Why I Love Google Panda (and you should, too)

Posted by RuthBurr “Panda” has become kind of a dirty word among SEOs. Tweet about a trip to the zoo or a cuddly stuffed animal, and you’re bound to get a tweet back saying, “Ugh, don’t say panda, I’m still traumatized.” My response to this reaction is twofold: Reaction 1 : Whatever, you guys. I still love pandas. I mean, look at this guy: Pandas! by RickWeiss, on Flickr   Reaction 2 : Whatever, you guys. I love Google Panda. The hell you say? Yes, that’s right. I’m kind of a fan of Google Panda. Why? Because in addition to being an SEO, I’m also a Google user. I use Google multiple times every single day; everything from topics I’m researching for work, to the menu of the place I’m going for dinner (WHY PDF WHY?), to a variety of queries that start with “can dogs eat.” And back in 2010, Google started to suck. An embarrassing anecdote During the 2010 holiday season, I went out and got myself my very own, non-plastic, real live Christmas tree for the first time. Unbeknownst to me, that tree came with a very special Christmas gift just for me: fleas. My apartment got fleas like your great-aunt’s cat Mr. Mittens. It was bad , people. And it being the holiday season, I was pretty strapped for cash. What I wanted was a way to get rid of the little bastards myself, without calling an exterminator or spraying my apartment with poison. So what did I do? I turned to Google. Here’s what I found: pages and pages of articles titled “How to Get Rid of Fleas” that were all meaningless, thin-content paragraphs riddled with links to exterminator services. Not just one or two, but multiple searches resulted in a SERP full of this garbage . It was only after a fair amount of digging that I was able to find the solution (vacuum alllllll of the things really thoroughly, seal your clothes/bedding in a plastic bag for a day or two and then wash them in super-hot water) I was looking for. Lately, I’ve been speaking to some college classes on SEO and when I start to talk about Panda, I ask if they remember a time when it seemed like every search they did turned up shallow, worthless results that seemed to talk about what they wanted, but didn’t actually provide any answers. And you know what? They all remember, and they all agree that SERPs have improved significantly since then. The Panda update was an upsetting, stressful time for SEOs and business owners alike. It was far from perfect; a lot of perfectly good content got knocked out with the bad, and a lot of innocent (i.e. non-black-hat) websites were affected. But it ultimately did make a lot of SERPs better, returning more trustworthy information that is more relevant to the query. Take a look at the SERP for “How to Get Rid of Fleas” today. It still has a ton of results from sites like eHow and Instructables, which are sites that we might typically associate with having been hit by Panda. The difference is that now, those pages actually contain information on how to get rid of fleas. Additionally, there are results from highly reputable sources like the ASPCA, adding a measure of trust. Panda was intended to make sure that when people Google something they can actually find it. On that measure, I’d say it succeeded more than it failed. Bad panda “But Ruth,” I hear you say. “You should know as well as anybody that innocent businesses were affected by Panda. People lost a lot of business.” I know, and I kind of blame Google for that. They told us that the best way to rank was to have content on every page. No matter how many times they told us “create content for users, not search engines,” by also telling us to have content on all the pages, they were effectively saying “create content for search engines.” Small businesses often don’t have the resources to create the kind of consistent, deep, relevant content that Google really wants. I can see why creating a bunch of keyword-rich but otherwise meaningless content might have seemed like the next best thing. I can only imagine how frustrating and scary it was for businesses to have their pages wiped from the SERPs in Panda’s wake, and I KNOW how frustrating it was for SEOs to try to help those once-burned, twice-shy businesses get back into Google’s good graces. How Google makes money Google makes money because Google has gigantic market share. They can charge advertisers more because they have the biggest pool of potential ad impressions and clicks to sell. This means Google has a complete interest in ensuring that when people search for things, they find exactly what they’re looking for. That’s it. Google does not care whether or not they foster small or local business growth in the U.S. and abroad. They only care about serving up the most relevant results they can to as many people as they can, so everyone keeps using Google. Like I said, Panda wasn’t perfect, but it did make a big difference in SERP relevance to a lot of queries. The other side of Google’s gigantic market share, however, is that many businesses need some kind of presence on Google to succeed. We owe it to our clients – nay, we owe it to the Internet itself – to help them actually create relevant resources