Why Alexa Ranking Sucks!!

Why I do not care much about Alexa rankings

The very thought of installing a spy in my machine to track my behavior is repelling enough for me. And a system that depends upon such spies can never be trustworthy, because there are millions out there, who thinks like me, and who would never allow any intrusion in their privacy zone. And how come you ignore the

behavior of such a huge community! Its more like the opinion polls conducted by various news channels before the elections here in India, and predictably every time they come out with a bizarre forecast, that ultimately never happens. This “type” can only work, if the samples taken to measure the effect are diverse enough and really big in volumes. In most of the cases this never happens and we get a faulty and biased result. I hate this man! How come you put on such a fucked up score sheet to calibrate ones quality?

Toolbar dependency

Alexa, solely depends upon the data fetched by its toolbars, installed in the machines of the users across the world. So, that means, if you have never heard of Alexa, and don’t have its toolbar installed in your browser, you are not qualified to cast your vote for a site. Fuck man!

A simple strolling will give you an idea, that all the technology related sites, tech blogs, web services sites, social networking sites and all are ranking really high in terms of Alexa. Reason is simple, Its young and tech savvy people, who install this toolbar the most in their browsers. So its easier for the tech and new age sites to get higher Alexa ranks, compared to others.

Feeble consideration of linkings

Though the speculation is there, but still no one can say with conviction, that Alexa considers, links while ranking a site. Even if they do it, I’m more than sure that the contribution is really feeble and amateurish, compared to that of Google.

Great presentation..thats it!

One thing that alexa does very well, is the way they represent their data. It makes people think that its really awesome and very analytical, which is not true. The presentation is great, but the data are not. It simply lacks the volume that is required for an authentic survey. So guys, beware, please do not come to a conclusion based on those incomplete data, better make a survey yourself or you can use a pretty cool tool named “Google”.

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Posted in: Alexa is disgusting,Alexa is not good,Alexa ranking is not authentic,Alexa Sucks

Social branding optimization: Optimizing a brand’s value through social media

Even 2 years back social branding as a profession was so naïve that, nobody would give it a serious look, and a few social branding experts, who were into it, used to be considered as just a bunch of net freaks. Well how quickly times changed! All the brands (big, mid or small) are now flocking to these “net freaks” to design their online branding strategies and to enhance online user engagement, which has become so much important for a brand these days.

These days, no matter whatever the vertical of a business is, it should have an online social presence, because if you are not engaging your customers online, then someone else will eat your part of the cake and you could be left starving. So irrespective of the nature of the business, everyone is taking the social media branding plunge.

Now the question is if everyone is getting conscious about the social media presence of their brands, then why the success v failure ratio is so low? Different social branding experts have come out with different reasons and opinions; some social branding experts have put the blame upon faulty strategy where some social branding experts are blaming the selection of inefficient Internet marketing companies for the job. Yes, you cannot disagree with the validity of these two points, but I dug down a bit deeper to find out the exact root of the problem.

Let us put a line through the stack of the brands and divide them into two simple stacks.

Stack 1:

Business Size: Large

Business age: Old

Offline Presence: Strong

In this stack we have brands that are real big; they have gained this reputation well before even the dotcom boom. Brands like, Pepsi, Coca cola, Nike and all come in this stack. So well before the social media came into the picture, the people already knew about them. And all that they did was just propagating their offline presence to online, and strengthening their overall brand value through enhanced customer engagement. So for them creating an online buzz was relatively easy. For them it was the product that came first, then came the social media branding. It still worked for them, because they already had a strong “Offline social presence”.

Though it’s an entirely personal take, but still I DO NOT find the Pepsi logo good enough. Now had Pepsi been a new product trying to penetrate the market and popularize its logo through Social media branding, I don’t think it would have been successful in its effort. In that case people wouldn’t accept that DUMB logo and the overall product could have been a disaster. But since we have been seeing this logo for ages now, we somehow have got used to it and in turn started liking it as well.

Now what I’m trying so say here is, for an already famous product or service, designing a social branding is comparatively easy and this strategy cannot be copy-pasted for an unknown or fresh product or service.

