is often “less comprehensive, come from a less authoritative source, or cover only one important aspect of the query.” An example would be a review of laptop computers, but the review only takes five computers and not all computers within its class. Since it is not a fully comprehensive review, it would be rated as relevant and not useful.    

* Not Relevant: This rating is used for pages that are not helpful to the query but are somewhat still connected to the original query. Classifications of a not relevant page would be “outdated, too narrowly regional, too specific, too broad” and so on. One of the examples give is a search for the ‘BBC’ that returns a specific article from BBS; it is too specific and is not relevant to the query at hand.    

* Off-Topic: This is the lowest rating a page can receive for a query. If the returned page is completely not relevant to the query, it would be given a rating of “off topic.” An example given is a query on ‘hot dogs’ that returns a page about doghouses.

Categories For Results That Can’t Be Rated: Not everything can be rated, and those must be classified somehow. The categories for those types of results include:

* Didn’t Load: For pages that return a 404 error, page not found, product not found, server time out, 403 forbidden, login required, and so on.    

* Foreign Language: This is given to a page that is in a “foreign language” to the “target language” of the query. English is never a foreign language, no matter what. So, if you search in Chinese for something and a Hebrew page is returned, it is a foreign language, but if an English page is returned, it is not a foreign language. There are exceptions to the rule.    

* Unratable: When the rater cannot rate it for any other reason.

Spam Labels: Now for the really good stuff, spam labels. This is a new addition to the quality raters guidelines and is fairly small. The labels include:

* Not Spam: The not spam rating is given to pages that “has not been designed using deceitful web design techniques.” * Maybe Spam: This label is given when you feel the page is “spammy,” but you are not 100% convinced of that.    

* Spam: Given to pages you feel are violating Google’s webmaster guidelines.

Flags: Flags are for pages that require immediate attention, such as:

* Pornographic content    

* Malicious code on pages

That is a brief overview of some of the many points in the document. For more, see the archived document and for some history, check out Google Blogoscoped. Here is an additional copy of this document at Huomah.com

I hope the above wordpress website design help information was of help to you.

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Your Business Should NOT Ignore LinkedIn

The below information as received from Majestic SEO and written by Lisa Barone at OutSpokenMedia.com

So I have a confession to make. I pretty much ignore LinkedIn on a personal level. I know, it’s bad. Maybe it’s because I’m not looking for a job or because there are already way too many social networks vying for my attention. Yesterday Rhea shared her PubCon Vegas takeaways with all of you but if I had one to add it would be this:

LinkedIn: Stop Ignoring It.

If you’ve accidently ignored LinkedIn like me, here are some awesome features that you may not know about and which may give you a reason (or six) to sign off of Facebook this afternoon (even temporarily) in favor of the more business-inclined social media site. Because if you haven’t been using LinkedIn to promote yourself and your company, well, turns out you’ve been missing a lot.

Company Pages

Whether you plan on becoming a LinkedIn devotee or not, you should at least have a Company Page set up for your business, especially if you were one of those going bananas over the release of Google+ for Business. Getting set up is as simple has claiming the profile and Inc Magazine is happy to walk you through the launching a LinkedIn Company page process if you need.

Once you get set up, a couple of magical things happen. Not only will it display all the information you’ve manually entered for your page, it will pull in other relevant info it finds elsewhere about your brand. For example, it will show any LinkedIn job listing you’ve created, recent press mentions that have been shared about your company, etc. All of these things will help make your company look more inviting to potential job applicants or anyone else wanting to get in touch with you.

With your page created, you’ll also be able to take advantage of analytics pulled through the site. This will help give insight about who is visiting your page, what industries they identify with, what companies they may work for, and their function there. You can also compare how your company is doing against similar industries in terms of page views and unique visitors. If that’s not the greatest competitive Intel win, I don’t know what is.

Like all social profiles these days, once set up you can ask people to follow your company.

And the greatest advantage of ALL of creating a LinkedIn Business page? Well that comes next.

Product/Service Landing Pages

Through LinkedIn, businesses are also able to create individual product or services page to give more information about what it is they do. No, really, read that again. Create a LinkedIn Company page and you’re able to create individual product and services pages. These pages can be built out to address a more LinkedIn-friendly audience (based on who your analytics tell you is viewing your page or to address media outlets who may be trolling), direct people back to specific landing pages, and can be used to get service-/product-specific recommendations. You can even build out the pages to include video. Overall, this is a great way to display expertise in a particular area or vertical, in terms of attracting new clients, employees, and reporters looking for sources.

Advanced People Search

The Advanced People Search feature is cool for a couple of reason. First, as we highlighted in our post about hiring hot local talent, it provides those seeking employees an incredible way to find potential candidates. With the option to search not only by keyword but previous employer, group involvement, experience, and more, it can really help separate the wheat from the chaff and allow you to find better prospects.