for users who search on their keywords. In addition to pleasing Google, you may convince some of those people to buy something. It also means that we should make sure our clients invest in diverse sources of traffic. If a site has more than 50% of its traffic coming from Google, that leaves you pretty vulnerable to changes in Google’s algorithm. Finally, it’s more important than ever to help businesses of all sizes – even those who can’t afford SEO – market themselves online, the right way. I’m so excited that SEOmoz is working with GetListed now . I’m hoping that with increased access to resources to market themselves online, small and local businesses can start knocking content farms out of the SERPs. I’m also hoping that future updates like Panda – designed to keep quality in the SERPs – will be less dangerous to small and local businesses, because they’ll know more about what to do and what not to do. I’m also hoping we can go back to thinking “D’AWWWWWW” instead of “D’OH!” when we see a cuddly guy like this one: Panda by George Lu, on Flickr Sign up for The Moz Top 10 , a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

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Why I Love Google Panda (and you should, too)

PHP Errors as a Means of Getting Links

Posted by Eugene Krall This post was originally in YouMoz , and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. 1. Using a Search Engine for Finding Faulty Sites I was reading the article about “Broken Link Building” the other day when I realized that there might be a possible extension to the idea of helping webmasters with keeping theirs sites together. Since there is a lot of stuff that can go wrong with a website, I started probing possibilities. Here is what I came up with. Definitely, there might be other problems with an internet site that might be noticed by an ordinary user. And in order to take a well-structured and organized approach, I had to find sites with a certain clear and present problem, and be able to find these sites in bulk. While thinking about this, I was doing my usual everyday routine when suddenly a php error popped out on the site I was browsing at the time. You are no doubt have encountered something like that lots of times. I knew for sure that I had seen such type of error A LOT. Only all of those times I was in an absolutely different frame of mind and had no idea how I could use it to my benefit. The site was related to my own (that’s why I was browsing it in the first place), and of pretty decent quality and value, so it made perfect sense for me to ask a responsible person for a link from it. Only all of us know that you do not simply contact a person and ask them to link to you right away. You wouldn’t, would you? From experience we all know that all our requests that generate little or no value to the requestee should better be based on relationships, even if they are established by one simple sentence which says “Hi man, it seems your PHP is getting out of control, you had better do something about it: ”. OK, let me explain everything step by step. Try more subtle approach, show them that you sent the message only because you felt that it would be appropriate to let them know about the problem, not because you wanted to use it to your benefit. “By the way, I was thinking if there is any chance that you can link to my site. It seems your visitors might be interested in this sort of thing. Anyway, size it up for yourself and if you of the same opinion, kindly add the link and let me know” But let me explain everything step by step. 2. PHP Notification Explained A lot of you probably have quite perfunctory understanding of PHP. So do I. The beauty of it is that you do not have to be a programmer to help webmasters with their PHP problems. I will try to explain in short what you should know in order to be ready to write a PHP error message. Let’s assume that you already know that PHP is a server-side scripting language. If something goes wrong and a php command/function can not be executed properly on a page loading in a browser, PHP engine throws up a notification on the page (like the one displayed on the picture above). Sometimes they are not displayed, though, if the webmaster has chosen the “not display notifications in browser” option in the PHP settings. There are several major types of notifications, but all of them are uniform, which makes it possible for us to find them on Google. