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A Quick Primer on Google’s Panda 4.0 Update

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Hosting

The post A Quick Primer on Google’s Panda 4.0 Update appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . In Chinese culture, the panda bear is considered be a symbol of peace. So why did Google name one of their best known – or maybe most notorious is more like it – major algorithm updates that has caused a lot of headaches in the SERP’s over the past few years after this wonderful animal? To be ironic? Who knows, but since there are a lot of people that are trying to figure out how to “beat” it (first step, stop always being reactive) and there is a ton of speculation out there on it, I want to take a few minutes to distill what’s being said with a few thoughts.   A Quick Recap Of Panda Google makes hundreds of tweaks to their search algorithm every year, but the updates that are especially impactful typically get internal code names like Vince, Caffeine, Hummingbird (this is a core rewrite to a major part of their natural language query engine, so calling it an update is an understatement), Penguin and Panda. The Panda updates are geared towards content quality on a website and are intended to boost higher quality sites while punishing other site’s that have primarily two things: Thin or spammy content Duplicate content The idea with the Panda updates is to try and send searchers to sites with high quality, helpful, unique and relevant content that’s going to satisfy the intention behind their query in the best way possible. One could definitely argue that’s the point of Google’s entire search algorithm, but this is all about the content side of the equation.   Ask.com gets Eaten By A Rabid Panda   Since there’s not currently a lot of hard data out there on what exactly is being targeted other than the general stuff I mentioned above, I wanted to provide a quick example of a site that got hit hard which will hopefully provide some insights. Disclaimer : I don’t mean this as a post to call out Ask.com for doing anything wrong, since I think this is an extreme example of a site being de-ranked vs. completely penalized. The former rewards competitors for producing better content while the latter is a direct slap to the face with a stern “No!” in response for doing something against Google Webmaster’s Guidelines which often results in dropping 100+ spots. Hopefully, they’ll bounce back soon. As you can see, Ask.com saw a MASSIVE drop which coincides with Panda 4.0 which was officially announced early evening on 5/20/14. Many SERP trackers like Mozcast and Algoroo saw big fluctuations earlier than that, though.   Considering there was another announced update which reported went into effect around May 17th or so which targets traditionally spammy queries/niches like payday loans, it’s hard to tell exactly which update we’re dealing with. It could very well be a combination of the two depending on the verticals each tracker is targeting. Nonetheless, you can see that there was a pretty large shakeup in SERP’s around then.   So Where Did They Lose Visibility, And What May Have Caused It? When I dug into what may have happened using one of my favorite tools, Searchmetrics , I immediately noticed that the vast majority of the drop happened with a handful of specific subdirectories. So what’s going on with them that could have caused the panda to get so angry?   Scraped Content From Other Authority Sites So let’s check out some pages in the /question/ subdirectory to see if we can find some things from a content standpoint that might be causing the cataclysm. Considering that I work in the web hosting industry, I decided to check out questions related to “Web Hosting & Domain Registration”, and a question about TLD’s (Top Level Domains) immediate stood out to me. Here’s what I found when I clicked over to the page:     I immediately noticed how little unique content is on the page, since the vast majority is just scrapped from other sources like eHow and Wikipedia. Even the direct answer to the question at the top of the page appears to be part of the Wikipedia description on the right with an additional sentence. No bueno. When I clicked through to the Wikipedia link on to top right, I’m taken to what is essentially an entire scraped post from this Wikipedia page.   What About User Experience? When it comes down to one of the main things that Google cares about, the user’s experience, I don’t think that Ask.com is 100% in the wrong. Sure, it would be much more valuable if they expanded on the topic by including unique additional reading that they produced vs. scraping it from other sites, but I also think that there’s value from the searcher’s perspective in having these related resources available on one page. In this example, the question is answered, and there’s additional reading that’s readily available without having to go back to Google if the searcher needs more information. That seems like a good user experience to me, but I think this is definitely one of those cases where both sides can be argued, especially since there are so many sites that do similar things which don’t add any value to the user. What do you think? Do sites which primarily just act as content syndicators provide value to their users? Should search engines like Google show the multiple sources to the searcher instead? Is Google overstepping it’s bounds by essentially forcing the internet to adhere to its vision/standards vs. just arranging and displaying the world’s knowledge as they originally intended?   Google’s Thirst For Quality Content Continues While this isn’t intended to be a definitive case study on Panda 4.0, I think provides some possible examples of why a huge site lost a lot of visibility in Google due to thin and/or duplicate content issues with some of their top subdirectories. If there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to take a deeper dive into additional large sites that may have been affected by Panda 4.0, so if you’d like to see that, please let me know in the comments! web hosting Continue reading →

