‘Search Engine Optimization’

The new YouTube design has been met with mixed reactions. There are those who embrace change and accept that it normally requires a bit of getting used to and then there are those who outright reject such. It has been high time for a new look and since Google as well as Facebook have made some rather radical changes over the last couple of months, can anyone blame YouTube for wanting to be with the trendsetters?

The beta version of the new YouTube design was at first kept under the blankets, but some people willingly shared their knowledge of how to see the new face of the largest video sharing online site. YouTube has at least explained the changes although the number of dislikes must be a bit disheartening for the designers.

Public Outrage over New Design

One would have expected some type of negative reaction, but the outrage on forums could not have been foreseen even by seasoned forecasters. Even though the YouTube site has never really been clean and easy to navigate, people have commented that it is now a far cry from the familiar look and feel. Strange though, as it has certainly cleaned up well. The only real drawback is that with all the images and videos it does take a while to load. It shouldn’t be a problem overseas, but in South Africa where broadband is rather like a single lane information road than a bandwidth highway, it does take some time.

Indeed, nobody enjoys house cleaning, especially when done unexpectedly, leaving you wondering where you have placed items before. It is perhaps how most users must have felt when they landed on the newly designed YouTube site after a few days away from the Internet.

Whether or not you are upset because it seems that your favourite tools have been misplaced, the lay-out is neat and professional. It is in line with the latest trends and with the incorporation of Google+ and Facebook features, it should ring some bells of familiarity.

Brand Focussed

YouTube has shown with its new design that the previous ways of random uploads of funny and freaky movies are over. It has become more commercialized and as with all things worth enjoying, it is about earnings and attracting interest from advertisers. It does remind a bit of all the web TV channels and as speculation goes, it was the plan from the beginning.

It will be more difficult in future to locate random user generated content as the choices for viewers will be more focussed. The idea behind the changes, obviously inspired by YouTube owner, Google, is to steer viewers towards web TV channels driven to make money. The question is whether the supporters will fall for this or whether it opens up room for others to create sites similar to the old YouTube and thus again, get the users in the driving seat of the content.

Better Quality

The quality of the content will no doubt improve with contracts in place with large media giants, but with few places where the user can still be in control, the content levels may dwindle and so also usage. It will certainly make it harder to market through YouTube videos as a way to drive website traffic.

Perhaps the choices will be fewer in terms of sheer content volume, but videos will still be uploaded, with the difference being that such will receive less attention in the new YouTube design.

The lay-out is now rather similar to that of Facebook, something that users have grown  accustomed to although most are still upset with the ticker feed on the right side of the page and more so because of sponsored content popping up as well.

Challenge for Video Marketers

Whereas you only had to ensure that your video reached the top viewed list of the day to get tons of visits, you will now find that users will have to first click on the Popular button to view them. It may mean more SEO adjustments. It almost feels like a constant battle where Google tries to prevent any small website owner and now video marketer of getting attention. Perhaps if the viewers paid the same as the big sponsors they too would have a say and maybe then the small website owner or aspiring musical star at YouTube would stand a chance in competing with the big guns.

The Add Channels button is more prominent although it will most probably not make the headlines when you upload something to your channel. With the newly completed YouTube design, it will be difficult to get others outside your immediate circle to subscribe since the focus of viewers are now channelled to the brands that pay and not the average guy trying to get some views for his latest song.

Profit Driven Decisions

Despite all that has been said, YouTube is not out to get you, but has made it clear that they want to get a polished TV type of appearance. It could be related to the recent introduction of the Google & Sony Internet TV concept or just that the site wants to become an online television. You can rent videos and watch them directly on your computer, provided you have Internet connectivity. In South Africa, it could be a problem for users who have slow bandwidth. Some traffic will be lost, but YouTube should be able to make up for that with the income generated from the large brands and rentals.

 

 

YouTube has also announced that it will become more prominent in the classroom, which could also account for the streamlined look and refocusing of attention to channels other than the user generated ones. At the bottom of it all is profit and users will simply have to get used to the new YouTube lay-out, design and channels for the lack of an alternative. The company is focused on the audience of television. With more money to be made from predictable audience viewing, one can understand their move as purely business orientated.

If you haven’t seen the new YouTube lay-out and design, visit the site immediately and let us know what you think.

Google SSL Search has been developed specifically to help protect search terms and the interpretation of the search results pages. In short, it gives a private search facility to protect against malicious attempts to apply keyboard logging and other types of actions to steal personal information.