Stack 2:

Business Size: Any

Business age: Zero

Offline Presence: Zero

The real challenge comes in while doing social branding for a fresh product or service. Nobody knows about your product or service, so your social branding strategy should be strong and convincing enough to draw public attention.

And for this, the most important feature that a social branding strategy should have is, flexibility. A non-flexible social branding strategy can never survive in the longer run. Because with an ever evolving market, your business plan should also pass through a continuous evolution curve to stay with the stream.

Now several times, I’ve seen that a product, in spite of having very strong features, do not see the dawn of success. There’s a difference a good product and a popular product. A popular product must have something good in it, but a good product does not necessarily have to be popular. And many products get caught in this thin line of separation.

So what I believe is, it’s always better to build a product keeping its social branding and other online marketing aspect in mind, rather than building a product first and then worrying about its social branding and online marketing. Some may raise a concern with this theory as; in some cases this approach might make a developer compromise with his creativity. But at the end of the day, if you are building a product for people, then you must also consider their thoughts as well while building the product.

Most of the people do not do this and thus even before the social branding or online marketing campaign for the product gets started; its black fate gets sealed.

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Posted in: Online Branding,Online Branding Experts,Social Branding Experts,Social Branding Optimization,Social Media Branding

Google social search is getting bolder

Google has made their social search or real time search bolder by directly including the social search results in to their SERPs. By this they have confirmed that they have now seriously started to consider Twitter and other real time social medias for their regular search results and not just for the results that you get to see after using Social filter. They are now mixing the article or blog results that are shared using the services like Twitter or Google Buzz with the regular organic search results. For an example while searching “A Beginner’s Guide To A/B Testing”, I came across a Twitter result that Smashing Magazine shared with their Twitter account, and since I am connected to their Twitter account, I was dished out their twitter result along with other regular search results by Google.

And at present, we can see only Twitter and Google Buzz results for the search queries, so no facebook invasion as of now. But if the things go this way, we may soon start seeing the long awaited facebook public profile results in SERPs. That might change the total social search approach for the search engines. And we might not have to wait long for start seeing a complete mix of real time results and traditional results for relevant search queries. That only means that Google is going to give more and more importance to the freshness of a content. The fresher the content and the stronger presence it has in the social media channels, the better the chances will get for it to rank for a relevant search query. So no matter how good a content you have in your web page, you must circulate it in the social media to make it rank in the search engines.

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Posted in: Google Buzz results,Google Real Time Search,Google Social Search,Google Twitter results,Social Media Results in Google

Google's Self Piloted Cars Hit the Roads

If its a product coming out of the house called Google, then you must stop for a while and take a note of that. Are you from San Francisco or California? Have you recently seen a Toyota Prius whizz past your car that is fitted with some police surveillance car like equipment on the top of it? Well you can be sure then, it was a Google car that didn’t have anyone behind its wheel (at least technically).

In a recent blog post Google has revealed that seven retrofitted Toyota Priuses are cruising around the California and San Francisco’s several areas as a part of Google’s latest ambitious project. Over the past few decades, several automakers and researchers have been worked on the self piloted vehicles. But most of them either couldn’t cross the lab door or have performed under controlled test conditions. So this initial few laps by those seven self piloted cars bear a lot of significance.
Though along with the post, came Google’s official statement that this test is just a part of their various ambitious experiments that take place in Google labs, and they do not have any commercial plans for this project as of now. But one can easily make a call that with such a successful first lap in the vault, Google has every reason to be optimistic. And so there is every possibility that in coming years we could see Google venturing into a complete new avenue.

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Google Buzz..what do they think.

Due to several personal as well as professional reasons I couldn't make a single post about Google Buzz, which is creating a lot of hullabaloo. Many have been expressing their concerns about the privacy parameters, while at the same time may have stated their optimism regarding this new concept.

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Posted in: Buzz vs Twitter,Google and Twitter,Google Buzz

Google airs its first television ad

The speculations came true eventually, when Google aired its first major television ad last Sunday during Super Bowl. Google finally decided to take control of the ground they might have lost due to a delayed start.

Google has also made a blog post regarding the event saying,

“If you watched the Super Bowl this evening you'll have seen a video from Google called "Parisian Love". In fact you might have watched it before, because it's been on YouTube for over three months. We didn't set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search. Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it's had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience.”