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Alternatives To Traditional Business Start-Ups

Posted on May 29, 2014 by Hosting

The post Alternatives To Traditional Business Start-Ups appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing .   So You Want to Start an Online Business You’ve heard the tales about how much money can be made online, and how it’s just there for the taking. You’ve decided that you want to get a piece of that pie, and who wouldn’t? Humans have always looked for the next big thing that will allow them to advance in their personal lives, giving them the availability of taking more time to do the things that they desire, or the activities that they enjoy. There are many different concepts that a person thinks of when the image of making money online comes to mind: some think of the crypto-currencies that have been in the news in recent months, others think of the concept of setting up a storefront, while others still think of the various types of online trading that may be done, from penny stocks to the stock market to foreign exchange. The fact of the matter is that if you can dream it, you can do it (as long as it’s not illegal, of course).   Alternatives to the Traditional Online Business Freelancing – Just because you’ve decided to switch over to making your money online, it doesn’t mean that you have to either start your own company or work for someone else’s company. There’s the option of being an independent agent, either setting up your own website to promote your services, signing up on a website designed to connect freelancers to those looking for freelancing services (careful – not all of these are legitimate), or some combination thereof. Crafts and Other Made Goods – Perhaps you really like making something. Whether it’s sitting down after a long day and crocheting blankets as you watch a movie, making jewelry while you wait for the timer to let you know that your meal is done, or perhaps you like to sit in the yard, watching the sun go down, drinking a beer as you whittle animals out of pieces of wood. All of those little things that you’ve been making over the years, the items that are now sitting around your house, or in boxes in the attic or the garage, can be cleaned off and sold online for a pretty penny. You can either make your own site or use one of the many different forms of online medium available to do so. Services – Maybe you have a talent, one that people come to you about all the time, asking for your help in decorating, begging you to help them pick out an outfit, requesting that you tell them how to fix their lawnmower, how to trim their trees, or how to get rid of weeds. Heck, maybe you dabble in graphic design in your spare time or really enjoy correcting people (and you’re telling them constructively and not giving them false corrections). All of these and more may be bartered and traded online. There are those who make their money simply sitting around all day and playing video games, streaming the games they are playing to their audiences; people pay money to watch them play just to have something to do. If you can dream it, chances are, you can do it.   How Do I Get Started? This Sounds Great! For starters, don’t quit your day job. Though making money online can be far easier than the traditional nine to five, and it does have the benefit of allowing you to do the things that you enjoy as opposed to things that feel like “work,” remember that it will take work to get you to the point of being able to do the things you love online as your job, thus allowing you to feel as though you won’t be working another day in your life. You’ve got to get out there and make a name for yourself, build up your client base, and promote yourself and your products or services. It can take anywhere from six months to a year, sometimes longer, before you are able to comfortably step back and say that what you do online is what you now do for a living. It’s possible, and it’s worth it, but it’s not an easy path, but nothing worthwhile ever is. Just remember – if you can dream it, you can do it – and we’ve got the hosting that can help you on your way!   Image Source: therisetothetop.com. (2011). Different. Retrieved from http://www.therisetothetop.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/BeDifferent.jpg web hosting Continue reading →

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Building Your Start-Up In An Evolving Technological Era

