New Update in Google Webmaster Tools

New Update in Google Webmaster Tools: Submit URL Parameters to Ignore

A good initiative by Google, allowing the webmasters to let the Googlebot know which URL parameters to ignore while crawling or indexing the site web pages.

1. Log in to your Google Webmaster tools account


2. Click on the ‘Site Configuration’ link on the left and then on ‘Settings’


3. At the bottom you will find ‘Parameter Handling’ to adjust the parameter settings.

Dynamic parameters (for example, session IDs, source, or language) in your URLs can result in many different URLs all pointing to essentially the same content. For example: http://www.example.com/product?pid=123 might point to the same content as http://www.example.com/product. You can specify whether you want Google to ignore up to 15 specific parameters in your URL.

Also, Google lists the parameters they have identified in the URLs of your site and suggests if the parameters are vague for them. You can confirm your choice to ignore or not to ignore. You can also add parameters that Googlebot was unable to identify and list them.

The reasons why I find this useful are:

1. This will really help Google in identifying the duplicate content pages and help them in proper indexing with fewer duplicate URLs.


2. This can result in more efficient crawling of Googlebot.


3. Googlebot can crawl more pages and index them, as the crawler efficiency is increased.


4. This can reduce the PageRank dilution as external website may be linking to various versions of your URLs and this will help Google understand that all these pages are same. Thus, providing the proper PageRank credit to the page.


5. Simple way to indicate the parameters to ignore or consider, instead of using the canonical option.

SEO Tips for Flash

SEO Tips for Flash

Creating accessible flash content for search engines is odd for you to preserve your online presence and drive traffic to your site. Follow these Flash Optimization Tips to get most out of the major search engines.

Adding SWF content to your HTML source

An iron-clad way to guarantee that a SWF’s content is picked up and ranked by search engines is to extract the content and place it into the page’s HTML source. Tools such as Dreamweaver use SWF Object to embed Flash. The code view in Dreamweaver displays comments where you should add your alternative HTML content.

Keep your URL unique

If your site is just one big lump of Flash in an HTML template, your page is never going to refresh. Consider having a different URL for each page of your site’s Flash content. Each page would have its own HTML source title, “H1″ and body copy containing the keyword you want to rank.

Use source content dumping

A one-page HTML rich internet application (RIA) will not be SEO enhanced simply by adding the content for each section of the Flash application into the HTML source for this page. Doing this doesn’t establish any prominence of content, as there are too many competing terms. Keep extracted Flash content relevant to the page it’s on.

Keep an eye on new initiatives

Adobe has been working with Google and Yahoo! to make the Flash file format (SWF) search engine friendly. This will enable the engines to see what’s inside a SWF’s content and index it. However, the use of Flash Player technology by search engines is still developing and so can’t be relied on as the only step towards optimizing your project for SEO.

Add text to your Flash applications

A simple Flash SEO enhancement is to use Flash-generated text in your creative when displaying or animating type. You can do this instead of using text that’s a flattened bitmap. Flash text can contain keyword-based messages, which help increase traffic. Include this text in the HTML source of the page as well.

Remember that search engine spiders hate pop-ups

We’ve all visited sites that urge us to click to launch Flash content into a new window. This removes any chance of the site’s content being picked up and indexed by search engines. In addition to search spiders not being able to see them, pop-ups suffer from being blocked by many browsers.

Get robotic help

Robots.txt is a plain text file found at the root of a server. This tells search bots which content needs to be allowed or disallowed when it visits their website. If your Flash text content is the same as your HTML version, you could set the Robots.txt file to ignore the SWF content and push only the HTML content to the search bots.

Embed Flash content with SWF Object

SWF Object is a search engine-friendly way to embed Flash content. Alternative (non-Flash) content is produced first, and then snippets of JavaScript are used to swap out the alternative content with the Flash movies. This ensures that the content is indexed by search engines. Users without Flash will still see a working HTML page.

Best Blogger Widgets and Addons

Best Blogger Widgets and Addons

I have used Blogspot as my main blogging system for over 1 year! I have discovered that system can works just great, and also everything is completely free! From web to domain hosting. This is my recommended blogging system for all blogger beginners and amateurs. Through, to use and design your Blogspot blog right, you might know little more about it. I have Collected top 10 favorite Blogspot widgets or addons which are available for you in below list.

Top 10 Blogger Widgets and Addons

• Whos.amung.us – Really great addon for your Bloggspot blog for sure. With it, you can easily see live visitor statistics for your blog in real time. Using some advantage technology and features. Widget customization supported.
• Digg Widget – You can easily display the latest Digg news on your site by adding a Digg Widget, now with more choices for what to show and how it’s displayed. Very useful and effective widget for your blog!
• Feedjit – One more live traffic widget for your blog. Allowing more informations about your visitors with live source links in it. If you don’t like first one, this widget would be great replacement!
• iBegin Weather – Very graphically cool widget that displays real time weather in your blog sidebar. Only bad think that they supports only USA or Canada cities! Hope to see more in the future!
• Snow Effect for Blogger – Here is a simple snow effect widget which you can add to your Blogger powered blog in just one click! This widget does not use images to generate the snow effect: instead it uses plain white text! Very cool widget to put during holiday time on your blog!
• Blogumus – Flash animated label cloud for Blogger! Very cool addon which uses scripts converted from Roy Tanck’s WP Cumulus plugin for Wordpress. I have to say that this widget works great! And you should try it!
• IntenseDebate – Great addon which will improve functionality of your Blogger comments form. Allowing you to easily improve your comments with advanced features and options! Recommended install!
• Twitter Badge – This badge allows you to display your latest tweets on your Blogger powered blog sidebar! Really cool widget if you use Twitter! Also, it’s good to get you some more potential followers!
• Popular (Most Commented) Posts – This widget uses your blog’s comment feed to determine the most popular posts based on the number of comments each post has received. Very nice widget for your Blogspot blog!
• Random Post Widget – Add random post functionality to your Blogger powered blog with this great widget. The widget can be placed anywhere a widget will go. Very cool widget for your blog for sure!

