Google+ Local scores - How Google Determine Average Score

Google+ Local scores

All scores in Google+ Local are determined by user reviews.
Individual user ratings are based on a 0 to 3 point scale.

3	Excellent
2	Very Good
1	Good
0	Poor to Fair

We take these ratings, average them, and then multiply by ten to arrive at averaged scores.

26-30	Extraordinary to perfection
21-25	Very good to excellent
16-20	Good to very good
11-15	Fair to good
0-10	Poor to fair

When you’re searching for locations in Google+ Local, you may see these scores depicted in two ways:
Scores with multiple aspects
These scores will show you several scores for different aspects of the business. For example, restaurants are scored across three areas--food, decor, and service--with food being the primary aspect.
Overall scores
When we don’t have enough user ratings on different aspects, we will just show an overall score. An overall score is comparable to a score in the primary aspect for a location, like food for restaurants.

Resources https://support.google.com/local/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1723748&p=zagat_score

39 More Google Update Signals

Again and again Google is pushing itself hard improving the results of search quires. Seems Google is no mood to relax for even a month.  From three months Google put its engineers into top gear along with web spam team at high speed making rapid changes.

Given 39 changes in a month that included penguin made search engine optimizers busy than ever. Now that, Changes are done the bar has set high for rankings. Let’s review these quality changes and come up hypothetical strategies. After implementation one can know how the strategy works.

Inorganic Back link Signals

Until recently, we thought penguin update include Unnatural link building detection. Google has set separate update that detects link schemes like blog networking for links, paid links, exchange links; And common spam techniques such as blog commenting with same content, article marketing - publishing same content with numerous article directories.

Hypothetical Strategy: Stop paid and exchange link schemes. Search guest bloggers belonged to your industry. Someone who loves publish the other thoughts and experience of his industry. Invite him to publish in your website. Ironically most of the blog networking platforms out there are solely for building links. But some platforms like myblogguest.com are truly helpful. Research before choosing the platforms.

Compressed Title Tag Based on Search Queries

Google truncates title tag if it is more than 65 characters. Only that keyword will be displayed which matches search query.

Hypothetical Strategy: Don’t you think this is a blessing in a disguise. Now you can write more descriptive title tag and we here at our team has already started experimenting. We have gone 10 steps ahead by writing a descriptive title tag of 100 characters. After some days we will be back with results.

Events & news included in organic results

Who said Press Release is dead. Just search Los Angeles Seo Company. PR news is coming in bottom. Hypothetical Strategy: Now I am not sure how many months this will prevail. Don’t surprise to see a huge spam of PR distribution for local search related queries. I am going for a optimized press release. Stay tuned for results

That’s it Folks. Out of 39 signals these three matters most for me. Let me sit and review all others once again to unleash any new hidden meaning. Till then Bye.

Google Official Guidlines for Mobile SEO

The latest advice to build mobile seo friendly websites announced at Search Marketing Expo in Seattle by Google certainly good news for seo industry. Until recently, Google was num on best seo practices for mobile and not proactive enough recommending the standards to follow in their blog.

 The rise of smart phones, reaching more than 100 million users in United States alone, is a sure sign of future access for information is through mobile searches in comparison with desktops and laptops.

Google highly recommends responsive web design. Instead of coming up multiple pages and websites for different mobile devices Google advices a single page with compatibility for all the devices. This helps smart phone Googlebot-Mobile work easy to crawl and index the content. If not possible Google suggests device-specific HTML.

Responsive Web Design for Mobile

Using a single url to display webpage irrespective of any browser, any screen resolution and any mobile devices with applying CSS rules to vary the presentation according to the requirements is called as responsive web design.

• For optimizing webpages for smartphones in considering with Google algorithms, the advantages of having responsive design site are many.
• 
  Both Google bot and Googlebot-Mobile can efficiently crawl the website regularly.
• 
  As it is single url this can be easily shared by users.
• 
  No duplication Content and no redirection hassles for webmasters.

Device Specific HTML Design for Mobile

Feeling too technical to build responsive device? Google do suggest either dynamic serving configuration or separate mobile urls for mobile and desktop device. Use vary HTTP header to render pages for different user agents. Vary HTTP header helps Google to crawl mobile optimized content faster.

Google suggests proper redirects for desktop and mobile urls. Adding rel=”alternate” and rel=”canonical”tag on desktop and mobile page annotations respectively helps Google to understand the location of your site’s mobile pages.

The weight age of back links holds same for mobile seo.

Access Upgraded Dashboard & Features in Google Webmaster Tools

As reported in Google Webmaster central, Google announced upgraded dashboard. Google’s small changes in features are intended to make organized and responsive dashboard for webmasters. And they succeeded in its new dashboard.

 Indeed, keeping “new messages and recent critical issues” section on the top of the dashboard is understandable. This reminds prioritization to fix the issues.

 Next comes three current statistics; the crawl errors of DNS, Server and robots; performance of search queries; numbers of indexed web pages.

 Nothing has changed in Configuration. Settings, Site links, URL parameters, change of address and users feature are as same as it was. Even other navigation features: health, traffic, optimization and labs are not having any significant changes. Minute in changing the name like HTML Improvements in optimization is one the few exceptions.

