Do you want an Authority website? Do you know what it is?

Few of my clients asked me that they are looking for “Authority website”, can I provide to them? I asked one of them what it is. He replied no, however he had read somewhere on the net. At that time I thought I might write few lines about the top “An Authority website”.  Therefore, here I am to put few words for readers of my blog.  

On the net I found one definition by Jason Dowdell of Global Promoter, he wrote:  “authority sites are sites that have been linked to and referenced on other web sites covering the same subject matter and they also will have hundreds if not thousands of pages covering that subject matter and nearly every facet of it.” 

While as per Google Research Scientists and Engineers Bharat and Mihaila, “We believe a page is an authority on the query topic if and only if some of the best experts on the query topic point to it. Of course in practice some expert pages may be experts on a broader or related topic. If so, only a subset of the hyperlinks on the expert page may be relevant.”

“In such cases the links being considered have to be carefully chosen to ensure that their qualifying text matches the query. By combining relevant out-links from many experts on the query topic we can find the pages that are most highly regarded by the community of pages related to the query topic. This is the basis of the high relevance that our algorithm delivers.”

And as per Miles Galliford “An Authority Site can be defined as a website that sets out to be a leading online source of information for a niche subject.”

From above definitions it is apparent that the Authority sites are content based websites because they are frequently updated with the latest news, features, reviews, case studies and stories. Also they have 100s of pages created naturally and most important they are related to the topics. Another feature of authority sites is that they are linked from 1000s related pages. Also the authority sites contains outbound links to the pages which are very related to the topics. The increasing numbers of sub-domains of a website also make it an authority site.

What you got? Answer is that an authority website is:

1. Which have lot of incoming and outgoing links to and from related pages, 
2. Frequently updated,
3.  All pages contains related and important information,
4.  Have lot of sub-domains; say each topic is on a separate sub-domain. 
5.  Each page contents, information and the pages are up-to-date.

Beside above factors you should consider following if you want to own an authority site:

•  You should have as many RSS feeds as you can muster to incorporate throughout your site. Your visitors need to be able to receive RSS feeds for any keyword, category or archive as well as create their own. One feed is no longer enough to satisfy your visitors,
• You should be engaging the minds of your visitors at all times using surveys, commenting and feedback. Make these features easy for your visitors and your site will grow exponentially. Why? Because they feel like you actually care about them. Interaction is a powerful tool and creates a sense of community on your site,
• You should post to your blog often and you should always provide quality and original content. That doesn’t mean you need to produce 800 word articles three times a week. You goal should be to become a news master. You need to be an “authority” on the news happening in your nicheNote:

Remember creating an authority site is not easy, however it is not impossible, but you should be patient and consistent.

An example of an authority website:     About.com

Another useful article regarding Marketing for our readers

Targeting your key demographic online is getting harder and harder. While new portals that offer information to niche markets spring up like summer weeds, it is hard to decipher the legitimacy of not only their readership, but the depth and significance of their content, the source of their traffic, and the accuracy of their traffic reporting. The reasons for this lie in not only the increasing popularity of the internet for all ages, but the costs and low expected results now associated with “targeted” marketing campaigns.

Initially, the online marketing boom mainly changed the daily habits of adolescents, college kids, and young entrepreneurs. Now, Grandparents look forward to e-mails with fresh picture attachments, and more people meet their significant others on the web than they do at speed-dating convention. If there is an interest, someone has created a way to profit from it online. While the readiness of information is a convenience, it has led to a whole new set of concerns for small business owners.

Who can you trust to get your message across to the professionals who need your services? I am sure that there are many websites that consider themselves home to the community that can jump start your business. Claiming to be fueled by expert credentials, with an “opt-in” readership of people waiting to be sold on your breakthrough methods or product, these websites seem to be the answer to marketing prayers. For the small fee of $30,000+, you too can speak to these managers and share your wisdom.

