One Line sitelinks - Is it helpful??

In a new step towards more friendly search, Google declared "One line sitelinks". They started implementing one line sitelinks across there datacenters starting from UK. Results with one line sitelinks started showing up in Google UK.

Sitelinks is a feature in Google where a websites inner links are even shown along with the normal search results. It gives insight to the user about the website which further helps in CTR. Tillnow this feature was just for the first result but now google in a further step implemented the same across all the results. Now just below all the search results there will be one line of sitelinks showing three different links along with the normal search results.

In Google's official webmastercentral blog it is written like this: "These one-line sitelinks have many of the same benefits as the full two-column sitelinks, but on a smaller scale: they show users some relevant sub-pages in the site and give an idea of what the site is about. Comparing the sitelinks that appear for each result can even illustrate the difference between the sites. Just like regular sitelinks, one-line sitelinks are generated algorithmically and the decisions on when to show them and which links to display are entirely based on the expected benefit to users."

So lets hope that this one line sitelinks will improve the user experience and also the traffic to individual websites.

Cheers, please share your thoughts in the comment space.

War against Duplicacy - Canonical Tags - Search Engines new invention

In the SEO fraternity Canonical Tags are quite hot now a days. Everyone is interested in knowing how much importance does really all the search engines give them. Is it really a way out??

Canonical Tags - < rel="canonical" href="http://www.abc.com/abc.html">

Canonical Tags are the html code which should be inserted in the head section of the duplicate webpage, which tells the crawler that they are on a duplicate page and the original content can be found on the specified URL.

Content duplicacy is always a issues for various search engines. So the major search engines i.e. Google, Yahoo and MSN come up with this canonical tag. So if there are two or more similar pages with same content then on the duplicate pages this tag can be placed with a link to the original page. In this way the search engines will restrict them again from crawling the duplicate content.

In the Google Search Master Conference 2009, Bangalore, India Adam Lasnik was discussing about Canonical Tags and redirection as a way to avoid duplicate content. Though some webmasters are expressing fear on the usage of tag and they feel it can be misused or abused. If a website A generates some content and the website B copies it and say that its Canonical, then Wat??

In my opinion some more thoughts should be given on the issue of canonical tags. I hope Search Engine crawlers are intelligent enough to avoid such canonical tag references. Please pen in your thoughts in the comments area.

Google Search masters 2009 Conference

Google Search Masters 2009 conference was fun!

Lemme start by giving thanks to Adam Lasnik - "Search Evangelist - Google" who was more than kind to Answer most of the queries, Koti Ivaturi - who gave insight on Webmaster Central Forum, Dr Rajat Mukherjee - Custom Search Engine Expert, Ankit Gupta who gave tips on how to build mobile friendly websites and the last but not the least Deepak Kumar who very efficiently described the tools of Google Analytics and Website Optimizer.

Along with 150 Plus webmasters in the conference from different parts of India it was fun! Google was clearly emphasizing on making mobile friendly websites - the next gen marketing tool. Some of the tips given in the GSM09 conference are:

- Use XML Sitemaps
- Give text with each individual defining them, what they are about
- Content Duplicacy Issues - DMCA lawsuit
- Make mobile friendly versions of website
- Geo Location Targeting through Google Webmaster Central
- Usage of Canonical tags
- Use Alt tags for Images
- Use Unique Meta Tags
- Good Content based relevant backlinks
- Use Webmaster Forum
- Use Webmaster Central

So I hope this will be of some kind of help for you guyz. :)

Introduction - Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

Hi Friends,

I am Nikhil Alex, a Search Marketing Specialist. Internet always fascinated me as it is a collection of huge information in the form of Websites. So as a result I thought of sharing my experience with you guyz.

This is my endeavour to write regular posts on Search Marketing, different tools both online as well as offline, Online Marketing, Analytics, SEO, PPC, SEM, Social Media, etc. I will be addressing whole lot of issues faced by me or by my friends or fellow webmasters. In todays Internet savy world Webmasters and Search Engines are the two most important entities. Webmasters provide the content and search engines are the way or channel to reach that content. So in a way both are inter dependent on each other.

I hope we will meet again soon...........................
Keep Reading :)