- There are lots of speculations about negative effect of certain SEO issues. However, most of these issues turn out as “SEO Myths”.

Matt Cutts (I would rather say Dr. Matt Cutts ) will answer some of your questions and will help you understand SEO better.

Some of the issues discussed in the useful video are as given below:-

a) Having multiple sites on the same server – There are lots of myths surrounding around multiple sites hosted on the same servers. Even if you have 1000 sites, but each one of them are informative but having unique content, then you won’t face any issue with Google or Yahoo.

b) Sharing same Javascript with several other websites. For example, google analytic javascript or any other javascript coding. If you are sharing your javascript with 1000 sites, it doesn’t mean that your website will get penalized in any way. If you are still scary about sharing javascript, then you can use external javascript which do not get embedded within website’s html.

c) Launching sites with millions of pages. Check out the best way to do so. If you are having a large e-commerce site and suddenly you plan to launch a new version of the same site in German, French or Chinese, then you must do so gradually.

SOME OTHER SEO MYTHS ARE AS GIVEN BELOW :-

a) Meta tags are useless – Meta tags are one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. Search engines are ignoring over-stuffed meta tags including keywords tag which get over-stuffed with unrelated keyword. However, META TITLE and META DESCRIPTION tags are extremely important, and can help search engines to perceive the content of your webpage correctly.

b) We can handle SEO ourselves – Most of the companies make a gross mistake by hiring a staff (internet marketing or web development) which has a very little information regarding complexities of SEO. If you are an owner of an e-commerce site having several thousand pages, then you need to keep in touch with a professional SEO or any company specializing in SEO.

There are several issues related to SEO which can lead to complex situations when combined with other issues of web development and internet marketing. Search engines are becoming more cautious while granting rankings for competitive keywords. Therefore, it is best to consult an SEO specialist or SEO company which will help you generate best revenues through search engine optimization and search engine marketing on Google and Yahoo. There are several instances where some established website lost its rankings due to some algorithm update on search engines. You must always keep yourself updated with latest happenings in search engine industry.

c) No need for Yahoo or MSN optimization – There is a considerable amount of traffic on Yahoo and MSN. There are several users who log into msn.com every single day. Similarly, there are users who log into Yahoo to search online. Therefore it would be too risky to completely sideline Yahoo/MSN optimization when compared with Google. Having a website which is ranking consistently on all major search engines including Google, Yahoo and MSN will yield best results. Although, Google has a majority of online search engine users, but still you cannot afford to ignore Yahoo, MSN and others.

Microsoft has recently launched Bing.com search engine which is picking up fast among search engine users. It is more interactive and has better user design as compared to Google or Yahoo. Therefore, if you are aiming for search engine promotion, make sure that your website appears consistently among various popular search engines within your target business niche.

Take for example, Baidu is more popular in China as compared to Google. Therefore, you need to formulate a customized strategy if you really want to gain a foothold in search engine marketing.

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Both Google and Yahoo provide several useful tools and features which average internet users do not explore. These useful tools and features are provided freely on these search engines and still several users search for these services on different websites.

GOOGLE/YAHOO WEATHER:

Google provides a feature which can help you check weather of different regions across the globe. You can simply log into Google and type “Weather Vancouver”, and you can easily access weather update from Vancouver region, Canada. You can also type “Weather ( Zip Code)” which can help you get latest weather update from a specific location.

( Google Screenshot)

( Yahoo Screenshot)

GOOGLE/YAHOO WORLD CLOCK:

Google offers a useful world clock which can show you different time zones across the globe. Simply log into Google and type “Time New York”, and then click search.

(Google Screenshot)

(Yahoo Screenshot)

GOOGLE/YAHOO CALCULATOR :

Both Google and Yahoo calculators are great for relatively simple arithmetic calculations, including square roots, logarithms, order of operations, and trigonometric functions such as sine and cosine.

Simply search “6+4” on Google or Yahoo. You will get your answer.

Google Screenshot

Yahoo Screenshot

GOOGLE/YAHOO UNIT CONVERSION :

Both these search engines provide a useful feature which can help you perform any unit conversion.

Simply search for “1 foot = ? inches”, and you will get to know how many inches are there in one foot.

Google Screenshot

Yahoo Screenshot

GOOGLE/YAHOO CURRENCY RATE EXCHANGE :

Simply search “1 dollar = ? pounds”, and this feature will help you check currency exchange rates for every single currency worldwide. This utility will help you keep a close watch on latest currency exchange rates worldwide.

Google Screenshot

Yahoo Screenshot

GOOGLE PHONEBOOK

Log into Google.com and search “phonebook: Robert”. Once you click search you will get a directory listing of different persons named Robert and their phone numbers along with map information.

Google Screenshot

Similar services are provide by Yahoo through http://people.yahoo.com/ ( For U.S). Yahoo also provides dedicated Yellow page services for different regions.