How is this possible for the small business owner to justify? How can you trust that the website is representing their credentials appropriately, and that investing with them will be safe and, most importantly, productive? It is an excellent possibility their compiled “subscriber” lists come from others’ saleable data. There’s also the chance that many of those e-mail addresses will prove to be invalid.

Unless the World Wide Web takes measures to institute standards and credential guidelines for information portals, here are a few tips to help evaluate a site before you invest in their sales and marketing packages:

• How did they compile their subscriber list? How do they maintain that list to minimize the number of invalid e-mail accounts that it contains?
• Where do they get their content? From other site’s feeds, or do they create it in house? How often do they update this information (weekly, monthly, never)? Always ask this question, and then complete due diligence to confirm that the information portal does post in this time frame, and that articles are not reposted or recycled articles from another online portal.
• How often do they send out mass e-mails to their subscriber list? If the website sends out new information more than two times a week, there is a lower chance that their messages will be highly regarded or even noticed.
• Who are their key authors and senior management? What are their credentials? Make sure that those writers and managers have a thorough understanding of the topic they sell, as well as commensurate credentials.
• How long has the information portal been operating under that domain name and in that in capacity? My “rule of thumb” is to beware of any site that has more then 8k subscribers per year in operation.
• Survey your clients and prospective clients. See where they actually call home on the web. If a significant percentage (40%-50%) of these clients are at least somewhat familiar with the information portal you are considering investing with, it is probably a safe investment.
• Spend some time looking at the ads that are currently on the site you are interested in. Are you impressed with the amount of visibility they receive? Are the posted ads from quality companies that you feel are in keeping with the message of the site?
• Are their a lot of ads for one of your larger competitors the may dwarf your message? What ideas do the sales and marketing team at the information portal have to keep that from happening?
• Call some of the other companies that are advertising on the site. A call may come out of the blue to them, but this element of surprise may create more honest answers, as pre-qualified references are often a waste of time. Find the decision maker at the establishment that is currently advertising on the site and ask them questions like: “What kind of return are you seeing?” “How quickly do they respond to your issues or questions?” “Do they seek your approval before issuing statements on your behalf?” Try to ask these types of questions as many times as you can without completely agitating the person on the other end of the phone. It may seem annoying to the person on the other end, but it ends up being an effective tool for seeking information.

By performing this kind of due diligence, you will be able to more easily identify and evaluate information portals that will help you maximize your marketing investment. Many marketing firms have already performed comprehensive evaluations of information portals, so they may be able to relay this kind of information to you more quickly than performing investigative work on you own.

Also, if you do not have the staff to accomplish this, many online marketing firms would be happy to perform this service for you. Hiring an experienced firm to help your company evaluate your options for allocation of marketing funds may prove to be a wise investment. This is especially true when you consider what can be gained through an effective and targeted online marketing campaign, as well as what can be lost by choosing an ill equipped, poorly managed, or over-hyped portal.

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About the Author: Lila Buchalski is Managing Partner of BankCheck Inc. (http://www.TheBankCheck.com), an online marketing and web development firm. A graduate of Rutgers University, Lila has significant experience in both the online Editorial, and Marketing Director function

Top 10 Web hosting Companies

Today I visited http://www.top10hostinglist.com/, I wanted to see who is at the top. It was surprising to see that my dear friends ipower.com were at 7th. I could not believe it. How this come a bad service at 7th. Anyhow, actually I wanted to see companies like lunarpages.com there in top 10. Unluckily I was not able to find it.

Why I said this, that I was disappointed to not finding lunarpages.com in top 10, because I think they deserve it to be at top, at least I wanted to see them there in top ten. Because:

they :

• Got superb control panel called cPanel, very easy to use, however nothing is perfect but it is better then any platform, I have worked on.
• they got great and very friendly and more, professional Support. I never wait more than two minutes in que to be responded.
• If you want to see the solution, please try the 24 hour Support of Lunarpages.com, Great.
• Offline/email support, very quick and positive. If I compare to ipower.com, My God don’t ask about it!.
• I am hosting my website lakho.com at lunarpages since last three years, and during this period I never have major or minor outage.
• there packages are very reasonable and compatible with any top providers.

