MindScape

We have recently started upgrading the code for our company’s website from XHTML 1.0 Strict to SEO Semantic XHTML 1.0 Strict. The new code would help in the following ways:

• Reduce the file foot print making the pages lighter and further reducing the load times.
• Assist search engines in comprehending the right hierarchy in which the content is to be inferred.
• Reduce the ever-increasing server load and bandwidth consumption.
• Possibly, improve the search engine rankings.

Those who might be interested can view the new (under development) code at http://www.vinove.com/

Update: We have received several e-mails enquiring if we offer SEM Semantic XHTML Conversion - Yes, we indeed do! If you would like to know more, please get in touch with us now!

Google toolbar page rank update which was expected to happen by the end of April, finally seems to be eventuated. We were observing real time inconsistency in our toolbar page rank (Sometimes it went to 5 and sometimes to 0).

Finally the chase has been in our favour and google has assiged a page rank of 4 to Vinove’s website www.vinove.com ( an accession of 2 points).

The April, 2007 page rank update has happened to be negative for many website owners as they have observed a dip in their page rank.

Real time changes have taken place with the new link algorithms coming into existence

1) Google disrespected all our links from pages like (links resources, links etc..etc)
2) Links below PR 2 were disregarded
3) Higher number or links coming in from ethical medium (Blogs, Articles etc. etc.) were considered.

For more information regarding the April 2007, Page Rank Update Click Here

As of today, most of the link building efforts are geared towards enhancing the Google Page Rank to further improve the search engine rankings. This may not be a wise approach considering the rapid changes in the world of search engines.

While acquiring links, it might be a good idea to consider the following:

* Traffic on the website that you wish to get a link from (both quality and quantity).
* How many links are already placed on the page?
* What is the relative position of your link?
* What is the quality of the neighboring links?
* Is the page a content oriented or a link laden page?

If due attention is paid to all/most of the above, not only the links acquired would result in PR enhancement but would also further help generate quality traffic to the website.

As a rule of thumb, if a link is acquired with a mindset of generating traffic rather than increasing the in-bound link number, it is bound to help your website on all facets!

Search engines seem to be either testing or moving towards a social search paradigm. Some of the examples include:
http://www.younanimous.com
http://www.eurekster.com/

Also, Yahoo is testing its social search engine:
http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/faq

With numerous businesses relying on search engine rankings primarily, if not exclusively, an important question to ask is: What would be the future of Internet Marketing/SEO?

Some of the rather instant thoughts that come to mind are:

* Internet Marketing would further move towards a paid model with in-organic results over taking the organic ones.
* The search engine rankings would not only be driven by the search engine algorithms.
* The importance of currently existing concepts namely Google PageRank would recede.
* Content would rule: Websites serving quality content would attract repeat quality visitors and higher popularity resulting in even higher traffic.
* Meta search engines that integrate a number of tools like digg, del.icio.us etc. would further gain popularity.

It is now time for companies around the world re-think their long term Internet Marketing strategies and plan accordingly to minimize the “damage” social search engines might cause!

More later!

We noticed a change in the PR for some of our websites’ internal pages followed by a back link update. Seems like the Google PR update is underway!

Anybody else noticed any changes to the PR?

The Internet has provided open vicinity to correspond your views. Internet provides a large area of communication and a chance to develop your local and social network. Now it has become significant for every business entity to expand their market and target global audience for their products and services.

Internet marketing can be used as a mediator service to promote your business online and generate high volume business opportunities globally.

Nowadays the most prominent part of internet marketing used by people is search engine optimization as the majority of people prefer using search engines to find their required products or services.

Search Engine Optimization is a service which ensures increased number of visitors and better business opportunities through your website.

More than often, we have our prospective clients ask us common questions about online marketing/Internet marketing/SEO.

In an attempt to spread the awareness about these commonly asked questions, I will try and answer some of these below:

Q. What is SEO?
Ans.: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a continuous process involving various activities and refinement of the website to further improve its chances of being ranked in the top results of a search engine (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos etc.) when a relevant search is undertaken.

Q. Why SEO?
Ans.: Some facts:

Britons are spending more time on the Internet than on any other media including television, newspapers, radio etc. - A study by Google

96% of US manufacturers have a website - SEO is one of their hottest tools to market themselves.

93% of all Internet traffic is generated by the search engines out of which 89% are first time visitors

65% of the revenue is transacted from the top 3 ranks on the major search engines.

Q. Why is SEO expensive?
Ans.: The price for a service or product is directly proportional to the effort involved. There is a lot of effort that goes into SEO and thus the prices are relatively high.

Q. When will I get to see the results?
Ans. It depends on various factors, some of which are:

Your industry/competition

Selected keywords

Your competition

The domain age

Typically, you should start seeing the effect within 6 months of your campaign start.

Q. What are the guarantees?
Ans.: There are no guarantees simply because it is not possible to pre-estimate the ever-changing algorithms of various search engine crawlers. Additionally, as the awareness about SEO is increasing by the day, more and more people are trying to reach the top slots on various search engines - your competition is no different.
On a side note, please stay away from anybody who guarantees a given rank - the mere fact that someone is guaranteeing a rank/position is warrant enough to trust that they are not a good provider.

With the ever increasing number of Internet users, it does make sense to consider SEO as one of the media to market yourselves.