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Hosting

The post Building Your Start-Up In An Evolving Technological Era appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . You’ve heard it before, “Small businesses have never been easier to start,” or conversely, “Fifty percent of all start-ups won’t be around in five years.” The truth is, the resources and information to begin planning a business have never been more accessible thanks to the internet. Everything from marketing to building a web-page equipped with responsive design can be learned from the comfort of home. Business itself, however, has not gotten any easier. If anything, the world of the sale has only become more competitive. In this article we’d like to discuss what foundational steps are still necessary to getting started, while focusing on the possibilities presented with a globalized market-place.   Planning A Foundation It’s important to imagine a business as being a living, breathing organism whose very life is dependent on the planning and investment placed in it. The best business owners make their careers extensions of their personality, strengths and skill sets. Knowing yourself and the lifestyle you like to live is a tremendous first step to developing a service others will respond to. Ask yourself three questions: What skill or product can I offer that enough people need? Does this business already exist? If so, how can I do it better? Will this business still be in demand five to ten years from now?   A foundation in the business world signifies room for growth, and a stable platform from which sustainability can be achieved. Without one, your business is 50% more likely to fail according to a study written by Paul Tiffany in “Business Plans for Dummies”. To get familiar with the look of a business plan, we’d highly advise checking out the steps involved at the Small Business Administration’s website .   Finding Momentum In The 20 th Century Rather than outlining the legal logistics , and discussing what form of business structure you should follow, we’d like to explore how to approach making sales in such a diverse economy. Apparent or not, making money has moved farther away from the cash register every year. According to PR Newswire , 89% of consumers prefer shopping online rather than in a store. A trend that has extended prominently into the mobile market as devices are being optimized to support mobile browsing and e-commerce. It may surprise you to know, but: Four out of five consumers used smart phones to shop in 2013 78% of retailers plan on investing in mobile technology this year Global 3G coverage is expected to be at 21% in 2014, increasing access for mobile users   What This Means Ask yourself one more question: Will what you’re selling be able to exist in the online market space? That is to say, your service or product can be seen, sold and shipped to anywhere in the world. One of the greatest factors being considered in business models nowadays, is how to best utilize the power of global connectivity. Think about it. What once was a limiting and location based market has now expanded to the eyes of anyone capable of accessing your web-page. Which leads us into the next point. If you’re not interested or are incapable of selling your product/service directly, having an online presence is still a must when it comes to how people choose businesses today. The faster your company can establish itself in the search engines, the more likely you will begin to see a profit.   Steps To Begin Optimizing Your Web-Page The optimizing phase is a great place to be at for a start-up. It means your brand has been developed, you have something ready for sale, and all that remains is allowing your business to be seen by those interested in your trade.   1. Build A Website With A Responsive Design Due to the increasing amount of mobile users, a factor to retaining traffic is whether or not your website will work equally as well from a smart-phone or tablet. Many customers will give up if a page doesn’t load correctly, or if it takes too long while browsing on a mobile network. Responsive Web Design (RWD) is a way of building your website to adjust gracefully between a computer, smart phone, tablet, or any other device of varying screen resolution. Many hosting sites have RWD built into the newer themes, saving you the extra dollar when it comes to having someone write the code instead. To remain competitive in 2014, it’s imperative that your information can be accessed no matter what device it’s found on.   2. Make Your Website Visible There’s a great deal to be said about how a website ranks in the search engine nowadays. Google, for example, has completely updated their algorithms to allow for more authentic and viable content to appear before any spam based pages. If Search Engine Optimization (SEO) seems like an entirely new language, it may be worth the investment to hire a company capable of having your website rank before your competitors.   3. Understand Your Customers With Analytics Part of remaining in business is understanding what your customers want. By using Google Analytics you’ll be able to monitor how much traffic your site receives, as well as how they move through its pages. By knowing what content gets page visits, you can begin to cater parts of your service towards areas of higher demand.   4. Tap Into Social Media It may not be the first stop for new customers, but the advantages of sharing your business and its updates with all of your existing social circles free of charge is unbeatable in the marketing world. Word of mouth is still one of the most popular means of referral, and if someone can recommend your company through Facebook it’s more likely an individual will trust your friend than a review left on Yelp.   Many businesses have learned the expenses involved with marketing, and with how much you can benefit from Facebook for free , it’s definitely an option you should consider once you’re ready.     Image Source: http://www.blog.zapstore.com/2012/04/how-smartphones-change-the-way-we-live-and-interact/ web hosting Continue reading →

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Four Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Your Business

