Monthly Archives: September 2009

Q and A: Why have my crawl rates dropped ?

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Question

Hi Kalena,

First I would like to say thanks to you for your answer of my first question regarding server migration and ranking changes. I have one more query. One of my clients has a web design website and he offers web design services only in US and Europe. So he asked me to block other countries so that website couldn’t be accessed in other countries. I did the same and blocked the other countries using htaccess. However, since I have blocked the other countries, I have observed that web site pages are not being crawled so rapidly as it was being earlier. I just want to know if this problem is due to blocking of other countries or there are some other reasons. Thanks in anticipation.

Regards, Manish

Thanks  Manish,

I’m not quite sure why your client would wish to block access to his site in the first place.  As far as I’m concerned, the more people that come to my sites the better. Even if they come from overseas and I can’t offer them a direct service, there is still the possibility that they will comment or discuss topics from my Blog – raising the awareness, and improving my rankings. If they can’t see it, they can’t promote it.  Blocking his site from OS would also eliminate the possibility of backlinks from OS sites, and whilst these may not provide local link benefits, there are plenty of OS sites that I would love top get backlinks from.

Aside from that – assuming that he does have a valid reason for restricting access – one reason why he may very well have seen a reduction in crawl activity (assuming you are monitoring search spider traffic) is that the crawlers may not necessarily originate from his country.  Whilst you might assume that crawlers only crawl local sites – this is not always the case, and depending on what country he is based in, blocked OS traffic might significantly reduce, or even eliminate all crawler traffic completely.  If the OS users can’t see it – the OS crawlers can’t either

Andy Henderson
Ireckon Web Marketing

Google’s Flying Objects: Identified

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Earlier this month, Google began a series of mysterious logos with a UFO-related theme, that caused quite a buzz of speculation.

The first one (which I blogged about) showed a UFO *abducting* one of the “O’s” in Google. Google accompanied the logo with a tweet in binary code that translated as “All Your O are Belong to Us” – a clear reference to computer game Zero Wing.

The next in the series showed the Google logo as a series of crop circles, with the “L” being abducted by another UFO. This was accompanied by a tweet consisting of Google Map co-ordinates leading to Woking – the town in which the Martians first land in H. G. Wells’ science fiction novel The War of the Worlds.

A few people began to speculate at this point about the doodles being a lead up to the 143rd birthday of H.G. Wells on September 21.

Well, it seems they were right! Google have today launched a new logo showing a village under attack by alien tripods, with only the “G” and the “E” in Google clearly visible with the rest presumably abducted or barely hinted at within the design. A click on the logo leads to search results for H.G. Wells. I expect we’ll see a tweet from Google confirming this later today.

At the moment the logo is only viewable on Google New Zealand and Google Australia but expect to see it roll across the regional domains as the rest of the world wakes to September 21.

Happy Birthday H.G. Wells!

Congratulations Recent Search Engine College Graduates

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On behalf of the tutors and staff at Search Engine College, I’d like to offer congratulations to our most recent graduates:

Search Engine Optimization 101

  • Barry Dakers
  • Carleen Schmalz
  • Megan Ball
  • Mary Kaufman
  • Emily Grillot
  • Craig Bollig
  • Asher Elran
  • Kirt Manecke
  • Terri Hawkins
  • Kaoru Tydeman
  • Karen Galiger
  • Joseph Volcy


Search Engine Optimization 201

  • Wiep Knol
  • Vanessa Kilgore
  • Lucy Hoult
  • Jayne Henry
  • Barry Dakers
  • Megan Ball
  • Oliver King
  • Steven Morris


Pay Per Click Advertising 101

  • Purna Virji
  • Rob Gibbons
  • Victoria MacGregor
  • Megan Ball
  • Julie Chaloner


    Pay Per Click Advertising 201

    • Nick Swami

    Web Site Copywriting 101

      • Frank Freund


      Article Marketing & Distribution 101

      • Vanessa Kilgore

      Certified Search Engine Optimizer

      • Kevin Brandt
      • Vanessa Kilgore

      Certified Search Engine Marketer

      • Frank Freund
      • Nick Swami

        Well done everyone! Please contact your tutor if you haven’t yet received your hard copy certificate, Status Page or certification seal.