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples: Warning: include(../inc_header.php) [function. include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/actualad/public_html/hotel_soaltee_crowne_plaza. php on line 21 Notice: Uninitialized string offset: 0 in /var/www/odkryjpolske.pl/op3/functions/functions. php on line 1952 Fatal error: Call to undefined function tweetmeme() in /home/content/40/8396940/html/blog/wp-content/themes/magilas/single. php on line 54 Deprecated: Function ereg_replace() is deprecated in /var/www/virtual/sleepingparis.com/htdocs/admin/filemappa. php on line 18 Strict Standards: Non-static method DB::connect() should not be called statically in C:wwwAmautaphpdosmanosperuconnectiongateway.inc.php on line 28 I was able to spot five types of error notifications and then made an attempt to figure out a way to find them on Google so that the results were as relevant as possible. After taking a closer look I figured out that the part “php on line” was present in all the types of notifications. The only other part that seemingly remained the same were the words “Warning/Notice/Fatal Error/Deprecated/Strict Standards” 3. Seek… So, in order to get results containing pages with PHP error notifications, you should form queries: “warning:” [function." "php on line" "notice:" "php on line" "fatal error:" "php on line" "deprecated:" "php on line" "strict standards:" "php on line" But that might not be enough. Instead of getting search results with actual error notifications on faulty pages, you might stumble on a discussion of that error on some forum, or even the official PHP site. The solution is as follows: add some relevant keywords to your query (defining the type of site you want to deal with). Let's assume I have an online hotel reservation site and I want to get in touch with tour and hotel sites all over the world. I do the following: "warning:" [function." "php on line" intitle:tours "notice:" "php on line" intitle:tours "fatal error:" "php on line" intitle:tours "deprecated:" "php on line" intitle:tours "strict standards:" "php on line" intitle:tours The result is more than satisfactory one. There are 1,380,000 results for the query "warning:" [function." "php on line" intitle:tours and even the last hundred results out of 1000 displayed on Google are at least 50% relevant to what I was searching for. I mean the pages displayed indeed have a php error notification on them and offer tour services. But if you somehow feel that the results aren't relevant enough, you can always expand your search query by adding additional keywords. There is also a more thorough way to go. You may further brake down the types of PHP errors by the contents of a notification. Let's assume you have stumbled upon the warning notification which looks like: Warning: include_once(language/mn.php) [ function.include-once ]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /hermes/waloraweb061/b490/pow.sndmn/htdocs/destination/index.php on line 34 It is the easiest one to solve since it clearly states that the file or directory are missing. So all you have to write to the webmaster is “check your files and their names carefully” Let’s find the constant value of the message and delete all the information which changes (like the names of the files and folders, paths to them, etc.). And do not forget to attach your keywords! That’s what we get after some tweaking. “Warning:” “[function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in” “php on line” intitle:tours The query produces 132 results, which is quite something to start with since you already have the solution to the problem in your pocket. Now all you have to do is send your message to the respective parties in the results and wait for them to reply! 4. … and destroy! Usually, if you direct the attention of webmaster to the problem with their site, they should know what to do about it since they have probably earned being called “webmasters”. Still there are a considerable percentage of people who take care of their site to some extent without deep understanding of its mechanics. The site might have been created by a company for a client who does not know much in this sort of stuff. In this case, your ability to search for information on the Internet will enable you to warm up the hearts of mighty number of people who can add your link on their sites. What I am talking about here is trying to get to the bottom of the problem before contacting the webmaster so that not only could you state the presence of it, but also could help with figuring things out. It’s nice if you are into PHP and can crack any related problem without referring to World Wide Web. If, however, you are not that sort of person, you might want to read some specialized PHP forums: PHP Freaks SitePoint PHP Forum PHP Help Codewalkers PHP-Related Forum If the search comes up with a page which contains a following notification: Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/zungahto/public_html/includes/joomla.php:836) in /home/zungahto/public_html/includes/joomla.php on line 697 you have enough information to be able to find a solution. Let’s try to perform the following search: site:forums.phpfreaks.com “Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by” site:sitepoint.com “Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by” Google comes up with as many as 4,350 and 4,700 results for forums.phpfreaks.com and sitepoint.com respectively, which is one damn mighty pile to browse through. You might want to look through the top 10 and send the links to the discussions you deem appropriate in your message. Another way to go is just simply send the url of the forum so that the recipient could start a new thread for themselves to address their problem exclusively. Of course it’s not an exhaustive solution, but it will give the webmaster something to lean on. If you want to go hardcore though, you can plug in one of your company’s programmers to give advice to the recipient (only I think it should be one hell of a good site to go into such extremities for a link). Finally, check out this list of common PHP error messages . If you want to proceed with the idea of searching for a specific sort of error, you might want to read this one and then continue on with the search. Let’s assume I have chosen to proceed with the “use of undefined constant” error. I have some sort of solution already, poor as it is. (It’s in the document provided above). So all you need to do is search for this sort of messages: “Notice:” “Use of undefined constant” “php on line” intitle:tours And heeeere we go! 59 results. 