Search Engine Optimization and Internet marketing Blog

7 things to know about Google Chromebook

Posted by Jude Festus on November 26th, 2011

Real good news for the gadget lovers, the search giant Google’s laptop powered by its own Chrome software is launched. Google Dubbed Chromebooks, the laptops, run on the technique of cloud based OS (operating system) and expand its Web browser Chrome.

Google Chromebook Launch

These laptops were announced two years back and were seen as a direct threat to Microsoft’s Windows franchise. And why only Windows, Chromebboks were also seen as an attack to Apple, manufacturers of Mac Computers and iPads. For past two years Apple and Google have been betrothed in neck to neck competition in the market of smartphone.

If you are also planning to own this proud possession of Google, the new Chromebooks, you need to know few things regarding it. Here is what all you are curious to know about Google Chromebooks.

1) If you are thinking how the Chromebooks would work, here is the key. Keeping web in mind, Google has tailored Operating System Chrome for the laptops. So, most of the features of the laptops would work if the Chromebooks is connected to the internet. The user applications, photos, movies, music, games and the documents would be on cloud. Cloud computing on Chromebooks would lessen the burden of time taking activities of traditional PCs including backing up files, installation of software and running antivirus checks.

2) No storage is required for Chromebooks as everything is on cloud. The laptops of Google would be thoroughly integrated with Google’s online service of cloud. This would enable the laptops with no capacity for storage. However, there would be slots to plug in other storages devices.

3) Samsung Electronics Co and Acer Inc are making the first Chromebooks. If you wish to buy them, log on to Best Buy and Amazon.com Inc in the US and have it for $299 to $499

4) The pricing of OS is another thing you would be thinking of. With the organization’s mobile OS Android, the Chrome Software would be free. Google sees this as the urge of people to surf more and search often so that the Internet Ads business gets a boost. Besides in the US, Google is planning to give the businesses its Chromebooks in addition to its technical support in form of hurdle free solution for a minimal price of $28 per month.

5) Google Chromebooks will run on Intel Corp’s Atom chip if you are bothered about its processor. Google has though assiduously worked to ensure that Chromebooks can be used offline, the computing model however, relies on being connected to the Internet. Google has claimed that it will enable offline support for services like Gmail, Cal and Docs. very soon.

6) The boot up time of the Chromebooks would just eight seconds. Each time a user turns it on, the software in chromebook would check the updates online and always boot automatically with the latest version.

7) Last and most important thing that you are interested in is security features of Chromebooks. You do not have to worry on that part even. Google Chromebooks are equipped with Sandboxing or secure tabbed browsing, verified boot and data encryption. These features enable Chromebooks with multilayer security hence nullifying the use of anti-virus software.

Buy these laptops online in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands and the United States. And India would be soon seeing its launch by early 2012

Creating Multiple Twitter Accounts with One Email Address

Posted by Jude Festus on August 19th, 2011

I’m managing few twitter accounts for my company and it would be difficult if i have to use multiple email accounts for multiple Twitter accounts. When you try to create a new account with a email id which is already associated with an existing Twitter account you will get the following error message ”This email is already registered. Want to login or recover your password?”. Well, there is an easy way to overcome this issue if you have a gmail account. Here’s what you have to do:

- Gmail ignores dot (.) in the username. So you could add variation to your username by adding a dot in between your username. All the emails send to these emails will be send to your actual emails. Ex: For the email id superstar99@gmail.com you can add a dot (.) and create more emails like superstar.99@gmail.com , super.star99@gmail.com , su.perstar99@gmail.com or super.star99@gmail.com and all the emails send to these ids will be send to superstar99@gmail.com .

- Likewise, Gmail also ignores anytext after “+”. So you can create more id’s by adding “+”. Ex: superstar99+Twitter@gmail.com, superstar99+Twitter2@gmail.com, superstar99+Twitter3@gmail.com etc anywhere in the username and all emails marked to these addresses will still reach your own Inbox.

Not only in Twitter, you could use the same trick in many other websites. Hope this helps.

How To View Only Active Campaigns in AdWords Editor

Posted by Jude Festus on August 9th, 2011

Does your adwords editor cluttered with all the campaigns which you’re not even using. Here’s a simple tip to view only the active campaigns.

