Monthly Archives: October 2013

How & Why to Disavow Broken, Spammy and Irrelevant links to Your Website

Google's Disavow Tool

Since the release of new penguin updates and the hummingbird update, websites that have built good links in the past are being penalized. Those well-built links were only “good” for the old Google algorithm. What does this mean? This means that the new Google updates and algorithm may consider the links built by website X in the past to now be bad links.

What should website X do?

If you find yourself being hit by Google’s algorithm updates it may be due to these old “bad” links. If you have not already installed Google Analytics and Webmaster tools, you need to install them for your website. Google Webmaster tools will allow you to find all of the links that are linking to your website. You can download this list in order of most recent links, which is what we recommend.

 

  1. Login to Google Webmaster tools >> http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
  2. Click on the site (Website X) that you want to find the links from.
  3. On the left hand side, there will be a list of options, select SEARCH TRAFFIC.
  4. Then select links to your site.
  5. You should see a column of links titled; Who Links the Most. Click on the More>> button at the bottom of this list to view the whole list of links to your site.

(This will bring you to a page displaying a list of links to your site and the      number of linked pages)

  1. Above the links are three tabs to choose from; Download this table, Download more sample links & Download Latest Links.
  2. Click on the Download Latest Links tab and you will be prompted to open a CSV file or a Google Docs file of your links that shows the links to your site arranged by the date that Google “found” them.
  3. Check this list manually by going through each and every link by actually visiting the link and checking if the site is still operational. Also check if the site has any “malware” issues. Also, if the site is from a different country and has no relevancy to your site, mark this as a bad link.

10. Once you have a list of links that are bad, irrelevant, broken or “spammy”. Submit that list to Google to Disavow from your site.

 

Upload your list of links to disavow using the disavow links tool page below.

  1. Go to the disavow links tool page.
  2. Select your website.
  3. Click Disavow links.
  4. Click Choose file. (uploading new files replace previously uploaded files)

 

This will show Google that you are trying to clean up your site and when Google indexes your site and other pages again it will see a much cleaner looking site. Your site will/should only be linked to by relevant sites with higher Page Ranks. The spammy links will be gone and this should help your site recover from being hit by the penguin updates.

 

But remember! Your sites content must be good, and any content posted by your site or linking to your site should be helpful and relevant! Visit us at https://www.seosolutions.us to learn more about how to keep your site relevant, properly linked and out of trouble! If your company was recently hit by a Google update; contact us, we will help you recover your rankings ASAP!

 

 

 

How Guest Blogging Works

Guest Blogging

–        In order to start, you need to first setup a blog on the website and populate it with relevant articles.

 

–        Then, you need to setup a contact page / form on the blog which will list article acceptance guidelines along with contact details to attract guest bloggers via search engines.

 

–        Apart from this, you can submit the blog to various Guest blogging networks so the bloggers are aware of it.

 

–        Once they accept the guidelines and ask you to add their post on your blog, you can ask them to add your article on their blog with a contextual link to your site.

 

Benefits of Guest Blogging –

 

The benefits of guest blogging are numerous and make it well worth the effort on your part. Guest blogging is encouraged by webmasters and bloggers too. Here are just a few important reasons that your website needs to have an active blog.

 

–        Acquiring extra blogs from external resources enables a consistent frequency of publishing when you lack the resources to do it yourself.

 

–        Guest blogging exposes your audience to high-quality topics from other industry experts.

 

–        It increases the freshness of the content on your site which will increase the number of times the blog is indexed by search engines, ultimately leading to a higher search position for your blog.

 

–        It exposes your blog to the guests author’s fans and followers. If they share the blog on social networks, it will give your blog a chance to acquire social signals as well.

 

–        It may also be  associated with established authors which will increase your own Author Rank.

 

–        It will help to get links from within the content i.e. contextual links. This in turn provides your site with an often unique link profile.

 

Guest blogging consistently is not going to be shortcuts to achieving higher rankings quickly — these things take some work. However, the investment of engaging with online consumers will give you an advantage that won’t disappear overnight. And, if you do it right, it could help you get ahead of your competitors in terms of SEO.

The New Google Places for Business Dashboard!

What has improved?

Google Places Dashboard Screenshot
1. New Design and Layout with a cleaner, easier to use interface. As with most of the
other products, Google has given the Dashboard a “Google+” ish look.
2. Better integration with other Google products. The Dashboard now includes a tab
to allow business owners to manage their Google+ Local pages making it easier for
owners to gain access to the social features of Google+, such as sharing posts,
photos and videos. If you do not have a Google account, you will not see the Google+
Local page tab on your Google Places Dashboard.
3. Faster Updating. Edits will now be approved and go live quicker. Google is
promising faster data updates in most cases.
4. Service Area Businesses can now hide their physical address, and specify whether
they serve customers at a storefront or if they visit their customers. We feel this is a
big improvement.
5. A slicker photo upload functionality. Photo uploads now use the improved Google+
photo upload interface and allow for drag and drop uploads.
6. The business description editor allows you to add rich text and URLs. This will
make sure that you can link to your website straight from your business
description. The 200 character limit in the description field has also been removed.
However, the more rich text you add, the more likely that it will require longer
moderation and thus the delay in getting your listing up.