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New Google Ranking Factors and Algorithm Update in April Month

What a month we had. Google released updates one after the other close to 60 algos in little over four weeks. From now onwards fooling Google that our website is popular and valuable by stuffing with keywords, duplicating content and building junk links is almost over.

For over a decade, Big Google was watching how seo companies were manipulating the algorithms set by it to our advantage. Google published in its blog the changes and tweaks made in algorithm in the month of April. Let us look at below:

Authoritative content: Google claims that with a modified signal it can identity authoritative content. This is still unclear how Google concludes ones content is authoritative. My guess is through number of social signals like tweets, likes and plus. Also the author of content displayed through rel=author that is through Google + profile. Influence in ranking changes of this update: No Idea.

Keyword Classifier: A big blow for the stuffers and spammers. High usage of keywords in the web page is the old mantra and certainly a strategy to rank high in Google. Google has better technology to detect keyword stuffing. Influence in ranking changes of this update: Huge.

Domain Diversity: Unlike in past, Google, Now, has limited the ratio of showing the same webpage for multiple search terms. Instead of targeting 10 to 15 high search volume and competitive keywords in homepage we can concentrate on sub pages. Websites that are getting high rankings for many keywords have given way to other websites. The keywords have cut down to 5 to 8 keywords for a website. Influence in ranking changes of this update: Medium.

• Google finds relevancy among paginated results and ranks the website. It articulates the phrases from different pages that has continuity in content from one to other and ranks the keyword.
• Penalizes anchor text over optimization. Targeting same anchor text for higher rankings. Think once again. Vary the anchor texts.
• Ranking for the fresh results. This helps largely to the online new websites, publishing domains, portal sites.
• Ranks for unique descriptive and meaningful title tags. Keyword stuffing in Title and Metags may sink your website to the new level of abyss.

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New Bing SERP Showing Old Google Layout Now

If at all there is one search engine competing Google, then it is Bing powered by Microsoft. First time, Bing succeeds in drawing little attention by offering a clean layout.

By embracing a new look or old Google layout, it is sending strong statement that it is here to stay. With the new look one can read without distraction and space is more between the lines. The decision moving related searches from left navigation to below the sponsored listing is wise.

Lately I was disappointed seeing the layout of Google. Stuffed with many features; the timeline results from hour to year on particular keyword; offering various platforms like shopping, blogs, news; jammed with sponsored listings top and right; What Google once known for its simplicity now has a tight packed lay out. On one side, the left of webpage, features content drilldown by location, blog and timeline. The right side crammed with Sponsored listings.

And if you search for local keywords Google display results in a cluttered layout. But my complain is limited to layout and not results. Google is still giving the best relevant results and I have no intention to change the search engine.

However, Bing is not offering anything new. It’s following the footsteps of Google. Keeping the simple Google user friendly SERP won’t help Bing to drive the loyal customer base of Google. It has to give something which help visitors dramatically that they have never thought of. May be on the lines of Apple.

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Google Penguin Web Spam Update - 3 Onpage Tips to Recover

Now that Google is sending its two Heroes Panda3.5 and Penguin to remove the poor quality content and less valuable website from search engine. The changes in website are inevitable. Penguin algorithm came at a time big websites are facing the duplicate content issue in their website. The more versions of panda released the less search traffic got for panda hit websites.

Adding salt to these wounds, Penguin is penalizing for web spam and keyword stuffed websites. The road to traffic recovery is hard. And regaining the lost paradise of Google rankings is much difficult. In this grim situation don’t hit panic button and jump to any quick conclusion.

For next 3 to 4 days check the rankings and analyze the traffic of website. Disappearance of rankings and lost traffic may occur due to two reasons. One, Penguin update or Two, Panda 3.5 update. I won’t give you any SEO magic wand to your rescue. There are no new instructions to follow. What the intention behind this post is make you remember the Google guidelines that forgotten in the quest of rankings.

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Avoid high frequency of same keywords in Title and Description Tag

As I said this is not new to everyone. Make title tag and description meaningful and readable. Penguin hates too many same keywords in 90 characters of title tag and 150 characters of description.

Don’t stuff keywords in Header and Footer

Three years ago, a trend started in on page optimization. It was common to see the keywords of small font size with hyperlink to home page above or beside the logo. And who can forget the footer getting abused. Plethora of keywords completely occupied the footer of website. For a minute, stare the layout of the website. Do you remember the website designed without SEO elements involved in it? Please ask the first psd file of home page from web designer. See now how the website is, in the name of off page optimization. It’s completely filled with the keywords. Remove all the unnecessary keywords and bring back the beautiful website what it was once. Make user friendly and offer better user experience to visitors.

Change the writing style

Keywords, Keywords Everywhere No Information to Read. Are we writing for visitors or for Google? While writing keyword rich content we forgot for whom we are writing. We trained writers to create content primarily for Google. SEO team started editing the content. And coercively added the keywords at the start of paragraph, center of the body and ended lot of keywords in summary. Redo the content. Remove unnecessary two phrase keywords, three phrase keywords from the content.

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