        Also, don’t forget to join the Search Engine College Alumni on Facebook, become a fan of our Facebook page and follow our Twitter profile @secollege for College announcements such as lesson updates, press releases, new courses, events and milestones.

        Q and A: How can I make my blog searchable and rank well on search engines?

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        QuestionDear Kalena…

        How can I make my blog searchable and rank well on search engines? How long on average does it take a new blog site to receive good traffic?

        Thanks

        Priscilla

        Hi Priscilla

        My first piece of advice would be to host your blog on your own domain name and not with any of the many free hosted platforms such as blogger.com, wordpress.com etc. This serves two purposes:

        1. You gain maximum SEO potential from all inbound links you receive as they’re pointing to your site and not helping improve the authority of the main root domain that you’re blog is associated with.
        2. If you decide to move things around, you have full control over how the pages redirect and can ensure no previously built inbound links go to waste if/when changes are made.

        Once you have your own domain and hosting account to house it, the next big thing is having search engine friendly blog software. I personally use WordPress as it’s one of the most popular and even without adding any plugins, it has some really good SEO features built-in. It’s also really easy to extend and add widgets / plugins to make it even better.

        Put together a blog schedule to ensure you’re consistent with your posts – it could be daily, weekly, monthly or whatever works-out best for you. You could even set aside a day a week to prepare posts and write a few in one sitting then schedule them to go live at different intervals. Regardless of how often you blog, it’s essential to make blogging part of your routine as it’s very easy to let other things get in the way and before you know it, you haven’t posted anything for a couple of months.

        While having great content is crucial, you will still find that it often isn’t enough to drive traffic, so the next step is to get your name out there. Comment on other relevant blogs, offer to guest post, participate in blog carnivals, promote your blog using other social media tools like Twitter and look for as many opportunities you can find to let people know you exist.

        A new blog post can be indexed in minutes, but proper traffic and subscribers takes time to build.

        If you’re serious about creating a successful blog, I’d also suggest checking-out ProBlogger as he provides a tonne of great advice.

        Hope this helps!

        Peter Newsome
        SiteMost SEO Brisbane

        Q and A: Why are My Google (India) and Google (USA) Rankings Different?

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        Question

        Dear Kalena…

        Since last few days I am getting very strange result in Google SERP for one of my client website. When I search in Google.com (India) it given good result with compare to Google.com (US – I am checking through remote server). My target country is US and I am working to improve rankings in Google.com (US). I am having sound knowledge to get listed in geographic result and i have already fixed below things before 5 months. – Hosting server is in US – Google webmaster tool geotarget section is US – Google local listing in US – Maximum back links from .com domain Now my query is, why i am getting such strange result. What are the ways to get better rankings in Google.com (US)? I really appreciate your reply Thanks

        Jignesh

        Hi Jignesh,

        This is an interesting question.  As you are aware, when you make a search under Google, your physical location can influence the search results. Google does this on the basis of the geographic location of your IP address – which is normally (but not always) reasonably accurate.  By using the remote server you should be seeing search results as they would appear in the USA – even though you are in India.

        It sounds as if you have done many of the right things as far as optimising for the US market.  It is not clear from your question whether this has changed recently or whether you have only recently compared the results.  I also don’t know the keyword phrases you are using – which makes an assessment of the cause difficult.  But I would suggest that either the keyword phrases you’ve used are much less competitive in India, than the US (and may achieve higher rankings in India) – or that even though you have got backlinks from .com domains – perhaps a significant proportion of them are hosted in India.

        As far as tips for getting better rankings for Google.com in the US – just keep doing what you are doing – good quality, unique, keyword rich content, and authoritative backlinks.

        Andy Henderson
        Ireckon Web Marketing