Once you downloaded the campaign to your editor there is no way to filer only the active campaigns as in the online account. So,

Click ‘Get Recent Changes’ button on the top left panel
Choose either the Basic or First page bid estimates option
Choose ‘Campaigns I select’
Select ‘Active’ below the box listing your campaigns with checkboxes

This option will download only the active campaigns in the editor. Hope this helps.

If you don’t have the recent version of the adwords editor software. Download it here.

Remove /category/ from your WordPress url

Posted by Jude Festus on August 4th, 2011

There are different suggestions in the internet on removing “/category/” from your WordPress categories permalinks. In one of my other site, before removing “/category/”, when you click on a category the url it looked like this: mysite.com/category/categoryname/. I wanted to remove the /category/ and point all the category hub pages to the category name itself. Ex: mysite.com/categoryname

There are dozen suggestions in the internet like updating the htaccess file, editing the rewrite file etc. Nothing worked for me but here’s a simple step which worked for me:

Install the wordpress plugin “WP No Category Base“
Download it here

This plugin removes the mandatory ‘Category Base’ from your category permalinks (e.g. `/category/my-category/` to `/my-category/`).

All the best

5 tips to protect your privacy in Facebook

Posted by Jude Festus on May 9th, 2011

Well, I hope no one need an intro to Facebook. Anyone can become member of Facebook if they have a valid email address. Now it has become so popular among internet users so that the number of active users has crossed over 250 million worldwide. It includes various applications such as photos, events, groups and videos which help its users to share matters in interesting way. After viewing its core elements and popularity anyone will be interested to become its member. However, you need to know how to protect and safeguard your privacy. It is vital that all the important information shared by you with your intimate friends should not be publicized.

Facebook allows you to keep your profile and privacy settings in secured way. The privacy policy is certified and the media uses powerful tools for controlling the information which the user would not like to share with others. Let us find out how can you make use of privacy settings and profile options as significant tool for protecting your privacy. This article guides you with top 5 privacy tips for protecting your privacy details and personal information.

1) Customize Privacy Settings
You can organize the privacy settings according to your preference. You should know which friends can share all information and which one of them should not. As a responsible user you must know how to make use of friend lists feature in Facebook. It is true that only a fraction of users are making use of this element and believe it this feature is extremely useful for separating the social groups or blocking the unwanted affiliation group. When you open ‘Privacy Settings’ page you will see three options of ‘Everyone’, ‘Friends of Friends’ and ‘Friends only’. If you select ‘Everyone’ option, then anybody can share information about your photo, family, relationships, and your contact information. You can select last option ‘Recommended’ which the Facebook customizes and recommends for you. If you are satisfied with the ‘Recommended’ options then save it your settings. Otherwise, click on ‘Customize Settings’ option where you can see various sub-headings like family, relationship, contact information and more. For each subheading, you can block the access to only friends or friends of friends and to everyone, depending on your choice. For example, if you wish to share your ideas about politics and religious views to only friends then enable that option. Thus you can customize each and every subheading carefully so that your privacy is completely protected.

Click the Privacy setting from your Account Tab

In the next page edit the Privacy setting as told above.

2) Categorize your friends
You can group your friends and customize the profile settings. You can view the list of your friends at home page. Facebook adds the users of network which you belong to in your friend’s list. By this way, you can block your boss or any other colleague to gain access to personal information about you. Customize your friends such as “colleagues”, “college friends”, “intimate friends”, and “family friends” so that you know what information can be shared with them. Go to privacy settings, select “Friends” option and use ‘Create’ link for creating as many links as you like for grouping your friends. You need not want to share any special occasions like ‘how you behaved at the late night party’ or ‘how you lost your girl friend’ to your boss or family friends.

From the left side panel, click Friends

In the next page click the Edit Friends button

In the next page, from the left side panel modify your friends grouping.

3) Organize Profile effectively
You are the real owner of your account page and it is for you to decide what the profile information everyone should know is. Decide which parts of your profile should be seen by all. It is very simple to customize your profile. Click on ‘Profile’ option to view your profile. You can see the profile page which shares the information you have given access for viewing by all. Go to ‘Edit Profile’ located at the right corner. You have number of information like name, current city, date of birth and sex. For instance if you do not want all of your friends to know your location then you can block that option so that it cannot be accessed by all. You can let the basic information only to be shared by all.