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Hosting

The post Four Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Your Business appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Everyone makes mistakes. We all know it, and sometimes we recognize it as soon as we have done it that we have screwed up. Sometimes these mistakes can be avoided, other times they’re made when we’re not in our right minds, and sometimes we have no way of knowing they are mistakes until later. There are thousands of clichés and sayings that talk about mistakes just for these reasons. One way of making sure that mistakes aren’t made is to pay attention to what you’re doing, but another, perhaps more important, method is to pay attention to the mistakes of others. The trick is not just learning from your mistakes, but learning from the mistakes of others as well.   An entrepreneurial friend of mine has started companies around the world. One thing he always tells up and coming entrepreneurs is that they should do as he says, not as he does (or did). He turns all of the mistakes that he has made in business into teaching opportunities, showing others how not to make the same mistakes that he has made. While I cannot, and would not, want to go around telling you all of his mistakes, after all, those are his to tell, I can tell you from personal experience that there are certain things that don’t work, and hopefully you’ll be able to learn from the following:   Choose something you are passionate about Just because you know an idea can be a successful one, don’t choose it just for that, choose it because it is something that you enjoy.   Look, just because an idea is a great one doesn’t mean that it’s worth the hassle. If it’s not something that you enjoy, don’t do it. If and when it takes off, you’re going to be stuck with that business. You’re going to live it and breathe it as you work to make your company successful. If you hate the concept, don’t bother starting. You’ll waste your own time and burn out quickly.   Be realistic Just because you know you can make something work, you shouldn’t expect it to happen overnight. Sometimes companies take years to become fully solvent. Know that it will take a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of hard work to make your business take off. Once it does, you’ll have relatively smooth sailing, but it’s not instant.   Get out there and do it Don’t just talk about it. All the talk in the world won’t help you succeed; you’ve gotta work to bring it into existence – whatever “it” is. A book wasn’t ever written by talking about finding time to sit down and write a book, it was written because someone actually did sit down and write the book. Businesses are the same way. You can talk the talk all day long, but until you take that first, second, and third step, it makes no difference. Get to work!   Always treat what you do as a business It doesn’t matter what your product or service is; once you decide to start offering it to others, for money, you must always treat it as a business, for that’s what it is. It’s your new source of income. Don’t blow it because you used to just do “it” for fun. If an individual decides to start making prints and selling them on Etsy because all their friends wanted one, once that first order comes in, you get it done, get it shipped and move on to the next one. It’s fun, sure, but it is work too, and it needs to be treated as such. Make a home office if you’re working from home. Use it for only work related stuff. That will become your new place of business, going to that room or area as opposed to leaving for an office. It will put you in the right mindset and ensure that you are able to successfully dedicate your time to what you do. (For example, I used to love MMORPGs, but my computer is my work area, so I’ve gone back to console gaming, ensuring that I’m not distracted from work by anything other than the occasional website, academic journal, or the biggest time killer of all – Facebook.   By working to avoid these mistakes, you can work to make your business a success. Just remember, there are thousands of people online who can tell you what not to do, but only you can find out the winning combination that works best for you!   Image Source: Bullas, J. (2012). Oops!. [image online] Available at: http://www.jeffbullas.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Personal-Branding-LinkedIn-10-Mistakes-to-Avoid.jpg [Accessed: 27 Mar 2014]. web hosting Continue reading →

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Twitter Cards, What Are They?

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Hosting

The post Twitter Cards, What Are They? appeared first on HostGator Blog | Gator Crossing . Twitter’s advertising platform is still young, but it’s setting itself up to be really strong.  It still has plenty of areas for improvement, but if I had to describe Twitter Cards in one word, it would be FANTASTIC! In my personal experiments, Cost Per Engagement is down from $0.50-$1 to $0.05-$0.20.  For those of you who don’t know what an engagement is, it’s every-single-action on your ad. This means a click on a link, picture, your profile, retweet, favorite, or reply. With all those ways for people to engage, you unfortunately do sometimes pay for things you don’t want; in the advertising world, that’s lost money! With Twitter cards, you can create a clear Call to Action (CTA) with less characters and less channels to engage. I’ll explain each of these cards below:   LeadGen Twitter Card This is geared towards email marketers. If you build your list or are just thinking about building your list, then these are an easy way to do so. You can set it up where you can download email data or have it sent to your CRM such as Mailchimp or Salesforce. There’s a small list of CRMs that Twitter says are compatible with Twitter Cards , but if your CRM can receive POST data, then you “should” be fine. Don’t quote me on that, though. These LeadGen cards can be used in many ways. You can capture their email and send them to a page to download an ebook or a special landing page on your site. If you have an autoresponder setup with your CRM, you can automatically send them a coupon code or digital product via email as soon as they click your call to action and agree to give you their email address. Either way, you now have their email address to be able to market to them later. But DON’T SPAM!   NOTE: You will need to have a privacy policy on your site that you can link to. Almost every email marketer should know this and have one on their site. If not, you can review HostGator’s Privacy Policy as an example.     Website Twitter Cards These are quickly becoming my favorite. You know those links you have in your tweet for either your website / landing page or picture? GONE! You can now insert a picture and that becomes the link. Granted, it’s probably a lot smaller of a picture than you want, and the dimensions are a pain to work with, but if I can decrease character space and increase effectiveness, then I’m all for it. I’ve seen campaign engagement go up from 1%-3% to 10-20% and I couldn’t believe it! I certainly recommend trying these out in your strategy if you haven’t already. Personally, I think they need to add some more CTAs other than “Read More” because people won’t just use this for website views. They’ll want more strong signals to buy or download. Hopefully this feature will come soon enough.     While I’ve been impressed with the results I’ve seen thus far, it’s always worth noting that early adopters usually see better numbers than those that begin to use it after the first wave of users. And as with all marketing efforts, a large part of it is simply finding your niche . Have you started to use the Twitter Cards? If so, tell us about your results in the comments below. web hosting Continue reading →

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