Thanks Lunarpages, I am very proud to say that I am hosting on a great, top quality, and reliable hosting company.

If you are looking for a great hosting services, I think you should try lunarpages.com. You will not be dissappointed.

Good article about Search Engine Marketing

How Search Engine Marketing using an Internet Marketing Company can work

 Note: This article I found from an other blog, I am posting here for my valueable readers.Overview of Search Engine Marketing

Thanks to the low barrier to entry on the internet, anybody can now easily create a website of his preference even without a solid background in computer programming and website designing. At the heart of this website builder software is the meta tags used for Search Engine Marketing.Search Engine Marketing to the website owner is basically the marketing, advertising and promotion of the website. But in the more technical sense, Search Engine Marketing more about the keyword used within the website. A keyword, as the name suggests, refers to the text that can be retrieved by the search engine robots. Hence, in short, Search Engine Marketing comprises your administrative component of a website where your content can be stored and updated at every visit to your site.

Purpose of a Search Engine Marketing

The main purposed of Search Engine Marketing is to make a website owner’s task of finding information easier. With Search Engine Marketing, the creation of a internet marketing report makes the process a lot easier, and updating of the site for future changes and marketing additions relatively easy too. The administrative part of the marketers job in Search Engine Marketing surrounds the responsibility for enabling the user to add, change, or remove text or keywords or the entire content of the website for promotion purposes. With a username and password, only the owner of the website is able to log in to the Search Engine Marketing console and choose the particular page in which he wants to work on. Simple procedures can now be made to the website’s content including adding a paragraph of text, adding an image, or uploading other useful applications for the website to be more appealing to the visitors.

Search Engine Marketing and Your Internet Marketing Company

Knowing what Search Engine Marketing is and how it works, should make it easier to pinpoint how it is related to to your choice of Internet marketing company. The Search Engine Marketing is undoubtedly a wise method used to maintain your website’s visibility on the internet. This is because it enables the website owner, even despite the fact that you are bereft of the technical knowledge of website designing, to have complete control of your site’s content. It is therefore significant that in your search for a Search Engine Marketing that will work for you, you must find something that will provide a user-friendly environment, allowing for numerous users regardless of their skill levels.

With your Internet marketing company or business being based solely on you’re your website visitors see on your site, your Search Engine Marketing therefore plays a very vital role. A very simple Search Engine Marketing strategy allows you to easily modify and edit your content to please the users’ demand. Your Search Engine Marketing consultant will help you come up with the most appealing of websites such that it offers your users with great content and attractive images or graphics. Such kinds of Search Engine Marketing solutions come with no restrictions when it comes to quantity and page lengths of the content. This way, content developers are able to modify the site’s content without any difficulty and users are able to explore the site without having to wait for long periods of time. With multiple features, varying kinds of Search Engine Marketing can therefore be deployed by all businesses that are into the marketing.

Because your website and its content is the only connection that your Internet company has with your customers, choosing a Search Engine Marketing solution that works according to your standards is therefore essential. An up-to-date content is the most effective way to get your business going and your products and services easily sold out.

If you are looking for web marketing and search engine optimization services please visit lakhosoft.com or contact us at nawaz@lakho.com

An example of “bad” hosting and their Support

Few readers or competitors might have noticed that lakhosoft.com was dropped in almost all search engines. Let me provide you details about the mishap.

 I am using hosting of iPower.com, initially they were using vDeck 1.0 program, then they started changing it to vDeck 3.0. About four months ago. During this transition lakhossoft.com faced lot of small outages. However, I kept my site up-to-date and I brought my site lakhosoft.com on top 10 position of all search engines.  During last four months their support was very bad and very slow, believe me I never got response three hours before on online chat service, I used to wait hours and hors to be answered. Even if I was lucky and found some one after three four hours, but they never gave SOLUTION. At the end I corrected the faults myself.