4) Restrict access for personal information
Never allow everyone to know your gender, workplace, city, interests, marital status, or your family and relationships. You can restrict access for sharing personal information to all. By allowing this information left open to all who access Facebook you are inviting more problem since any third party application or advertisers will have all your personal information in his database. Since your close friends already know your email address, you can use separate email id for logging in Facebook. It is possible to create free email address in Gmail or Hotmail. So, keep separate account of email id just for the purpose of Facebook alone.

5) Change your Password regularly
Lastly, password is one of the basic tools you often neglect while using any social network. In practice you will make the password so easy and simple so that you will not forget it while logging in. Most commonly, users keep the date of birth or nick name or anniversary date or first name as their password. Your password can be cracked easily by others who know you. So, change the password regularly and make it a point to mix alphabets and numerals in your password. You can always note it down in personal diary at home, if it is difficult to remember. Remember not to access the Facebook in public internet cafes since there is every possibility that your password gets leaked out. Hackers can track your password from cookies and gain access to your account. Avoid using Facebook account or any other mail address on cyber café.

On the whole, Facebook is an excellent social network where you can share information and know more about what other people think about social issues. You should not be put to risk by exposing your personal information to unknown persons. You can follow the above tips or adopt strict rules while logging into any public network and ensure that your personal information is not leaked out to public.

My favorite Top 5 free wordpress themes

Posted by Jude Festus on April 11th, 2011

Here’s the list of my favorite top 5 wordpress themes. Please share your favorite wordpress themes in the comment section. Here’s an awesome post on why you should never search for free wordPress themes in search engines. These five themes has clean code and you don’t have to worry about any malwares.

1. Bueno (Demo requires signup)

Bueno is a very clean with minimal design and wonderful color combinations. Bueno has integrated banner ad management, widgetized sidebar and 7 different color schemes. For the theme integration the the theme is packaged wth a .po file.

2. Simplo (demo)
Simplo is widget ready and comes with easy to setup theme options. It has a built in menu management, JQuery Forms, Ajax based contact form, Live form email validation and 6 color styles to choose.

3. Voidy (demo)
This one of the beautiful free wordpress themes with very clean and minimal design. Voidy is a two-column theme with the widgets all arranged in the right sidebar.

4. Boldy (demo)
Boldy is free theme that supports WordPress 3.0 Menu Management. Boldy has in-built slideshows, jQuery-based forms and live form validation as well as a widget for Twitter. The footer, right side column are organised nicely with all the widgets.

5. Old School Demo

Old School is a child theme of the Hybrid theme framework, which means Hybrid must be installed before using this theme. It has a wonderful colour combination for the posts and the comment section.

It has a stylish blue design. It’s fun. It’s hip. And should bring a little life to your site. This theme represents the future for the Hybrid framework.

Life after Google Panda Update – Don’t give it up

Posted by Jude Festus on March 21st, 2011

Shortly after Google’s algorithm changes many websites have witnessed a fall in page ranking and traffic. Many content farms update their website with cheap content by reproducing or rewriting cheap quality content which were copied from other websites just for the purpose of search engine traffic and ad revenue and hence not providing any valuable information to the users. Google’s intervention and change of policy have drastically affected the websites like Mahalo, ezinearticles, Suite101 and more. However if you are updating your site with valuable original content you will not loose much. Google panda update has reduced the potential traffic of thousands of smaller websites and in particular blogs also. As always WRITE FOR USERS NOT FOR GOOGLE.

How exactly can you find out whether your website is affected?

Google has confirmed that change in its algorithm has tumbled tons of websites and as pointed out by statistics, approximately 12% of websites has been influenced by this move. So, how will you find out whether your website is included in that list or not? You need not call any tech savvy for discovering this stuff.

One easy way is, go to trends.google.com and log in using your mail id. You will know the fate of the website and the impact of panda update by typing the URL of the website in the box provided. While searching use the “last 12 months” parameter. Another way is to analyse your analytics data for the last 3 months.

Below is the Google trends for wisegeek.com which is one of the worst affected website. See how the graph is going down in the recent few days.

Check for the number of keywords for the last 3 or 4 months in your web analytics. See whether it’s dropped or not.

Popular websites like labnol.org has been worst hit by the panda update. It has lost almost half of its Google’s traffic by this new intervention. In this regard, Sistrix has released a comprehensive list of the worst hit websites due to the innovative benchmark of Google’s search engine. List of worst affected websites below:

Tips for lifting your lost poise

Having lost your potential visitors you are left distressed because of content farming update from Google. Now it is essential to boost the traffic and restore the page ranking. So let us find out what can be done for improving the traffic and build up the lost empire as before.