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Yahoo BOSS is not going to die a premature death

Yahoo BOSS is not going to die a premature death as was being speculated by the developers’ network. It, at least for the time being, is going to continue. After staying in the basement for several months, Yahoo BOSS is finally opening up to the third party developers, who were almost starting to give up hope on this strong search platform. Though it is still unknown that how much affected or influenced it will after Bing’s invasion, it can be assumed that Yahoo definitely has some plans for this wonderful platform. So either it can get amalgamated with Microsoft’s development foray or can stand strong in spite of MSN’s intrusion, weathering the storm. This was made clear by Yahoo, when their spokesperson Ashim Chhabra left a post on the BOSS group forum explaining the reason behind their meteor like disappearance. Here is the forum post by Ashim Chhabra that was posted in Technocrunch.

Folks,
Thank you for your feedback. We understand your frustration. This process has been long for all of us due to the complex nature of our agreement with Microsoft, and we appreciate your patience.
Under this agreement, Yahoo! is permitted to continue offering the BOSS web service, with search results that would integrate Yahoo! services and content with algorithmic results provided by Microsoft. As always, our intention is to provide a BOSS offering as long as it makes business and economic sense to do so. We are still examining what the BOSS offering will consist of, with some services powered by Microsoft, unique content that Yahoo! currently provides, and the potential for additional Yahoo! content in the future.
Prior to the announcement of the Yahoo!-Microsoft search agreement, we’d already shared our intention to explore a fee-based structure for BOSS. We continue to explore an appropriate fee structure or other revenue model as we work through the future of BOSS.
As you know, we must receive regulatory clearance before actual implementation of the search deal with Microsoft can occur. Only then can we finalize the future shape of BOSS. Of course, we will provide additional clarity and certainty when we can.

Thanks for your attention!

Yahoo! BOSS team

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WSJ is beaten hands down by Google News!

When Mr. Ruperd Murdoch is busy complaining and drawing legal strategies against Google, a data generated from comscore comparison has popped up that is definitely going to give Mr. Murdoch a fresh new point to look at the ‘News’ issue (if he is not painstakingly prejudiced).
According to a recent survey it is revealed that, more people trust Google News over any other dedicated news brands, when it comes to getting news online. The closest competitor being New York Times, who has been outnumbered by an astonishing margin of 34million unique visitors. According to the survey Google had attracted almost 100 million unique visitors November,2009, with compare to 66millions by NYT. And if you are thinking where the hell is Mr. Murdoch, he is right at the bottom layer fetching just about 6 million unique visitors last month. Someone please go and tell the gentleman that it is just not the way to go about things!
You simply can not afford to be a hard nut, when it comes to compete with a brand as innovative and as trustworthy as Google! This striking data has not only given WSJ a lot of stuff to think, but also raised a serious question over the acceptability of the News Brands.
At this point you must be thinking that Google is doing just a great job!
You are right Google indeed is doing a great job, but there is another player who’s doing greater job in this field. Guess who?
It’s Yahoo!!!
The survey has revealed that almost 138 million (WOW!!) unique visitors had knocked Yahoo News, when it came to getting the news. Now that was some finding!
You just cannot write Yahoo off.
Following is the Comscore’s unique visitor’s graph(as posted in tech crunch);

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Google's Real Time Search - Its Real Now!

It was new, it was happening, it was futuristic and above all it was related to “Search”. So how could Google stay away from it? It’s just little over six months since Larry Page had announced that they ‘have to do it’, and they have done it. It just proves their commitment and why they are the leaders. Of course they are not the first bring it, Bing has already been providing real time updates from twitters and all, but Google’s ‘RTS’ feature makes more sense to me. Let me tell you why;
 To avail Bing’s real time search you have to go to a dedicated page. That’s a complete repeller for me. We simply don’t have enough time to access different pages for regular results and real time search results. That’s where Google scores higher. Their feature makes more sense to me. You only get to see it ‘if’ there is any interesting updates available in the web, otherwise you will never get stuffed with crappy and unnecessary updates. And above all you will not have to go to another page to get them.
 Another overhead of Bing’s RTS is I think the retweet option. These tweets never get updated, so whats the point in retweeting? Google’s newest offering is atleast clean from such overheads.
But till now Google has covered very specific and little space for updated news. So you get to see real time search results for very few and selective keywords. But I guess that’s going to change, as its understandable that it’s still in an experimental phase, and they are definitely going to improve it.
But we go by the words of Amit Singhal, Google’s Ranking System’s head; Google will stay away from providing unwanted and unnecessary updates so that it never becomes annoying. Singhal added that Google RTS covers updates from the following domains,
• Tweets from twitter
• Google Blog Search contents
• Jaiku updates
• Identi.ca updates
• TwitArmy updates
• Google News updates
• Updates about newly created WebPages
And we think, this list is just going to get longer.