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Bounce Rate: An Introduction

Bounce rate is widely used in website traffic analysis. It represents the average percentage of online visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site. (Read more about Bounce Rates at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_Rate )

Bounce rates are used extensively by online marketers to analyze users and their preferences. For example, you have a web design article site with more than 500 articles. However, if your bounce rate is higher then it implies that something is wrong with your site. Either visitors are finding your site hard to navigate, or your content is not being perceived as helpful by visitors. Also, it could be possible that you are unable to target potential customers. If your product is meant for kids, then you need to target age groups of 5-10 (depending on your product). If your bounce rate is high, it implies that either you are targeting wrong age group or your content / product is not attracting any attention by the visitors. (Refer to: http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/text/38069.html to know more about bounce rates, and other terms associated with it)

If you are using Google analytic or any other analytic then it will show you the bounce rates for various keywords ( organic or PPC visitors). You don’t need to sit with a pen and pencil to calculate bounce rate for every single click. Most of the analytic scripts will handle this aspect for you including Google analytics (Everybody loves free products ).

Bounce Rate and SEO Connection

Bounce rate was more inclined towards marketing/business aspect of any website. However, in the past few months SEO industry is getting some inside information that Google could be using bounce rates to determine top page rankings (especially on top pages of Google search results ranging from pages 1-10).

This technique could be used to ward-off black hat SEO sites which are artificially optimized for unrelated keywords. These websites will naturally display high bounce rates.

On the other hand, this same technique can be used by competitors to pull down other competitor sites on organic listings. This practice is widely common in Pay Per Click which is also termed as Click Fraud (http://blog.seohawk.com/click-fraud/). This technique is used to exhaust PPC budget of competitor sites.

Therefore, Google will use Bounce rate data carefully and it can be used for temporary period of time. For example a website with higher bounce rates might get pushed to pages 3-4 from Page 1 for duration of 10-15 days. This is all what any SEO can perceive from Google’s viewpoint. Google has not made this information available to anyone, but it could be using these sorts of techniques to promote genuine websites with genuine content.

The ultimate goal of any search engine is to present best information to any visitor who is searching for that specific keyword. Therefore Bounce rate can prove as a helpful tool in giving priority to certain websites over others.

However, Google cannot afford to grant permanent positions to any website (unless it shows consistent bounce rate over a period of 6 months – 1 year. This tool can be used to decide who will rank on the top page, but it doesn’t imply that every single site with higher bounce rates will be pushed to the bottom or will receive some sort of penalty .

Google can use bounce rates in following manner:-

a) If any website hasn’t installed Google analytic then Google can rely on number of separate I.P clicks received on a particular website over a period of time from within Google search results.

b) Once a user clicks on the site, and Google detects Google analytics, then it can use Bounce rate as a factor to decide whether your site is helpful to your visitors or not.

If Google has introduce this feature then it must be using a combination of other parameters to grant that “Temporary High Rankings” to websites with lesser bounce rates .

Therefore, Google will try its best to ensure that this ranking factor doesn’t get manipulated by Black Hat SEOs. Moreover, it could be possible that Google is only using websites listed on top 10 pages who have genuinely gained positions. Any new website trying to gain instant rankings will be checked by various parameters as compared to an established website.

Google has clearly distinguished keywords on the basis of their competitive levels. If a keyword is highly competitive then you need to pass several “TESTS” before gaining top positions. However, if a keyword is less-competitive, then you can score higher rankings quickly.

We conducted some experiments on different websites using Google analytics. Some of these websites were not using Google analytics. At the end of these experiments we did observe some changes in the ranking positions, but you cannot perceive the exact manner in which it was done by Google. We did observe some changes and this experiment was also conducted to gain higher rankings of a website which is ranking on Google.co.uk to a different geo location (Google.ca or any other).

If your website is genuinely helpful to visitors then Google analytic can help your site to gain higher rankings. However, if your website is not helpful, then Bounce rate within Google analytic could effect your rankings.

Therefore the best way is to make your website informative in terms of content and usability. Always target best audience and abstain from gaining artificial rankings. If your articles are helpful then users will automatically bookmark them and promote them on other social bookmarking sites.

You can also try to remove Google analytics, but it wont help you much. Even if you remove Google analytics, Google can still collect this data easily from Google toolbar. So all those users who visit your website and have Google toolbar installed can pass off some useful information to the Google search engine ranking algorithm.

If Alexa can collect traffic data from users who have installed Alexa toolbar, then why can’t Google use the same TRICK .

Google bounce rate can be a blind tool, if you are receiving 100 phone calls from potential visitors.

Therefore it could be more applicable to those genuinely ranking on top 1-10 pages of google or those who are indulging in heavy black hat spamming techniques .

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