How Does the User Know That SSL Search is On?

The user can identify the on status by looking at the URL. The normal unprotected URL will have http whereas the secure socket layer or SSL activated URL will have an ‘s’ afterwards such as https. Some of the browsers in use will also give the user an indication that the secure socket layer is in use. The browser indication is normally in the form of an icon.

An alternative method for ensuring that the user will be searching in the SSL is to navigate to the secure socket website of Google upon opening of the browser. The full address will then be:

https://www.google.co.za or https://www.google.com

Another means for SSL searching in Google entails going to the URL:

https://encrypted.google.com

Users with Google accounts, can login to their accounts to ensure secure searching.

More about Secure Sockets Layer Technology

The Google SSL allows for all Internet related communication and data transfer to be more secure through an encryption process. When the browser thus makes use of the technology when conducting searches or transferring data through an Internet connection, such searches will not be accessible to other parties.

How Does SSL Work?

Although the information about the user’s query is encrypted, the landing page will still recognise the user as from Google, although the query lodged will not be seen.  One should note that schools using non-secure socket searching will not have encrypted searches. Another instance, where the initial query will be in unprotected mode is when the user directs the browser to make use of the Google unprotected URL. Upon entering the query and clicking for the search to take place, the query will be redirected to the SSL.

One should note that advertisers can see certain information, which can be used to improve their marketing to the user. If a person is uncomfortable with the idea, it is recommended that the user then makes uses of the encrypted URL (encrypted.google.com). One can further secure the search through a browser that allows for disabling of any referring parties.

Where is SSL Available?

At present the Google SSL can be found for all the search modes in Google. The only exception to this will be when one does a map search.

Does the Secure Search Affect Speed of Searching?

Unfortunately users can expect a bit slower searching than with normal searches. One does, however, need to take into account that the importance of securing the query may be more important than to be too concerned by the slight delay in search speed.

Does Google Log the Searches?

Even in secured mode users can still expect Google to log their searches. Google receives the same amount of data about the search whether encrypted or not. The web history will also still reflect the searches.

Google SSL in the Educational Environment

Should a school experience difficulties with the secured searching they can opt for the NoSSLSearch and the searches can then be pointed to such when the DNS configuration changes to www.google.com.

How Secure is Secure?

Instead of a third party being able to view the results to user searches including that of Internet Service Providers it is possible that the parties could still identify the sites visited once the user clicks on the search results and exists to a destination which does not reside on the SSL. One should take care not to think that all attacks can be blocked. The browser must be set to trust specific root certificates.  If a computer is already infected with malware or any type of spyware program when the user logs on to the Internet, it will then still be possible for another party to track the queries.

Is Google SSL Available for Google.co.za?

Unfortunately for South Africans SSL is at this stage only available for Google.com. The company has indicated that they will in future also offer the secure searching on other Google domains including the .co.za one.

SafeSearch and SSL for Education

SafeSearch allows for the blocking of adult content from normal search results. It is seen as important not only for parental control regarding what kids view, but also when it comes to educational authority of what school children as well as college students do with the institution resources. One should, however, still take other precautions as the filters cannot be 100% spot on every time.

The user can decide on the level of safe searching. At present there are no-filtering, moderate and strict filtering options. It is recommended that users in addition, to using the SSL facility from Google also make use of safe search features to block third parties from viewing their searches and delivering unwanted and explicit content when searches are done.

More Secure

Parents and educational administrators can lock the safe searching feature at the Search Settings for specific computers. A person with a Google account can further lock the strict SafeSearch to prevent other users of the same computer from changing it. The filtering level will then be applied to any of the Google domains.

With the Google SSL feature then users will have more search privacy and will not have to be concerned about third parties collecting information about their searches. This will also help to build trust amongst users regarding payment systems and will help to reduce some of the computer attacks related to Internet usage.

Users should still enhance their computer security through firewalls and anti-virus software, in addition to applying specific settings for their browsers. The Google SSL feature is not meant as a replacement of all other security for computers. It is, however, a step in the right direction to protect Internet users from becoming the victims of fraud.

Click fraud costs the advertiser loss of income and also increases the cost of Internet marketing. Advertisers monitor clicks and adjust their marketing spending accordingly. The price per click is adjusted according to keyword popularity and the total of advertisers competing for the keyword.