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Pull Up Your Socks to Optimize Your Site's SPEED to Rank Well

Last Monday in a remarkable presentation at Pubcon, Matt Cutts has revealed that there is a strong possibility that Google might start considering loading speed of a site while ranking it. He said that the this parameter is under the review for quite some time now and lately it has caught a strong wind behind it through several lobbies within Google.

He said that Google's aim has always been to provide it's users with fast and most relevant search results. And with perception like that how could they overlook the speed factor. After all there's no use having a SERP full of relevant results that take ages to load. That's definitely not where the future of search lies. Specially when real time search is gaining more and more wind, this discrepancy is annoying not only from users point of view but also from that of Google's.

There's already around 200 parameters that Google consider in their algo, it could very well be an addition to the list shortly.

Though it might not be the most important factor, but still it could very well be decisive in its own term. So I think the time is not very far when webmaster's will start optimizing the speed for their sites.

To know more on this topic, see the webpronews video below that features the Matt Cutts interview.

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Is News Corp Really a Crusador for Modern Day Journalism

When the several news agencies under the self proclaimed leadership of News Corp raised their voice against Google's authority to publish their news without their consent, I really gave it a thought that 'is Google really going a bit too far to please it's users?'

I thoroughly analysed their claims and their accusations. In spite of being a great fan of Google, I kept myself neutral to avoid even the single pixel of biasedness.

Their main allegation against Google was that they are providing their users first click info about a news, which is simply unacceptable. And I agreed with them in that point. But when I looked in to the matter with a slight seriousness, it sounded to be honest ridiculous to me, Why so?

Well how much info Google is providing in the first click?

The answer is, it's only the amount that you are providing them to publish. And you have full capability to control this amount. A person with the modest knowledge on web technology can put a limit on this.

And in an age, when a 10 year old kid knows how to protect his data using password, it sounds really nonsense that a big media house like News Corp are incognizant about that.

So if they want only their paid users to view the news, they can easily design their site in a way that SERPs will only show the news titles, and whenever a viewer wants to get in to it, it will ask for user name and password. And if the user is registered, then only he/she can read the news. It's as simple as that! So why they are making such a big noise out of it ?

Are they trying to use this issue to clear up their own guilts?

Specially if we think of News Corp, they have had a long tradition of plagiarism. And when 'they' speak against it in a way, it really sounds fishy.

I have no personal grudge against News Corp and all, but all these just seems to be too easy a problem to make a noise for.

And if you are thinking that why should news media make that extra technical effort to ensure their privacy, I think its too little a compromise compare to what they are going to get for it.

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Google Introduces "One Box" Music Search feature

Google now has gone one up over yahoo in the domain of music search with their newly announced “One Box” venture. It also marks the beginning of a new journey by Google in an arena once overlooked by them. And here they have done almost a catching up job by embedding this new music search feature. But as they say, its always better late than never! Though Google was lethargic to react, still when they came up, they came up with a feature that is much superior to the one already in motion by yahoo. While Yahoo’s music search only returns live playable music results for the artists name only, Google’s will return results for album and songs name also along with the traditional artist name results.

Turning down the speculations thrown out by the media that this music search results will come up with links to purchase the songs, Google’s RJ Pittman said that, they have no intention to give a commercial touch to this search feature, at least at this point of time. But going by the past records, one can easily assume that this option is always on the cards. Any ways, who cares, at least I’d care the least even if they had embedded it with commerciality.

Google has tied up with online music majors like, Lala, iLike, Pandora and Myspace for this venture. And depending upon the availability, viewers will be able to listen to the songs live, provided by these content partners.

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