What was reason of recent outage?

Actually, thanks to some one who visited my lakhosoft.com via an strange referrer. It surprised me., that visitor came on my site via “WordPress.lakhosoft.om”. I remember that I never created such a link or sub domain. To find out, I put this address in browser and what I found that actually it was pointing to my lakhosoft.com. As I was very careful to avoid any duplication of contents, this scenario alarmed me, and then started investigation. During this investigation, finally I found that what ever you type between http:// and lakhosoft.com it was directing me on the home page of lakhosoft.com.

I contacted ipower (hosting provider of my site, note: it was almost impossible to get them live, so I send them message via offline support). After 24 hours I received response that my domain is set to wildcard (*.lakhosoft.com). That means if your domain is set with wild card all miss-spelled or any word before your domain will direct the visitor to your site.  I found it very good but because I am a search engine optimization service provider and SEO experts, though will be negative as far as Search Engines are concerned. However I discussed with Google Experts at webmasters central discussion boards of Google. In fact they asked me to remove it ASAP to avoid distribution of PR between various pages and more to avoid the Google’s penalization.

 After above suggestions from experts I asked ipower to remove the wild card and to resolve this issue my site was remained offline maximum time during last two weeks. But they never solved my problem, every day I was losing the position in search engines and it was making me very sorry about the selection of my hosting service. Yesterday, I took lead and asked ipower to stop their efforts and let me my own. After this, I went inside the account and perform checks step by step. Finally after three hours I was able to disable the so called wild card.

So here it is, my website is up and working very fine. Thanks to my team and their expertise that makes me to resolve such a issue which ipower, a large hosting provider was failed.

No problem, as far as search engine position is concerned I would bring it back with in a week.

Please if you are thinking for new hosting service, please think 100 times before selecting one for yourself, otherwise you might face same or alike problems and you might not have team like mine.

 If you are looking for hosting plan and or search engine optimization service, fee free to visit our search engine optimization service provider website lakhosoft.com or contact us at info@lakhosoft.com

LakhoSoft’s position in SERPs of top search engines after three days

Once again I want to show you the latest status of our websites in top search engines, like google, msn, yahoo and atlavista.com

Following results are based on the search term “search engine optimization service provider”.

Click on the following thumbnail of the Google SERP and you will see that our blog lakhosoft.wordpress.com is at 2nd position, the sub page of blog is at third position and our business website lakhosoft.com is at 4th.

Click on the following thumbnail of the Yahoo SERP and you will see that our blog lakhosoft.wordpress.com is at 1st position while our business website lakhosoft.com is at 7th.

Click on the following thumbnail of the MSN SERP and you will see that our business website lakhosoft.com is at top.

Click on the following thumbnail of the Altavista SERP and you will see that our blog lakhosoft.wordpress.com is at 1st position while our business website lakhosoft.com is at 6th.

From these results you can see that we know search engine optimization and web development with quality very well, though our SEO life is not long, one can say that we are infants. But we delever quality over quantity.

If you are looking for quality seo services feel free to visit our business site lakhosoft.com or contact us at info@lakhosoft.com

SEO Foot Prints of LakhoSoft Google, Yahoo, msn, Altavista

Dear Readers,

Today I would like to show you, few results of our search engine optimization of our blog and website, the targetted key word was “search engine optimization service provider”.

In Top Ten of Google:

Following is the Picture of first page of google SERPs showing position of our blog http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com and our website lakhosoft.com, in this you can see our blog at 3rd position, while our website at 4th position:

 

In Top Ten of Yahoo:

Following is the screen shot of first page of yahoo showing position of our blog http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com, in this you can see our blog at 3rd position:

Following is the screen shot of first page of yahoo showing position of our website http://lakhosoft.com, in this you can see our website at 10th position:

In Top Ten of MSN:

Following is the screen shot of first page showing position of our website http://lakhosoft.com, in this you can see our website at 9th position:

In Top Ten of Altavista:

Following is the screen shot of first page of Altavista showing position of our blog site http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com, in this you can see our blog at third position:

 

Following is the screen shot of first page of altavista showing position of our web site, in this you can see our website http://lakhosoft.com at ninth position:

if you want to see same search engine results for your website, then feel free to visit our search engine optimization services website lakhosoft.com or contact us at info@lakho.com

Another Proof of the “Statement”, about Quality Contents

Dear Readers,

First of all, I am sure you are aware that the Google has updated its links towards your sites. Once gain various have gained increase in rank while lot of sites are vanished from the SERPs of google.

What I was writing since the start of this blog, and we can see the proof of my srite-ups that, Quality and Quality nothing else!

Here are details about my websites, that where they are:

About my Blog: http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com, here is the details of PR:

5	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/2007/12/18/optimization-of-images-at-the-webpages/

4	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/2007/10/27/new-google-page-rankings-have-affect-very-positively/
4	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/giving-search-engine-spiders-direction-with-a-301-redirect/
4	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/2007/11/20/is-there-still-any-importance-of-incomming-links-for-google/
4	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/what-is-web-analytics-and-how-it-helps-a-website-owner/
4	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/2007/11/02/what-is-data-management/

3	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/every-web-site-should-include/
3	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/2007/12/
3	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/contact-me/
3	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/resources/
3	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/category/data-sourcing/
3	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/category/seo/
3	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/
3	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/category/web-design-and-development/
3	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/category/website-marketing/

2	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/how-to-write-for-the-websites/
2	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/are-you-sure-that-your-website-is-crawlable/
2	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/2007/10/09/11/
2	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com
2	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/about/
2	http://lakhosoft.wordpress.com/category/graphic-design/

From above you can see the PR of various pages of this blog. At this point some may raise question that why the home page of the blog is still at 2? I would give answer that because home page have less incomming links, because the readers usually links the posts individualy, if they have found interesting for them. 

About my Businss website:

lakhosoft.com has acheived +2 rank, means the new PR is now at 3. An few inner pages have improved its PR, for example:

2      lakhosoft.com/services.html

1      lakhosoft.com/seo.html

2      lakhosoft.com/contactus.html etc

these four pages are the one for which I was updating timingly and got few inbound links.

About the Directory:

Our directory, lakho.com also has achieved PR of 2 from 0. This directory was re-created and updated in last 45 days.

My client’s website:

willbuyanyhouse.com: initialy was in my control for SEO, but later on was stopped as per request of the owner. That time it was at PR 2, and it dropped to PR 1 during October’s Google contents update. Then the owner started its SEO at its own under few advices from me, and today it is at PR 3 and many of its pages have PR to 2.

Now the bad example, which is proving what I said earlier. It is about the same client’s blog, willbuyanyhouse.wordpress.com, Actually this blog was left alone, we never touched it, we did not updated the contents for about 63 days. Today its PR is dropped from 4 to 3 and due to some reasons, it seems that it is not appearing in the SERPs of Google. 

From above proofs and details it is apparant the if you want to see your site with high PR and on first pages of Google SERPs, than think about the quality related contents and the natural inbound links to your site.

Note: In next article I will explain the position of my sites in SERPs of Google.

IF you are looking for advice and any help about search engine optimization services please visit our website lakhosoft.com or contact us at info@lakho.com

Quality and Quality nothing else (Part 3)

What is Duplicate content? And how you can avoid from it?

Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.

However, few are not deceptive, for example; discussion forums, Store items shown or linked via multiple distinct URLs and , printer-only versions of web pages.

Anyhow, in some cases, contents are deliberately duplicated across domains in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings or win more traffic. This type of practices not good for the website and the users, for instance; when a visitor sees substantially the same content repeated within a set of search results, visitor might ignore it, consequently you will lose a potential buyer for your site or services.