If the keyword is particularly popular, click fraud can lead to depletion of an advertiser’s budget within a day. Given the consequences of such criminal activity, it is understandable that advertisers call for more effective methods to prevent people from simply clicking on their ads.

Clicks mean money and if the clicks are valid such actions mean money for the advertisers, but invalid clicking lead to money loss for the advertiser. It drives up the cost per click while at the same deplete advertiser budgets.

What Is Click Fraud?

Clicking is the action of selecting a sponsored (pay-per-click) ad to go through to the advertiser website or the landing page of the ad with the purpose of learning more about the product or service offered. If, the selection is not based on a sincere interest in the advertiser’s offering, but simply to drive up the cost for the advertiser and thus eliminate competition, it constitutes click fraud. Another reason why such is done is when an Adsense income generator makes use of unethical means to gain more income from selecting sponsored ads on their page. They normally do this from various computers or pay others to do so to get more income.

There are thus two main types of click fraud:

• Network ad publisher fraud
• Targeted competitor ad fraud

Targeted Ad Fraud

In this type of fraud, the fraudster targets the ads of a competitor company and generates hundreds of false selections to deplete the budget of the competitor. Small businesses suffer most as they have limited funds for their online marketing campaigns and as such it is possible to get rid of all the small players in order to drive the traffic to larger players.

Does Click Fraud Cost Google?

Although Google does get money for every click, they also pay out for such. In addition, the whole sponsored ad network integrity is affected. Companies want to know that the click-through rate is accurate and that the actions will generate leads as well as sales.

What Does Google Do About It?

Google has a system in place to detect click fraud and offers the service for free simply because they want to ensure the integrity of their ad network stays intact. The three step system includes filters to assess whether a clicking action is valid. The filter uses data such as IP addresses, rate of click, time spent at the advertiser site and dates. Further offline assessment is done where not only automated filtering and analyses take place, but also human based analysis. The next level is that of Google reacting upon an advertiser report of possible fraud. If the advertiser’s suspicion of fraud is confirmed by the Google team, reimbursement takes place. As such Google also stands to lose a lot if the invalid clicking is done.

How To Identify Click Fraud

If you are an advertiser and suspects invalid clicks there are a number of ways to confirm your suspicion and to stop the actions. For one, if your ad budget is suddenly depleted without any leads or sales then you already have reason to be suspicious. Should the budget for one month be R1000 and be enough to drive adequate, relevant, and valid traffic, but the next month R3000 is not enough, you may want to look into it. Audit the netlog files and if any suspicious clicks are found, report such to Google or the Pay-per-click company immediately.

If you are a second tier publisher, thus have a website where sponsored ads appear, and find that your income from the ads suddenly drops, you need to investigate. There may be another company stealing your Adsense income. If you find that there are many clicks which Google doesn’t pay you for, investigate. Check if there is any malicious code inserted in your code and also change the ad codes. In addition, ensure that only specific sites may display ads from your ad publisher account. If such continues, Google may ban your site from displaying sponsored ads. Report suspicious activities to Google.

Advertisers Still Pay For Fraud

Advertisers stay the victims as the estimate is that around 10% of clicks are not valid. Taken into account that with other methods of advertising one seems to lose more money than with online ads being clicked for no valid reason, the ten percent may not be that much to pay for the convenience of reaching targeted audiences.

New Pay Per Click Schemes

Unfortunately as Internet advertising grows and new methods for detecting click fraud are developed, so too will the fraudsters come up with new schemes to go undetected. One way of accomplishing fraud is by creating a site that offers ad or information space. The advertiser displays their AdWords on the site while thousands of second tier publishers gain commission. The publishers share their commission with the fraudulent site, not knowing that the site is indeed a fraud. Once the affiliate signs up, an email infected with spyware is emailed to the unsuspecting affiliate. It infects their computer and when they then visit valid sites, they receive pop-up windows and often purchase from those ads which they would not have done otherwise. It is more complicated, but just one example of how fraudsters go about to bypass the system.

Google has faced numerous class action lawsuits and Yahoo! has also been on the receiving end of such, but both have taken action through improved click fraud detection systems and through refunding policies. The only way to prevent large scale fraud and becoming the victim of such is to regularly monitor netlogs, Google Adwords budget accounts, clicks, and if you are a second tier publisher, the income statement and channels.

Google has the goal of ensuring faster and better search results for users. As such the search engine giant introduces new algorithms and changes to search result displays on a regular basis of which the most recent change has to do with sitelinks.