5. Checking the Activities of the Website Further on, the fact that an error notification has been around long enough for a search engine to index it means that the site is getting seriously out of hand and might have been completely abandoned by the crew, so before sending a message insure in some way that the site is still in business. I do it by performing these steps: Enter the query consisting of the advanced “site” operator along with the domain of the site in question. ( site:phperrorsite.com ) Collapse the list of the Google Search Tools under the “Show Search Tools” link on the left column of Google search result page. In the time selection section choose the “ past year ” option The options “ sort by relevance ” and “ sort by date ” will appear; choose the latter. Now pay attention to the date in the first search result. The more recent it is, the better. This, along with the number of the documents in the search results pertaining to the domain, gives you an approximate idea of what is going on with the site. Remember, this is far from precise and I would be glad to hear of any other ideas about how one can discover whether a site has been abandoned or not. 6. Taking a Deeper Look into the Problems of a Website You may also want to check whether there are any other php errors of one sort or another by performing a respective search query modified by the “site” search operator: site:phperrorsite.com “warning:” [function.” “php on line” The higher the number of the documents found, the higher the likelihood that the site owners/editors just do not give a rat’s ass about their website and won’t probably respond to your message of good intention. Now you have ensured that the site is still kept a close watch on by finding out that there is only one document with a php error, which, in its turn, happens to be in some secluded corner of the site and might simply have been missed by the webmaster. There is no excuse for a php error notification right above the header on the main page of a site. I think twice before contacting sites of that sort. Like, how could they have missed that and even gave time for a search engine to index it!? 7. Composing a PHP error notification email Well, I guess I have fed you all I had on the subject. Now for the pivotal point – email composing. I guess it’s one of the most popular subjects among SEOmoz blog writers, so I do not want to write something that has been written thousands of times before me. Try to check out the most recent article on the subject (at the time of this writing). Nevertheless, here is my way of doing business. I hope this example might be of use to someone. Subject: I was browsing through your site phperrorsite.com out of professional curiosity (I maintain an online hotel reservation site myself) and came upon a page that was obviously getting out of hand: I understand how tiresome it might be to keep everything in line, so I have attached a document with possible solution to this problem . There are also quite a few discussion on the internet pertaining to this problem, check them out if you will: However, I would recommend you to start a new thread on one of the forums laying down all the details. Please drop me a line at your convenience; I would like to know how things worked out for you. Best of luck with your work! You could omit some of the stuff like specifying the urls of forum threads. To keep it simple, you could just mention the page with the error and ask them to get back to you. After the reply, you can move on to asking for a little favor. Hopefully, you will be granted one! Hi again,

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PHP Errors as a Means of Getting Links

Success in MLM by Starting Off Right