Search engines like Google, shows very unique results to its user in their SERPs. Therefore, if Google find any duplication it just ignores the pages from including in the SERPs. In some cases it sites are banned due to duplications in content.In the light of these notes webmaster should always take measures to avoid duplication.Here are few steps you can take to proactively address duplicate content issues, and ensure that visitors see the content you want them to:

• Consider blocking pages from indexing using robot.txt files to guide search engine to your preferred version of the content. For example, if you don’t want to index the printer versions of your site’s articles disallow those directories using expressions in your robots.txt file.
• Use 301 redirection in your .htaccess file, in case if you’ve restructured your site, to smartly redirect users, Google and other spiders.  
• Try to keep your internal linking consistent. For example, don’t link to http://www.example.com/page/ and http://www.example.com/page and http://www.example.com/page/index.htm.
• When you submit urls in any search engine, use Top Level urls.
• If you syndicate your content on other sites, search engine like Google will always show the version which is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article.
• It is good practice to use 301 redirection to redirect http://example.com to http://www.example.com. However, at Google webmaster tools, you can tell Google, that how you prefer your site to be indexed: You can tell Google your preferred domain (for example, www.example.com or http://example.com).
• Avoid publishing empty page.
• Minimize similar content on various pages of a website.  

Duplicate content on a site is not actionable unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. In this case Google may remove your website. If your site has been removed from Google search results, review your site carefully and refurbish your content, then re-submit it to Google.  

Auto Installing viruses and other badware:

Sites that exploit browser security holes to install software (such as malware, spyware, viruses, adware, and trojans) are in violation of the Google quality guidelines, and may be removed from Google’s index.

 So, My dear readers, during all these three parts as I understand Google, I found that the updated quality contents are most important. And I am doing that with all of my websites. First of all check my business site LakhoSoft.com, search it using “search engine optimization service provider” keyword, and you will find my site floating between positon 2 to 5. Both of my websites still have no any noticeable link as far as Google is concerned, both sites are apearing in top 10 POS means it is because of the contents only. However, it is Fact that I need more links to maintain my position.

 We have proved that we know something about the Search Engines and as I mentioned that the Googles standards are are at such levels, that if some one target Google’s SERP’s only, I am sure his/her site will already be at top in other search engines. If you like our search engine optimization services and you want to try us please visit my search engine optimization services site lakhosoft.com or contact us at info@lakho.com

 

Quality and Quality nothing else (Part 2)

What are Sneaky JavaScript redirects?

Whenever search engines indexes a page containing JavaScript, it will index that page but it cannot follow or index any link hidden in the JavaScript itself. Use of JavaScript is an entirely legitimate web practice. However, use of JavaScript with the intent to deceive search engines is not, for example, placing different texts in noScript tag and JavaScript.

What this means? It means that the search engine sees the text in the noScript tag, while actual text will be different in the JavaScript which can be viewed by visitor. Such type of trick is not liked by many of search engines, and if they noticed it your website will be penalized for ever.

Beside this there is another point to note that the embedded link in JavaScript which redirects the user to different pages with the intent to show the user a different page than the search engine sees is also the violation of the webmaster guidelines.

Please don’t worry about the placement of link within JavaScript is alone not deceptive, it is legitimate because that link is not redirecting. However the best practice is that you might instead keep links outside of JavaScript or replicate them in a noScript tag.

What are Doorway pages?

Doorway pages are pages specifically made for search engines. Doorway pages contain many links - often several hundred - that are of little to no use to the visitor, and do not contain valuable content. In this regard, the best practice is the use of HTML sitemaps, which is valuable resource for your visitors, but ensures that these pages of links are easy for your visitors to navigate.

If you have a number of links to include, consider organizing them into categories or into multiple pages. But in doing so, ensure that they are intended for visitors to navigate the sections of your site, and not simply for search engines.

What is Keyword stuffing?

Keyword stuffing refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in SERPs. Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.

Please Stay tunned Part 3 of this series is comming soon.

We at LakhoSoft take care all of these items liked by search engines especially the Google, in our search engine optimization services.