If you thought that Google found your website around the dates that you launched it, there is a good chance that you wrong. Google finds a page/website through links, and that’s when they’ll set your “birth date” as. So if you were checking your competitors domain name age, ouch…time to recheck!

How to find out your birthdate on Google?

Try this search (with your domain of course) and find out when Google indexed you. You can see it on the left hand side of the search.

Now try the same with your competition or competing keywords. Do you see a pattern?
Yes, the top ranking ones were found first.

So, who said Google is dumb and can’t fix duplicate content.

Here’s another of the “Quick SEO Tips” series. Ten things to keep in mind while posting images on blogs.

1. Include the keyword in your image name.
   Ex:- Instead of “DSC1234.jpg” it’s better to name it as “Make-money-online.jpg”
2. Never use characters/spaces in filenames as they will be encoded.
   Ex: - Instead of “DSC%20123cat.jpg” it’s better to name it “DSC-123cat.jpg”
3. Use the ALT tags.
   ALT tags are recommended, though their usage is debated. Let’s put it this way. It may not give you a good push in the SERPS, but definitely, you don’t want to lose an opportunity.
4. Use the “Title” attributes.
   Title attributes are a great way to add meaningful information about the images. Use it.
   Ex:- Title=”Yellow cat sitting on the wall.” P.S - Don’t forget the image search traffic.
5. Place the image within ample text.
   So that, engines can crawl the text and make out what the image is about, if at all the ALT tags, filenames and TITLE attributes aren’t available.
6. Do not use the same ALT tags for two or more images on the same page.
7. Do not use the same TITLE attributes for two or more images on the same page/site. It appears artificial.
8. If possible, place the image amidst text ad not before or after it.

Forget long term link building strategies, they take a long time after all. Who’d wait for so long?
Here are five quick things you can do to get some cool links, the smart way!

1. Create wallpapers of your site and submit to wallpaper directories(most of the them allow linkbacks)
   Do a google search and find out the list of sites. Example.

2. Write articles and submit to ezine articles (the old grandpa).
3. Add links to blogrolls. Many of them are link exchanges, in those cases, do a three-way link exchange with your partner sites.
   Find sites that accept linkbacks by googling them down. Example.
4. Guest blog at various blogs.
   Most them offer links to author sites.
   Find them out by doing a similar search.
5. Submit ringtones to sites and get links back to your site.
   Find the sites here with a similar search.

P.S - Here on, there will be quick articles on DailySEOblog (like this), that will feature small, power packed, capsule information on SEO. No blabbering, no frills, just pure gyan. Hope you’ll like it. They’ll be called “SEO Quick Tips” and you can subscribe to themhere.

Was going through some forums and found that there are quite some annoying number of questions being asked about “nofollow” tags and their inclusion to blogs. One dude was asking if there’s anything wrong in nofollowing every link from his blog and another guy was asking if he should nofollow only the wikipedia links.
Here’s my opinions on the use of nofollow tags and how to romance them.

Well, basically the “nofollow” tag is a…well tag/attribute that can be applied to hyper links and pages.
i) NOFOLLOW meta tags are used to tell the search engines whether to crawl a page or not.
ii) NOFOLLOW attributes (also called tags) on hyperinks are used to tell search engines whether to crawl/follow a hyperlink.

So essentially, NOFOLLOW is like the stop signal the policeman holds, to control traffic.

When should you use NOFOLLOW tags and when should you not use it? (The romance part comes later..)

Image credits - AleBonvini

How and when to use a NOFOLLOW meta tag.

As I told you NOFOLLOW meta tags are used in the meta section (just like the meta description and keywords tag).
You can specifically add them on to the meta section of a page, to tell the search engines whether to crawl that page or not. Usually, they are used when you don’t want the page to be crawled, otherwise you simply leave it as such. No use at all.

Here’s the format.

<html>
<head>
<title>...</title>
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW"></head>

Check this website for more details on the format.

Here as you can see there are two options available.

One - NOINDEX - Tells the page that this page is not to be indexed.
Two - NOFOLLOW - Tells that the links(all of them) on this page should not be indexed but the content read.

This tag is used specifically when the content of the page poses a threat to the site overall, either because of it’s i) Repetitive nature/Duplicate content or it’s ii) Objectionable content

For example, on a wordpress installation, there are numerous situations where duplicate content can crop up. In these cases, the noindex, and nofollow meta tags can be used successfully. This is exactly what the Platinum SEO plugin does.

How and when to use NOFOLLOW tag on links.
The nofollow attribute (commonly referred to as nofollow tags) given to hyperlinks are commonly used to suggest whether or not to crawl them.

Format : - <a href="linkhere"rel=”nofollow”>Anchor text</a>

Situations when they are used.