More Links Displayed

In the past the Google sitelinks were limited to about eight results, but now will be full-size and complete URLs. In addition, each sitelink now comes with a short text description which looks strikingly similar to normal search results and their descriptions delivered upon a search query.

Improved Search Results Display

The main idea of the sitelink is to help the user find sub-pages or links under a main domain. It is particularly useful for searching a large website even before getting to the landing page. With the sitelink the user can click on the relevant link and navigate directly to the sub domain or directory level of the website.

Brands Benefitted Most

The latest announcement by Google indicates that one can now expect up to twelve such links. In effect it will help the large brands to get the best results exposure and thus getter positioning at the organic SERP. With the system brand searches are definitely favoured and upcoming or unfamiliar brands will have to make more use of sponsored links – thus AdWords to get above the fold positioning at the organic SERPs. Top ranked sites will welcome the increase in sitelinks while small websites still struggling for position may find themselves even more alienated from the top of the fold positions.

Main Benefits of Sitelinks

The main benefits associated with sitelinks pertain to brand searches allowing the user to navigate to relevant pages within a website faster and thus increase the search functionality for the user. The intent of the searcher can be predicted better.  Brand owners benefit from sitelinks through more links now available, controlling searches to ensure that the users go to the relevant pages and also ensuring that the brand owner can display parts of a website which may have been overlooked without the sitelinking.

It boils down to top ranking. The better a site ranks, the more it will benefit from the additional links displayed. In effect only the number one site gets the benefit and thus all the more reason to fight for the top SERP spot. One should note that sitelinking favours brand searching rather than normal searches.

When Will the Sitelinks Benefit a Searcher?

If you for instance, want to know which movies show at a nearby movie theatre or want to get an idea of the exhibits displayed by a tradeshow host, you will be able to use the sitelinks. Although the ultimate goal of the search may be for some specific information, most searches start out broad.

Without the sitelinks the user may think that the results are not relevant, but with the links the user can get down to the specific pages because of the prediction of intend characteristics of the system. If the user wants to get an overview of the main or important pages of a site, the links listed will help a lot. Webmasters gain control over pages which may be missed the in normal searches.

How Have Sitelinks Changed?

Google has changed mainly the number of sitelinks (from eight to twelve) and the way they are organised. The links are now in columns for ease of reading and with more links listed, more access to the website is given. There are displays now for more search results. The links are now full sized URLs and with descriptions similar to normal search results, the user is aided in the search to locate a specific part of the site.

Algorithm Changes

Sitelink-rank is now combined with the normal SERP rank ensuring better quality in the lists. With the new algorithm duplication is avoided and the SERP is better organised. As such the results from the top ranking site will be organised under the top domain followed by the results of other sites.

Who will be able to see the Sitelink Changes?

Users with the updated Firefox browser, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 7 will be able to see the changes over the next couple of days.  Users with older browsers will not benefit at all.

The Top Changes Announced by Google

• The links are more visible with full size text and more distinguishable with a green URL.
• More links can be displayed. In the past a fixed number of links was displayed, but webmasters can now optimize for more link displays.
• Links can rank according to queries ensuring better results according to queries.
• Results from one domain in the past could show up in the normal search results as well as the sitelinks. Now the results from one domain will be listed under the top domain and thus make it easier to identify that the results are from one website.

More Webmaster Control

Google provides the webmaster with the required tools to manage the sitelinks for their sites. The webmaster can demote a link if it is not correct while the latest algorithms consider the demotions. One can also block a link and up to a hundred demotions can be made. Webmaster control is available in Google Webmaster Tools.

Areas Not Affected

One line links can still appear on multiple results and the links on ads don’t change.

In Summary of the Changes

Webmasters are encouraged to make use of the control features in Webmaster Tools to ensure accurate delivery of link results. The changes to sitelinks benefit brand searches the most and make for more reason to get top ranking in the natural search results for brand related queries. If a site is not yet in the top ranking, it is recommended that the webmaster makes use of sponsored links to appear above the line when queries are made. The changes in sitelinks have been made to improve search functionality and thus the user experience at Google. Evidently it will benefit the large brands and websites most.

The Google algorithms change all the time and as such announcements about the company targeting low quality content don’t cause tremendous ripples on the surface. The general speculation, however, is that content farms are next on the chopping block. Google Panda has search engine marketers work round the clock to ensure that their client sites comply with all requirements for good ranking and are free from so-called junk or spam type content. The newest adjustment to their Google Panda algorithm may be a bit more difficult to address.