Looking at things from the other side of the table, knowing what YOU would enter into those boxes to find someone worth talking to can also help you craft your own business or personal profile. During his Social Media Press Relations & Brand Management session at PubCon, Chris Winfield suggested that marketers review LinkedIn’s recommendations for how journalists should use LinkedIn and reverse engineer it to make themselves more attractive sources. I thought that was a really great recommendation and this allows you to do virtually the same thing.

Skills & Expertise

One LinkedIn feature mentioned in the how journalists should use LinkedIn article is something I stumbled upon by accident recently and thought was pretty neat – it’s the Skills & Expertise feature. What this does is allow you to look at different skills or topics like stocks to see how they’ve gone up or down and changed. For an always-emerging industry like SEO I found this to be a useful way to see how trends change, which were dropping, what was rising, and what people were becoming more interested in. As a pretend media person, this is interesting in helping me spot trends and discover what’s worth writing about. Even more useful is that you can see WHO is associated with what specific expertise.

For example, who’s most known for her online reputation management expertise? Well, Rhea Drysdale, of course.

Highlight Reviews & Recommendations

We’ve always loved LinkedIn because it served as our living, breathing resume, complete with recommendations from people who had worked with us in the past. But now we also love LinkedIn because it gives us another opportunity to secure reviews our business and (as mentioned above) the specific services and/or products that we offer. Knowing that many people browse Facebook with a specific business purpose in mind (finding a vendor, finding a job, finding a source), this is a great way to build authority, perceived value, and trust quite easily and land that lead, whatever it may be.
Who should you ask for reviews?
■Previous customers
■Colleagues and industry contacts
■Vendors you’ve used
■People you’ve partnered with for events or services
■Previous (happy) employees

Because you can feature these things on your profile, it’s a great way to build social proof for folks who may be using LinkedIn to sniff out potential vendors. LinkedIn even allows you to build reviews directly from your own Web site by embedding a Review button that allows someone to leave you a LinkedIn review without ever leaving the page. Pretty sweet.

While I’ve never been an active LinkedIn user, as a business owner, LinkedIn’s making it pretty hard to stay away. What do you think? Are all the savvy LinkedIn features giving you a reason to log on or are you still conducting business solely via Twitter and Facebook?

I hope the above wordpress website design help information was of help to you.

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Domain Name Computer Analysis for Quality

SEO marketingCheck your domain name by computer analysis by clicking on the below web page link

CLICK HERE to have your Domain Name Computer Analyzed

Please keep in mind that this is only one measure of domain name quality. The results are computer software generated and human reaction to different domain names can and may vary widely.

I hope the above wordpress website design help information was of help to you.

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Natural – Relative Backlinks and Google

SEO marketingLet’s first briefly go over natural or relative backlinks and un-natural backlinks.

Natural or Relative backlinks are like gold to an internet marketer.
It’s when a website or blog owner loves the content on your site so much they decide to link to it because your website has relative useful information that their readers can benefit from it as well.
Matt Cutts of Google, has stated that the best way to get links to your site is to create amazing quality content, and I agree.
CLICK HERE for more info on backlinking

Un-Natural Backlinks are backlinks to your website that are come from websites that are not relative with the information on your website.

What’s being called the Unnatural Links update is rocking the SEO world. In March 2012 people started receiving warnings from Google about “unnatural links” and then many of those sites’ rankings in search results have taken a nosedive. Some sites have been de-indexed, which means their site’s pages no longer show up in Google at all.

The scary part? Unlike other Google algorithm changes, you can’t respond to this one by changing things on your site. This time, it’s about links to your site from other websites (commonly called backlinks) that you may or may not have control over – including sites you may never have asked to link to you.

One way to get relative or natural backlinks to your website is the old fashion way and it is called work! Start your own informational webiste or blog using a different website name (URL) and host it on a different server or webhost account or better yet a different webhost altogether. You want to make sure Google will not connect the new website back to you and your current website.

Now start creating quality content and link to other websites as well as your own. By linking to other websites as well as your own you are letting Google know that your website is not one sided or slanted or bias etc.

How to aviod unnatural backlinks and Google Penalties?

What’s being called the “Unnatural Links Update” is rocking the SEO world. In March 2012 people started receiving warnings from Google about “unnatural links” and some of those sites’ rankings in search results have taken a nosedive. Some sites have been de-indexed (which means their site’s pages no longer show up in Google at all) or sent to the the Google Raters to be checked and rated.

Kristina Weis at About Us (this link is a good example of a high quality natural backlink to “AboutUs.com) suggest the following tips to avoid a Google unnatural backlink penalty and make sure your links don’t look unnatural.

