It took only few minutes to configure and get started with the new Custom Search Engine from Google. Once again, Google has proved their high standards through simplicity combined with amazing speed. I’ve hosted the customized SEO Search at my personal blog.

D Sarathy.

We have reduced the size of the WatchRank download drastically, keep all the existing WatchRank functions intact. Right now the download size of WatchRank is only 377 KB from a whopping 7373 KB. Added to this, our new layout is sleek and fresh with enhanced usability. Download the new WatchRank now and start using it. Our Help Page has got more details for the users. Feel free to send in your comments to us at support@rankquest.com or through our online feedback form.

D Sarathy.

Search Engine Roundtable mentions the discussion at Search Engine Watch regarding a controversial article about SEO. Here is my comment to this thread :

SEO is simple and hence it is not a rocket science. However, doing SEO is not easy, and though the SEO techniques are obvious, applying the right technique to the right site at the right time is the key. Hence SEO definitely requires guidance from the experts.

D Sarathy

There are always 3 classification of people based on the style of how they do things? First, a small percentage of people who do things exactly the right way. These are the most successful people, who achieve what they want. The second is another small percentage of people who do things exactly the wrong way. These people learn the lessons hard way. The smart out of this lot quickly move to the first category. The third is the majority of people; these are the people who do things almost the right way. These people think that they are doing the things the right way. However their energy and efforts go in vain and get lesser or no returns.

The above is applicable for Search Engine Optimization as well. Doing Search Engine Optimization exactly the right way yields results. There are no short cuts. And there is no point in fooling ourselves by doing almost the right way. ‘Building site for our end users‘ is the yardstick, which distinguishes the exact right things from the others. Always remember to build site for your users and not for the search engines!

D Sarathy.

One of our power users had commented that our site layout and look & feel can be modified. He not only said that but also gave us some ideas and prototype of what could be done. We had spent last couple of days working on the inputs and here we are releasing our site - RankQuest in ‘refreshing blue’. Please feel free to share your views and comments about the new layout and look & feel at support@rankquest.com.

D Sarathy.

Below is the thumbnail image of our old Site layout.

Mindcomet’s Blog - SEO Voodoo, recommends RankQuest SEO Tools to speed up SEO productivity and cut down the research time.

if you are new to SEO and need to find out what to look for or a seasoned veteran looking for a great tool to assist you

More details here.

D Sarathy.

Link Building or a Brand Building, which one would be more effective? the question initiated by Ram. Basically, Link Building helps us to increase the possibilities of more strangers visiting our site. While Brand Building, helps in retaining the customer base into loyalty customers. And both go hand in hand. More details at Link Building Vs Brand Building.

D Sarathy.

What is Click Fraud?

Click Fraud is defined as any click that is maliciously made on an advertiser’s PPC ad with the intent of depleting the amount of money in the advertiser’s account.

The background Google Adwords

Adwords of Google are served through 2 types of channel. The Search Network is one and the other is Content Network. The Site-targeted Advertisements are part of the Content Network itself. According to Google, the split between the reach of the Search Network and the Content Network is 5% and 95% respectively. Because of the self-motivation and self-gains ($) of the site owners who are publishing Ads in their sites through AdSense program, Click Fraud is maximum in the Content Network.

Sources of Click Fraud

1. Automated Scripts
2. Hiring People to click on Ads (PTR - ‘Paid To Read’ Groups)
3. Competitors
4. Proxy Servers
5. Affiliate Programs
6. Impression Fraud

How to identify the Click Frauds?

1. Keyword Performance
2. An abnormal clicks from the same IP Address
3. Decline in the number of conversions
4. Large number of visitors who leave your site quickly
5. Large number of impressions without the accompanying click on your Ad
6. Abnormally high clicks and impressions on affiliates websites
7. A large number of clicks coming from countries outside of your normal market area
8. Accidental Click Fraud

What do the Search Engines say about Click Fraud?