Now the hottest topic of the day is finding out the ways and means for fixing the problem of website traffic. A number of sites have already started musing over this issue by having discussions and more chats for finding out a solution.

The fact is it is not so easy to regain the lost traffic and as many others think it cannot be achieved overnight. You have to work hard to recover the rankings and it will take some reasonable time.

First step is to find out what exactly you have lost? Find out from the Google’s trend how badly is your website affected and drag in some statistical data regarding the percentage of lost traffic. Do some homework to find on what basis Google has downsized your website.

Find out whether the low ranking was due to the content of the article or it was due to the particular keyword. Improve the standard of your content by sticking on to the value. First accept that if you have lost more than 60-70% of the traffic then nothing more can be done for bringing it back. In case your loss is only 15-25% then something could be done for improvising the site.

Some tips are given below for fixing your problem:-

Rationalize the most important pages which caused the problem
Delete the unwanted pages which were created by using cheap content farming techniques
Proper use of Nofollow tag and Canonical tag
Hire genuine writers who could do wonders to rebuild your traffic
Restructure the site with improved content by keeping users in mind

Above all, you should remember one thing. Google’s server will again list out your site in the first page, if your content and quality is genuine. So do not try to cook the content. Take time to analyze the issue. You can also write a feedback to the Google mentioning the changes you have made. Wait patiently for some time and follow the results.

Expand your sources

Another way of sorting out this issue is to broaden your horizons. Don’t just depend on Google alone. Share information to your friends and well wishers by newsletter which can bring you more traffic. Add yourself in community sites like Face book and twitter. You can also include advertisement about your product or add some latest developments of your site in social websites. Nowadays, many potential users seek information from these social sites and this could help in restoring your traffic. Social sites have become a powerful medium now and make best of use of them for your product.

To conclude, you have to deal with this issue in creative approach. Think from the perspective of the user and find out what he will expect from you. Avoid including low quality content on your site. Instead devise a new plan by adding fresh inputs which are genuine and unique.

Panda update by Google scraps thousands of websites

Posted by Jude Festus on March 18th, 2011

Google is hitting the news for yet another episode. It is all about content farms, and rejecting the content from low quality sites. Many people who were managing the show using their low quality content started criticizing Google for the search quality results it displayed. But before actually delving into the topic do you know what exactly ‘content farm’ is.

Content farm is nothing but a company which handles and pays lot of freelancers to write and to produce greater number of texts or articles for increasing the rating of their website or blog using the Search Engine Optimization technique. These articles or texts for that matter are purposely written to satisfy the algorithms of the search engine thereby increasing their page ranking and number of potential customers to their site. To put it simple, they can generate revenue by attracting each and every visitor to their web page.

Now the issue before us is Google has silently introduced a major change in the algorithm of the search engine which decides the fate of the thousands of website owners across the world. Instead of displaying search content from content farms (which it was doing before) now Google has switchover to generate good quality search results for its user. Nevertheless, Google has not fully implemented this algorithm change worldwide. Now to begin with it has introduced this change from middle of February in U.S. alone. It has plans to progressively execute this change to other countries also.

This innovative idea of Google would for sure have large impact on low quality content farms who were once finding the top listed page ranking through search engines. Needless to say it would reduce the page ranking of many popular (!!) websites who were once boasting themselves as No.1 in the content world.

But what about the poor user who entirely depend on Google for searching anything from booking a move ticket to understand complex mathematical calculations. The user should thank the Google full heartedly because this update would fetch him better results ever before. And he would enjoy the original content generated from one of the good website which gives value for the stuff and not only for page ranking.

Search Engine History – Graphical Representation

Posted by Jude Festus on December 20th, 2010

Let’s have a look at the history of search engines over the last 20 years. Infographic presents the history in graphical format.

Infographic: Search Engine History by Infographiclabs

Build your Career Tree from your LinkedIn Profile

Posted by Jude Festus on November 23rd, 2010

Here’s a fun way to illustrate your career. Newsweek provides you an option to build your career tree (just like the family tree apps) with the information in your linkedin profile. The branches in the tree is traced with your education and work life. The cool thing is you can share your career tree via facebook and twitter.

If you don’t have enough information in your linkedin profile you can also add details of your career to the tree manually using the “career tree form” available on the same page.

This diagram below illustrates the career path of the American President – the branches represent his education and the work experience.