Pay attention for an “Unnatural Links” notice in your Google Webmaster Tools. *tweet this* If you get one, your rankings are doomed to slip if you don’t do get those unnatural links to your site removed. It’s important to note, though, that you may not get a notice before your site takes a dive (or you may not get a warning at all), so don’t assume you’ll be fine if you haven’t received a notice.

1) Make sure you don’t have any paid links. Buying links or selling links that pass PageRank (meaning they aren’t NoFollow) is against Google’s webmaster guidelines. If you are found to be paying for links, or if it appears you’re paying for links, your site’s rankings will suffer. To be safe rather than sorry, you should ask for any paid links to be removed or made NoFollow. Contact the linking site’s webmaster or customer service department and hope they’re listening.

2)Make sure you don’t have links from blog networks. Google has cracked down on blog networks (like BuildMyRank), which are typically basic-looking WordPress blogs with low-quality content and keyword-infused links to other sites. For more information about blog networks and Google’s update, read this article.

3) Sites with lots of links with keyword-rich anchor text look suspicious. *tweet this* If the vast majority of the links to your site just happen to use one of a few keyword phrases as the anchor text, they aren’t going to look very natural to a person, nor to Google’s algorithm. What are the odds someone would choose one of your top keyword phrases when linking to you? Odds are, most people will use something like your business name, the title of your blog post, your business name, or “click here” as the anchor text when linking to you. Make sure that the anchor text in your backlinks looks diverse and not like you asked or paid people to give you links with SEO-perfect anchor text.

4) Try to have a balance of high-quality and lower-quality links. Many sites will have a few low quality links that they never asked for, but it becomes a problem when the majority of your backlinks look iffy. Look at the root domains (like example.com) that are linking to you: What is their PageRank? Do they have a decent social media following, or are many people sharing their content in social networks? If most or all of the websites that link to you seem low quality, you may be in trouble. It’s time to build up some quality backlinks and/or try to get rid of some of the low quality links.

5) Avoid site-wide links. These don’t look too natural, and many sites that sell links will put the links on all their site’s pages.

I hope the above wordpress website design help information was of help to you.

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Tips from Google AdSense

The below was sent to me by Google AdSense.

Hi there,

Advertisers are preparing new campaigns as internet traffic is likely to increase over the long haul. To help you take advantage of this, in this issue, we’ve put together the top tips for making your site more visible. You’ll also find updates on:

* Improving page load speed in DFP Small Business
* Using Google+ Pages for brands and businesses

Make your site more visible!

Be relevant
Do you know how users find your pages? Webmaster Tools provides you with detailed information on the top queries for which your site ranks in Google search results. Use this information to make sure that the content users find most interesting is most prominent.

Be social
As we mentioned in our last newsletter, by implementing the +1 button on your pages, you can give users an opportunity to share their opinion with you and guide you to what is most interesting for them on your site. Webmaster Tools now also allows you to track the search impact of +1’s on your pages.

Be fast
A faster site increases user satisfaction, so speed is an important factor in the Google search ranking. Page Speed Online analyzes the content of a web page and generates suggestions to make that page faster. Let Maile Ohye from the Developers Program Team tell you more about the importance of your site’s performance:
Site Speed Performance For Webmasters (VIDEO)

Check how fast your website loads !


UpDates:
Google+ Pages for businesses and brands
Google+ Pages are a way for brands and businesses to have a presence on Google+. Pages bring you closer to your audience, letting you have real conversations with the right people, connecting you face to face with your site’s visitors, and letting current fans recommend new ones.

Giving your business a home on Google+ lets you directly interact with your users, while giving them more chances to share your content with their friends. Create a page today and connect with your audience!

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How Website load speed affects search engine rankings.

CLICK HERE to test the Load Time of Your Website by Host-Tracker.com

Your Website Site Speed Load Time – how long it takes a web page to load and show up for people in a web browser window – is now one of Google’s ranking factors.  That means Google takes site speed into account when deciding how high a site should show up in search results.  Very slow sites will have a much harder time beating out its competitors.

If visitors have to wait too long for your site to load, they’re more likely to leave quickly, and less likely to do what you want them to do – like buy your product or service, contact you for a quote, sign up for your newsletter or download your e-book etc…

Google provides a tool which helps find areas of your web page that may be improved to help shorten the load time. Google Page Speed Online Tool

Check how fast your website loads !

You can test how long it takes your site to load with various tools.  One favorite is Pingdom’s site speed test.  If you use Google Webmaster Tools, look under “Labs” and click “Site Performance.” Another way to test how fast (or slow) your web page loads is to use different computers at different locations with different browsers. This will give and idea of how long an actual viewer is waiting to see your website. To check how fast a website loads from different locations from your own computer some webmasters like to use MegaProxy.com. MegaProxy is a service which allows you to view your website from different locations.