• “We think click fraud is a serious but manageable issue,”
• John Slade, Yahoo’s senior director for global product management
• “Google strives to detect every invalid click that passes through its system,”
• Shuman Ghosemajumder, the search engine’s manager for trust and safety.

· “We’ve got a system of real-time detection filters that constantly scan for suspicious activity based on the rules we’ve set up,” he said. “The vast majority of invalid clicks are handled by them. We’re also manually reviewing to detect publishers who might be generating fraudulent clicks. When we do find out, we terminate that publisher.’’

• Shuman Ghosemajumder, the search engine’s manager for trust and safety.
• “It’s absolutely in our best interest for advertisers to have confidence in this industry.”
• Shuman Ghosemajumder, the search engine’s manager for trust and safety.
• ‘majority of fraudulent clicks were never seen by advertisers because they were discovered and removed’

What does the Advertiser say on Click Fraud?

• Google and Yahoo at times passively profit from click fraud and, in theory, have an incentive to tolerate it.
• If this was costing them (search engines) money instead of making you money, they would have stopped this

How to combat Click Fraud?

1. The Advertisers are to be on a constant vigilant of the numbers (clicks, conversions etc.,) and constantly tweak the Campaigns. Because, the techniques used are varied in nature and they keep increasing day by day.
2. In the case of the site-targeted Ads, the Advertiser should be cautious of the Site he/she is showing up the Ads. Manual review of the site and the constant conversion tracking is mandatory.
3. The bottom line is in the content network, the Advertiser should focus on the Ads publishing sites which has higher conversion numbers and move them to the site-targeted campaigns. And remove those sites, which has less or no conversion but good number of clicks (i.e. less or no conversions). Right now Google does not provide the list of sites where our Ads got published. However, one can get to know this details through some third-party paid tools / services which are available in the market.

Conclusion

The numbers of people who are involved in Click Fraud are huge in number and get increased proportionally. Hence the click fraud detection is a complex equation. Though the major Search Engines are trying their best to help the Advertisers in combating the click fraud, it is the duty of each Advertiser to be watchful and vigilant on their numbers and constantly tweak the Adword Campaigns. This reminds me of Edgar Watson Howe’s quote - “Many a man is saved from being a thief by finding everything locked up“.

In Search Engine Watch Forums, Jazzcat started a thread with the following question - ‘SEO - What Skills Are Crucial?’. Here is what I had to say about the subject :

SEO - Techniques
Basically Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques can be grouped into two major heads. They are, the On-Page factors and the Off-Page factors.
The On-Page factors mainly include the

(a) focused content, because content is the king,
(b) relevant and focused Keywords for the market and the
(c) usability & navigation.

The Off-Page factors mainly include the

(a) Inbound Links, through submissions and external references to our sites,
(b) nature of the market and its current trend and
(c) the progress & efforts from the Competitors.

SEO - What Skills Are Crucial?

Now coming back to the question - What skills are crucial for SEO? Based on the above context the following are the key skills, which are crucial for SEO.

(1) Technical Knowledge: More than the web development knowledge, the knowledge of one’s own market and the major competitors are the key. Once a person is very good in this, then, the identification of the core keywords to focus is a cakewalk.

(2) Public Relationship: In order to create both quality and a good number of IBL (inbound links), the Public Relations skill is very important. One has to know the various related forums and submission site and slowly build relationship and goodwill from its users.

(3) Empathetic: To the usability and the navigation of the site, one has to be empathetic i.e., thinking from user’s point of view.

(4) Consistency and Persistency: This is the most important of all the skills. SEO is not a sprint race, but a Marathon i.e., a continual on going process. So one has to do all the above both consistently and persistently. No matter how good a person is with respect to the above skills, but not being consistent and persistent, the whole thing goes for a toss.

Follow the link, to know more about the discussion.

Regards,

D Sarathy.

Technorati Tags: Search Engine Optimization, inbound link, on-page factors, off-page factors, seo skills