Are Shortened URL Redirects like Bit.ly and Goo.gl SEO Friendly ?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the handy web tool that you have heard about so often that helps webmasters pinpoint the best keywords for heading search engine traffic to their sites. Page rank increasing with the number of active links present, it stands to reason that there may be a co-relation formula possible for SEO as well, in the event there are any active links.
Another feature of any website that increases its traffic potential is its connection capacities to any of the social networks such as Facebook, Yahoo Buzz, Google Buzz and so on.
Shortened URLs are sought by Google search engines identically to regular length URLs as long as these sites are using 301 redirect. There is absolutely no problem or chance of getting cut out of the search results. URL shortening services like bit.ly, goo.gl, is.gd, snurl (aka snipurl), tinyurl.com etc. use 301 redirects where there are some that don’t (for example hex.io ).
A 301 redirect means that the files or pages involved have been permanently moved, therefore the search engine will include it in the search results presented.
Create your own tiny URL or URLs by going to goo.gl or bit.ly. You should be able to just type either goo.gl or bit.ly into your address bar at the top of your browser. Be sure to create an account with Google (unless you already have one) and bit.ly before you begin so you don’t lose the new tiny URL. Into the provided text entering box place your long “url.” Underneath this box will appear your “shortened url” address.
However, I suggest that you use shortened urls or tiny urls like bit.ly when it is absolutely necessary. Remember long urls have one big advantage over tiny urls – they have the keywords in them – http://www.yourmainkeyword.com/another-long-tail-keyword.html is definitely what you would want to use if you can. But here we are discussing if shortened urls are seo friendly al all. the answer is they are but as I said you won’t get the advantage of having the keywords in your url obviously.
To check if your website is using the redirect required you can visit the page at http://www.webconfs.com/redirect-check.php and submit the website in question in the provided text box and you will be told if your website is search engine friendly.
Finally, let’s see what Googler Matt Cutts has to say about shortened url redirections. This video will pretty much clear the air and next time you use an url shortening service like bit.ly you won’t be wondering if it is seo friendly.
My Favorite URL Shortening Services are Goo.gl and Bit.ly
What are your favorites ?
Why Market Samurai is Considered as a Better Keyword Research Tool
Market Samurai is an advanced keyword research tool that is perfect to use in search engine optimization and pay per click advertising. Searching for the most appropriate keyword is very important in exposing one’s website to traffic and Market Samurai software allows website owners to attract lots of traffic to their websites.
Market Samurai has many beneficial features that make it one of the best keyword research tools available. One benefit offered by this software is that it is possible to use it on all types of computer platforms including Mac and Linux since it is built on Adobe AIR. Market Samurai is reliable and regular free updates of the software are available. The features of this software include Rank Checker, Keyword Research, Domains, Promotion, SEO Competition, Monetization and Publish Content.
The Rank Checker feature assists website owners in tracking their rankings on Yahoo!, Google and Bing. This feature allows for the tracking of unlimited numbers of domains and keywords displaying the data for each domain, keyword and url in a table and displaying historical data in charts. This feature is easy to use when the number of keywords one wants to track is not very high.
The other feature that makes website owners to consider Market Samurai as a better Keyword Research tool is the software’s keyword research feature. The feature allows one to enter a seed keyword such as ‘natural acne treatment’ and receive a keyword list from Google, which one can further analyze. The Keyword Research feature offers detailed keyword information including estimated AdWords, estimated SEO traffic, SEO and PPC competition, SEO value and commercial viability. It allows website owners to filter keywords using the data mentioned and makes it easy to choose individual keywords that one can utilize as seeds in separate tabs.
Market Samurai also offers another beneficial feature referred to as SEO Competition. This feature is an extended version of keyword analysis for search engine optimization and it allows website operators to receive the first page breakdown results for their keywords in Google in addition to other competitive data such as domain age, PageRank, keyword metrics, cache information and different types of backlinks. SEO Competition ranks the competitiveness of results by indicating the most competitive keywords in green and the non-competitive ones in red. With this feature, one can get an exact blueprint of the backlinks that one’s competitors have and be able to achieve better or similar results by replicating them.
Market Samurai also has Domains feature allows website operators to find new, dropped and expiring domain names easily. The other important feature is Monetization, which allows for the easy finding of affiliate programs from affiliate networks such as Clickbank, Amazon, PayDotCom and Commission Junction. With these features, it is possible to see why Market Samurai is a perfect Keyword Research tool.