However; for SEO Google Page Rank we have to believe that the “Google Page Speed Online Tool” mentioned above is what Google is using to measure your website page load time.

What’s considered slow?

In my opinion, a website that loads within 2 seconds is doing well. A site that loads in 2 to 4 seconds isn’t really fast, but is acceptable providing you have a bunch of needed relative information on the web page.

A website that takes more than 5 seconds or more to load is likely to push potential visitors on to the next web page viewing option which could very well be your competitors, and may be suffer a lower ranking.  If your site takes more than 7 seconds to load, you really need to speed it up.

For more information on how to improve your site speed,

read AboutUs’s 6 Easy Ways To Improve Your Site Speed, for SEO.

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What is Google+, G+, Google Plus – Definition

Google+ is pronounced google plus and sometimes written Google Plus or abbreviated as G+. Google+ is a social networking service operated by Google Inc. The service launched on June 28, 2011 and as of July 2011 Google+ was in an invite-only “field testing” phase. Google+ follows and replaces the company’s earlier social networking endeavors, including the short-lived Google Wave, which Google discontinued in early 2010.  As of February 1st 2013 Google is pushing hard and fast to have people sign up and join Google + .

CLICK HERE to Invite People to Join Google+, Google Plus, G+

Google+ is another attempt by Google at social networking. Google+ delivers functionality and many features similar to those of Facebook. Sources such as The New York Times have declared it Google’s biggest attempt to rival the social network Facebook, which had over 750 million users in 2011. On July 14, 2011, Google announced that Google+ had reached 10 million users just two weeks after it was launched in a “limited” trial phase. After less than a day of being live, the Google+ iPhone app has the number one free spot in the Apple app store. After 3 weeks in operation, it has already reached 20 million users.

Google Plus Features

Google+ integrates social services such as Google Profiles and Google Buzz, and introduces new services Circles, Hangouts, Sparks, and Huddles. Google+ will also be available as a desktop application and as a mobile application, but only on Android and iOS operating systems.

“Circles” enables users to organize contacts into groups for sharing, across various Google products and services. Although other users can view a list of people in a user’s collection of circles, they cannot view the names of those circles. The privacy settings also allow users to hide the users in their circles as well as who have them in their circle. Organization is done through a drag-and-drop interface. This system replaces the typical friends list function used by sites such as Facebook. “Hangouts” are places used to facilitate group video chat (with a maximum of 10 people participating in a single Hangout at any point in time). However, anyone on the web could potentially join the “Hangout” if they happen to possess the unique URL of the Hangout. “Huddle” is a feature available to Android, iPhone, and SMS devices for communicating through instant messaging within circles. “Instant Upload” is specific to Android mobile devices; it stores photos or video in a private album for sharing later. “Sparks” is a front-end to Google Search, enabling users to identify topics they might be interested in sharing with others; “featured interests” sparks are also available, based on topics others globally are finding interesting. Sparks helps to keep users posted on the latest updates on the topics of their interest. In the “Stream,” users see updates from those in their circles. The input box allows users to enter a status update or use icons to upload and share photo and videos. The Stream can be filtered to show only posts from specific Circles. Google+ has a “+1″ button to allow people to recommend items. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, there is not yet an application programming interface that enables software developers to interact with Google+ programmatically. Additionally, Google+ presents the different icons in a graphical or pictorial manner instead of the more commonplace text written icon names. Similar to other Google applications, Google+ provides integration with other Google applications like Gmail, Calendar, Documents, etc. A “Data Liberation” option provides the ability to download one’s content from Google+.

Importing contacts from other social networks

Google+ includes a feature to invite contacts from Yahoo! and Hotmail. At this time, however, there is no official way to import Facebook contacts into Google+; but there are some workarounds to achieve it. Facebook allows users to download their data, but not in a simple format easy to import; network effects make it difficult for a new social network such as Google+ to be successful, and an easy tool to migrate to a rival service would reduce the effect.

Picasa Web Albums

After tagging someone, they receive a notification and can see the photo and the related album. For new albums, anyone an album is shared with can see who else it is shared with. Albums someone shared can be tagged and re-shared by others. Photos up to 2048×2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes won’t count towards the 1 GB storage quota for Google+ users (it’s 800×800 pixels for non-Google+ users), creating “virtually unlimited” storage for mobile users.

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Your Website Domain Name Computer Analysis

 

Get your Website Domain Name Analyzed

Check your domain name by computer analysis by clicking on the below web page link

CLICK HERE to have your Domain Name Computer Analyzed

Please keep in mind that this is only one measure of domain name quality. The results are computer software generated and human reaction to different domain names can and may vary widely.

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Anthony / Google+