Note that Installation of some above widgets can be little confusing for you. Some of them requires customizations that might requires more knowledge. Find on original web sites steps and procedures how to install these widgets!

Video Optimization Practices

We have spoken lot about Search Engine Optimization in the past, and even a little bit about Social Media Optimization, optimizing your social media presence. My list of popular social media websites include sites like YouTube and MetaCafe.

When submitting your video to these online video sites, did you know that you can optimize those videos so that they are bound to get more views? We all want our videos to get more views, right? Well, let’s talk a bit about video optimization and optimizing your videos for the online video sites.

Well here is a bunch of great tips that are still relevant today, including:

• Your video clips are relevant and informative.
• Cacthy Title for your Video.
• Apply Video as a Portal to other Content on Your Site.
• Optimize your video with significant Key Phrases.
• Add Transcripts of your Videos.
• Extend your Video by allowing embedding for others.

You might also want to check out the Video Optimization Tips that include more tips about optimizing your video and even how to publicize your video.

Recently, we have noticed that http://www.break.com is a great place to add your video, if you put your keywords in the title of your video there’s a good chance that it will rank well in Google. Whenever uploading a video, try to pay attention to tagging the video properly with the appropriate anchor text, title the video with anchor text and make sure you add your website’s URL to your profile page.

Best Practices and Tips for SEO Video Optimization

Best Practices and Tips for SEO Video Optimization

Video optimization as part of your search engine optimization efforts can be a great way for you to expose your brand to users who may have otherwise not been familar with your brand, your product(s) or your service(s). With the launch of Universal Search from Google, you can expect to see more and more video results occupying the search engine results that are served up by Google.

Marketers and site owners are continuing to experiment with video as a means of intercepting their target markets. As a result, we are seeing more video driven content surface on the Web. Just how popular is video content on the Web? Well depending on the study or data you review, the results vary.

Video Optimization Best Practices and Tips

1. Make sure that your video clips are relevant and informative - For starters, ensure that your video provides useful and informative information. Videos that demonstrate step by step procedures are great, videos that express an opinion about a specific topic can be useful too. Videos that have nothing to do with your brand or service offering or are general or vague in nature will just confuse your audience. Save the viewer the trouble and don't just upload a video for the sake of uploading a video.


2. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #1: Give your video a Catchy Title - Video can be used to bring visitors to your site. One way to get users to view your video is to give it a catchy title that contains a related key phrase that is relevant to your product, service or brand.


3. Use Video as a Portal to other Content on Your Site - Upload a couple of videos to portals like YouTube and provide links back to related content and other videos on your site.


4. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #2: Optimize your video for Important Key Phrases - You might want to optimize your video for terms users are likely to be searching for. Tag your video with these terms, consider naming the file name of the video with these terms in mind.


5. Provide Transcripts of your Videos - Good old HTML content is still a favorite with the search engines. If you want your video to rank well, you need to give the search engines something to index and rank. Surround your videos with onpage copy that can be indexed by the search engines.


6. Keep Your Videos to five minutes or less - there is nothing worse than a boring video that goes on an on. If you have video content that is of long duration, consider breaking it up into smaller pieces and tag each accordingly. Not only does this make for better viewing pleasure, it also keeps the user looking for more.


7. Make use of a Video Sitemap - For video that is native to your own website, make sure that users and search engine spiders can find your video content. The easiest way to do this is through the use of a video sitemap on your site. Use important keywords in the anchor text links to your videos featured on your video sitemap.


8. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #3: Tag Your Videos - tag your videos with key phrases that are reflective of the content.


9. Brand your Video with your Logo - Video is a great tool to generate brand awareness with your prospects. Take advantage of this by incorporating your brand in your videos.


10. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #4: Remember Inbound Linking Factors - Link to videos using important keywords in anchor text.


11. Offer the Option to Embed Your Video - allow other users access to the coding that will allow them to embed your video on their website or their blog. Think viral marketing


12. SEO Video Optimization Fundamental Tip #5: Add Descriptive Meta Data - optimize your video for relevant keywords and include a keyword rich description of your video content.


13. Allow Users to Rate your Video - videos that receive higher ratings from users are the ones that users tend to favorite and save. You can bet that the search engines will pay attention to this when ranking these videos.


14. Syndicate Your Video - Submit your video to RSS "Really Simple Syndication".

Video Optimization is becoming more important as mainstream aspect to search engine optimization. The best way to optimize your video content is to think about the user and who you want to engage with your video. Be smart about it, don't just post a video for the sake of posting a video. Consider your audience, their language and their needs.

Source: http://bit.ly/OqLf

SEO Best Practice Guide

Search engine marketing (SEM) is the single biggest opportunity in online marketing, which is unsurprising given the growing popularity of search engines for researching products, services and organizations. In this section we will set the scene…

SEO Best Practice Guide