And now Market Samurai fetches data from the new google Adwords Keyword Tool and if you configure Market Samurai by providing it your Google Adwords login details you can search for as many as 800 keywords instead of 100 allowed by Google normally.
Thirty Day Challenge 2009 Begins
It’s August. It’s a very special time of the year for internet marketing enthusiasts because this is the month of Thirty Day Challenge . I participated in the Thirty Day Challenge for the first time in 207 and was successful to make that all important affiliate sale within that 30 (actually 31) days timeframe. Boy, was that exciting? I still remember how thrilled I was to make my first ever affiliate income. It was a digital or information product from Clickbank product and I made around $13. You can still find me in the Thirty Day Challenge (aka 30DC or TDC) 2007 Hall of Fame.
Ed Dale, Dan Raine, Guru Bob and now the Noble Samurais form Market Samurai are all set to trill you again. Ed promised that 30DC 2009 will be even bigger. It’s simply amazing how they continue producing absolutely top class internet marketing or affiliate marketing tutorials year after year and making them available absolutely free. No catch and strings attached – 30DC is free – the world knows it already. There’s No Charge for Awesomeness – as Ed would say.
So, if you are a newbie, an intermediate online marketer or a veteran it’s time to get involved and take action. By the way, newbies should definitely participate while others could keep a close watch in order to pick up the golden nuggets.
Personally I wont be participating actively but will definitely closely follow the tutorials everyday. I have already watched the Day 1 and 2 lessons and downloaded the videos for future reference. Looking forward to Day 3.
Best wishes to all the 30DC participants.
Useful 30DC Links :
Thirty Day Challenge Blog
Thirty Day Challenge Forum
How to check your web site’s position in Google and be sure about it
Google now displays search results based on on a number of factors. Your geographic location, your browsing history, how you configured your browser to show the Google SERP – everything comes into play. My cousin was touring Asia a year back and he was shocked when he discovered that his blog at #6 on Google SERP. He was sitting at #2 when he left home. He called me to check his position and guess what he is still at #2. So, what is he doing wrong. Nothing, it’s not his fault Google displays country specific search results and that’s why he was presented with a result which is different from what he is familiar with.
Since USA is one of the major markets ( in fact it’s the biggest ) for online entrepreneurs you would like to check frequently how you are doing on Google.com which is actually the US version of Google. To avoid confusion and get correct results you can follow a few simple steps -
Step 1 : Install the CustomizeGoogle Firefox addon. It will assign a serial number to each of the results in Google SERP. Make sure the Add Position Counter is checked. Tools > Addons > CustomizeGoogle > Web > Add Position Counter
Step 2: Make sure that the “Number of Results” is set to 10 (which is default and most probably you don’t have to do anything unless you have changed it to some other number). You can do this by clicking the Preference link just to the right of the Search button on the Google search page. You need to do this because almost all of your visitors have this setting by default.
Step 3: Type your keyword or key phrase in the search field and hit enter or click the Search button.
Step 4: As Google returns with the search results, you go back to the address bar again and add the following at the end of the url and hit enter again
&gl=us (if you want US results while you access the internet from anywhere but USA)
&gl=uk (if you want UK results while you access the internet from anywhere but UK)
&gl=ca (you got the idea …. this one is for Canada)
&gl=au (Australia)
&gl=nz (New Zealand)
Here is an example ( keyword searched – acne treatment )
Did you notice the &gl=uk at the end of the url ? I was trying to find out how a site is doing in UK.
By the way, you must sign out of your Gmail account that you might have open in another tab.
This will fetch perfect results every and is a pretty fast process once set up. There are some other addons which are believed to display geo-targeted results but they either show incorrect results or are not as convenient as this.
However, if you want to recheck the result try this site for free – Search Google Position
Internet Marketing Intern
Well, this is only a welcome post. Just anopther welcome post announcingthe birth of yet another blog on internet marketing aka how to makemoney online working from home ? May be, may be not. Well, I have no intention to spend my and your precious time by publishing crappy posts. I really want you to follow this blog, bookmark it and visit frequently. And I promise that I will try to make each and every of your vists worthy.
I am learning. I have already learned a lot. But I still consider myself to be a student of internet or online marketing.