How Does Google Evaluate High or Low Quality Content?

One will first have to know how Google evaluates content and identifies spam before pro-active steps can be taken to limit the effects of Google Panda. Unfortunately the information has not been shared widely, but the following factors may play a role:

• Whether a website is generally a content farm where numerous topics are covered by a range of authors or whether the site covers a specific niche.
• Author Rank may become more important as Google will give more attention to articles written by a higher ranking author than one with a poor rating.
• The general length and depth of the articles as well writing style may be assessed (doing so will take loads of manpower or highly intelligent bots though).
• Authority level of the author and site on a topic. A site containing articles about maize seeds for instance, will be frowned upon if it also covers pregnancy, televisions etc.
• The age of the site will still be important.

When considering Google’s announcement one must agree that it does seem as if content farms are the targets rather than normal websites. Whereas one in the past would have added an article section to a website where the marketing articles featured, it may become necessary to integrate the articles in the various website categories as to prevent Google from viewing those as spam type content. This of course, is still mere speculation, but it does pay to reflect on possible scenarios.

Shallow Content

Google mentioned low quality and shallow content in their announcement. The normal website publisher may become wary of the terms, especially if the site owner has not hired a professional content writer. In general, it should not affect the average website where the content is not churned out at an enormous rate simply to have information that could be indexed. If a site owner or SEO company focuses on the provision of in-depth quality articles rather than marketing the company in every possible article, they have no reason to be concerned.  The content farms are known for some low quality content, but many of the articles are well written. Some articles may get a push in the ranking simply because of the author rank, while others can get a shift into the sandbox.

Why the Drastic Steps?

Google has not announced loud and clear that the target is content farms, simply that they are considering numerous changes because they want to ensure accurate, relevant and high quality search results for their users. Google has come under fire recently specifically on the topic of quality of search results. It is thus an effort by the company to save reputation and thus restore integrity of their search engine. Sites offering content that is strikingly similar to information at various other sites may also become targets.

The recipe for success in search results thus includes the major ingredient of originality. Sites such as Article Base, eHow, and Ezine obviously will have to do cleaning and be strict on the acceptance policy. It is difficult to control content which comes free. If you don’t pay anything for the articles, you thus don’t have much leverage. According to Google around 12% of searches are affected in some way or another by the changes Google has made in its algorithms.

Matt Cutts heading up the spam cutting at Google mentioned in a recent blog that high quality sites will be rewarded. Just how, one will have to wait and see. It does seem that anonymous articles don’t fall in the category of quality and as such the name associated with an article, may very well become even more important.

The Upside

High quality content creators have on numerous occasions complained about the copying of their content by other sites. The new changes in the algorithm will help to reduce copying of articles and simply rewriting content sourced on the Internet. As such the SEO companies making use of high quality content writers will have no problem and may indeed benefit from the changes made by Google. It is rather frustrating for a company to invest in solid quality content generation to simply find numerous websites with strikingly similar content two or three weeks later. The changes will bring back integrity to SEO and content generation and although some may feel the panic attacks coming on, for the most part, quality content writers and SEO companies will appreciate the changes.

Tips for Getting On the Good Side of Panda

• Remove content that is similar on all you pages. This means that if you have a little paragraph or sentence that is placed on numerous pages of your site that it will be best to remove such.
• Check affiliate sites for duplicate or similar and low quality content about your products and remove where necessary.
• Delete any pages from your index which are no longer used – cut the dead wood.
• Remove small letter links from the bottom of your pages – not all, only the ones that can be seen as spam links.
• Control the content at sub-domains to minimize duplication and low quality content.
• Remove any graphics and navigation which can cause slow loading speed.
• Ensure that there are no repeats in the headings of pages.
• Create original titles and ensure that when you add articles to your site that the content is not only original in the sense that you have generated such instead of copying, but each article must differ considerably in content from other articles on your site.
• Keyword selection becomes important as articles covering similar keywords can be seen as too similar. Choose distinct keywords and where you can, remove tags which can get the Panda upset.

Numerous high quality sites have been hit by the latest Panda changes and are struggling to make a comeback. The best advice is to keep creating original high quality content that offers value to the reader and to follow the principles of good SEO practice to ensure that your website is not seen by Google as one of the content farm sites.