1. When there are numerous number of links on the page
   When there are numerous amount of links on a page, it dilutes the pagerank and authority of the page (for younger websites mainly). In such cases, it is wise to limit the number of outgoing links to atleast match with the number of incoming links or if there are no incoming links, keeo them to a minimum.
   To do so, you can use the NOFOLLOW attribute to block the spiders crawling certain number of external links.
2. When the site linked to is of objectionable content
   Sometimes, you might have to link to a website for reference purposes, but the content of that website might have objectionable content like Textlinkads, which may negatively harm your reputation. In these cases you can selectively NOFOLLOW the links.
3. When the number of incoming links to a page is minimal
   Sometimes, you may have a fairly new website and you are gathering up all your resources like incoming links to gain a good page rank next update. These times, you might want to link to only valid and authority websites and link very scarcely to other websites. Here again, nofollowing the “other” websites will save you page rank and google juice.
   
   
4. When you are deliberately crafting page rank
   Crafting page rank is a phenomenon seen widely used by SEOs to ensure “almost” equal weightage and page ranks to internal pages of a website, by crafting a particular site structure and driving links to them. Although this is a theoretically superb idea, many have disagreements to it including Google. In this scenario too, NOFOLLOW attributes are used to drive link juice to particular directions and not let it go the normal way.

What you shouldn’t do with NOFOLLOW tags and attributes.

1. Never use it to block all links on a page unless you are sure what you are doing.
2. Never use NOFOLLOW on all links without any criteria (like plugins).
3. Be careful when using meta tag automators, or you may end up using no index on important pages.

A better written title is half the job done.
Titles would be the most important SEO factor I’d chose if you’d ask me to select one important factor that directly affects your SE ranks and at the same time takes care of your readers “likeability”.
While it’s a fact that the same title cannot (mostly it does) satisfy both your readers and the robots alike, let’s attempt to get as close as we can to that level.

Why cannot titles be as good on SEO and users?
- The reason is that the two are entirely different. For SEO, you might have to use keywords extensively, to the level of repeating them to gain your edge on the search engines. While as for users, they don’t necessarily need to enjoy your SEO “tricks” where you’d put your keyword first, then your secondary keyword etc..they don’t even care what your keyword is. They like titles that are attractive and has a meaning to it.

So, when you want to write meaningful titles while not losing out on SEO, what do you do?

1. Guess out all the variations you can think of your primary keyword.
2. Use Delicious, Digg and other social bookmarks (food for thought*) to find out what are the best alternative (sometimes original) keywords for your primary keyword
3. Find out stories related to the primary keyword that are most popular on the social media sites (more food..)

Now, logically analyzing the above, draft an attractive copy embedding the keyword while ensuring a fancy title. i agree it may sound lame, but when you are in situations that are likely to look stupid on you, I guess the lame way is the best one out.

This way you can ensure that -

1. You use the crowd power and folksonomy to pick up the most popular keywords, so you are not using anything out of this world or out of your imagination. It’s there and liked by the crowd.
2. You are likely to write a better looking and acceptable copy without letting ooze out your creative juices!
3. You don’t lose out on SEO, as you’ve done a better and up to date KW research.

As for the other times, when you have the luxury of drafting your own titles with the unique content you have, I’d say, forget this tip, but in difficult times, try it, see what difference it makes.

Somebody had to do it and Rajesh from Tech Bliss Online is the man to do it. Even though All in One SEO was the most downloaded plugin, I wasn’t quite impressed by it’s functions. Sure it took care of the basic functions, but it wasn’t versatile. There were so many other functions and features a real SEO plugin had to take care of, AllinOne SEO ignored many of them. There were some better plugins available like the Headspace one, but it was too complicated for new users of Wordpress.

Rajesh has the new Platinum plugin now, which is an improvised version of the AllinOne SEO plugin. It does everything that AllinOne was doing and also some extra cool features. I’d say that this one is more closer to the real SEO plugin I was talking about. It takes care of pretty much everything, a bit more advanced than a basic SEO plugin but easy to use as well.

Here are the features.

• Optimized Post and Page Titles for search engines - Present in AllinOne SEO
• Generates all SEO relevant META tags automatically - Present in AllinOne SEO
• Helps you avoid duplicate content - Present in AllinOne SEO
• Lets you override any title and set any META description and META keywords, for any post or page - Present in AllinOne SEO
• Compatible with most other plugins, like Auto Meta, Ultimate Tag
  Warrior and others.However you may have to disable All in One SEO pack
• You don’t have to fear changing permalinks. If you are not
  satisfied with the current permalink, change it through
  Settings–>Permalinks in your admin panel, without worrying about
  loss of Page rank or google penalty.Platinum SEO plugin will take care
  of issuing a 301 redirect to the new location.This is a new essential
  feature, not present in All in one SEO - Absent in AllinOne SEO
• Add index, noindex, follow or nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet,
  noodp, noydir meta tags to any post/page.These options are not
  available in All in one SEO Pack.Find out why this option to set
  post/page level Meta Robots Tag useful? - Absent in AllinOne SEO

The best part of the plugin is that it helps you to block certain pages like category, tags or any posts by Google, Yahoo and search engines by including “no index” tags at these specified pages/posts.
You don’t have to tweak Robots.txt hereafter, just select from the page as to which page/caegory is to be blocked or no indexed and the plugin does it beautifully.