And Comment Below! Success in MLM by Starting Off Right David Angelo and Me with my New Audio CD How you start your MLM home business is critical to your success. This post gives suggestions on how best to have success in MLM by starting off on the right foot. How to Increase Chances of FAST Success in MLM I recently spent some time with my good friend David Angelo and he shared with me how he starts his teammates when they get started. No matter what their history is he has them make out a list of 100 people they know and then talks to them about how to share their MLM home business with them. Now, some of you may be reading that and thinking how your warm market is burnt out or would not be interested in your new MLM home business, am I right? Wouldn’t it be easier to just get online MLM leads? Have people emailing you that they want to sign up with you? Well, it is true that it is cool to have people emailing you they want to join your business but the truth is, it is NOT fast nor easy if you have never done any online marketing. (I’ll explain later.) You Can Sign Up More Warm Market Once You Have Success in MLM, It’s True OK, it is true, you WILL be able to sign up more of your warm market into your MLM home business once you have made some money but IF you are wanting to see some FAST success, be willing to at least see if ANYONE in your warm market is open. You see, that is the key, don’t try to sign up your warm market, just initially see if they are open, then, get them to watch a presentation and see where it takes you. By keeping a list of who you have reached out to, you will be able to (and should) go back to the ones that didn’t get involved once you have made a few bucks. Marketing Your MLM Home Business Online I get a lot of leads and traffic everyday to look at my MLM home business. The last 3 days I have literally not talked to anyone on the phone due to having my wisdom teeth taken out but have still made thousands of dollars per day. However, it was NOT like this when I started. It took a LOOONG time to get my online presence setup and create enough traffic to get any kind of leads or sales. This was NOT fast. Now, lets look at how I actually got started in my MLM home business that DID help me create success. From February 2006 to July 0f 2009 I had been involved with around 11 different MLM home business opportunities. Yes, I was an MLM junkie. I loved the idea but never quite found the right fit for me. AND, worst of all, I had pitched my warm market every single one of them. However, like in all the rest of them, when I started with the MLM home business I am still with in July f 2009, I made the calls again. I knew that some would be skeptical but all I was doing was seeing who was open to an opportunity. I wasn’t a chicken. I knew some would laugh at me, and some did, but I called anyway. If you are going to have success in MLM , in my opinion, you need to have the attitude that you DON’T need approval but you are going to do it anyway and your warm market is a great place to start as any of them that get started can contact their warm market too, it’s easy, and easily duplicated, unlike online MLM marketing. I Love Online MLM Marketing But, It’s Not Fast For Success in MLM Like I said, I love online MLM marketing but it is not fast for people to have success in MLM and most do not have the gumption to stick with it long enough to see it actually work. If you can start off right by at least reaching out to your warm market first, you greatly increase your chances of success in your MLM home business. Here are some suggested resources for you to start off right: – Unique way of approaching warm market when you have failed at other MLM home business opps – How to prospect with posture – How to get results from a burnt out warm market – 30 Great MLM Prospecting Questions If you are just starting with your MLM home business, do yourself a favor and at least approach, with a good posture, your warm market. It is the easiest to duplicate and quite frankly the ONLY reason someone should be scared to do so is from a lack of training which, any of the above resources will help you overcome so YOU can have success in MLM! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Maintaining Your Power, Now on Audio CD xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx If you Wanna Get Supercharged, Snag a copy of my brand new Audio CD that was just released called “Maintaining Your Power”. This CD will have you strong like bull while prospecting and it also makes a great gift to your downline as well. You can now pick up a copy of this audio CD for only $14.95. You can buy by going here and be sure to ask about our bulk discount by emailing me at rayhigdon@rayhigdon.com xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx If you enjoyed this post please comment and share if you want more content like this Ray Higdon Skype: ray.higdon Email: RayHigdon@RayHigdon.com Work With Me – Numis Network Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net PS: If Your Upline Does Not Have a Step-By-Step Blueprint For Success, Check This Out (Unless You Already Have Too Many Leads) – Click Here For Instant Access If you enjoyed this blog on success in MLM, retweet and comment please Free Video: 10 Ways to Get 50 Leads Per Day ( With Little to No Budget ) I struggled with Marketing until I paid a lot of money to learn these secrets. The Only Reason You Shouldn’t Enter Your info is if You Already Have too Many Leads. Note that your Your email will be used to send you the promised information and daily alerts about new blog entries. You’ll be able to unsubscribe any time. We may also give you a call to offer you additional services and assistance in your marketing setup. Name:  Email:    Powered by Subscribers Magnet

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Success in MLM by Starting Off Right