So far I haven’t come across any glitches but the good thing is that unlike AllinOne SEO, Rajesh is available for support on this plugin. I would rate it a 4 our of 5 !

Stumbleupon is no doubt the best targeted traffic source available today. But unfortunately there is very less information on how to use or utilize stumbleupon to the maximum. We all know that some people do it better, while some are awesome with SU. There are no secrets, buy some lesser known or lesser used features on Stumbleupon that helps the power user.

I might sound like a fool if I said that nobody knew about these, so these are likely to be known by some while it might be news for the rest. Let’s see.

1. Quick stumbles with “From the page” review
   You can highlight any text from any page and clik the “review” button, so that the text will automatically appear with a “From the page:your text” format in the review column. When discovering a new site, just highlight the text and click thumbs up. The text will automatically fill in.
   So hereafter, no need to write reviews for each submission.
2. Increase your productivity with shortcuts
   Go to “Toolbar Options” and assign shortcuts like “CTRL+S” etc to thumbs up and thumbs down buttons. This will make your stumbling easier.
3. Subscribe to Tags not just topics
   You can subscribe to tags as well, not only to topics. It is done via the ‘tag page‘ (it’s also accessible through Preferences ? My interests) by choosing a tag and clicking the ‘Subscribe’ button on the upper right of the tag’s page.
   Since there are more tags than topics, and tags are likely to be more relevant to the crowds tastes, it’s a good idea to subscribe to them.
4. Thumbs up images in jiffy
   If you come across images on a site, right click on the image and select the “Stumbleupon Photoblogit” menu. It wil quickly add a rating for the image. No need to find the images URL and then go rate it. Two clicks saved!

For those of you who have done link building campaigns on an extensive scale would admit that the exercise by itself is a risky process because, the results are always based on experimentation. There are no hard and fast rules but experiments. For the same reason, I’m questioned by clients by - Why can’t I and Why don’t we try this - type.
My suggestion and advice would always revolve around not following any pattern while doing link building campaigns. Google has been very clever in detecting patterns in SEO campaigns and if found “guilty” put you in trouble so it’s best to stay away from patterns.

• Sudden increase in the number of backlinks
  This is a major problem with link building. Frustrating sometimes it is, when we know that we can’t wait for the competitor but beat him on what he is at the moment, but at the same time, gets none of the backlinks indexed. So patience takes a back seat and on we go with aggressive link building, sourcing links left and right. Only to know that, we aren’t indexed at all because of extensive link building. Clever Google eh?
  The only solution here is to make the link building campaign look as natural as possible. Take it slow and steady one by one, documenting each link you collect and monitoring the progress. Haste makes serious waste!
• Very similar anchor text across all backlinks
  This is yet another mistake due to excessive keyword anxiety. It is natural for webmasters to cling on to the primary keyword and try getting as many links as possible. Technically, this is right, the more keywords you have in your anchor text, the better. But as far as Google is considered, dude thinks it’s un natural. And discounts all those backlinks you sourced.
  In this situation, it’s a great idea to use variations of your primary keyword to source links. Keep ready more than one variation of the primary keyword. Ex:- If your primary keyword is “Rabbit”, you might want to use “White rabbits”, “Red Rabbits”, “Rabbitery” and “Rabbittabittoo” as your anchor texts assuming they aren’t totally different keywords.
• Extensive links from the same site with the same anchor text
  Yet again, an un natural phenomena as seen by Google. Why would a site add your text link to all it’s pages with the same anchor text? Unless you are connected in some way, this probably is the best example of a text link purchase/sales. Okay, Links discounted !
  So be clever, ask the webmaster to link to you contextually, give them different sets of text and keywords to embed the link without causing much “un naturality”.
• Increased number of links from brand new sites.
  Okay, let’s guess why this would happen.
  - you went on a link buying spree with the cheaper sites.
  - you build a network of blogs yourself.
  - your friend runs the site.
  Either way, this seems to be un natural. Mix up your link building campaign with both old and new sites, do not stick to one category of them

Essentially, link building can be a fairly simple process if you look at it at a long term perspective (say 6 months or so), and it’s much effective that way too. But if you want quick results, quicker backlinks and immediate SERPs rise, then you’re doing something to game the system however good your intention is. And Google sometimes read your mind as well, so be careful about that guy.

Link building has always been associated with link exchanges, link request emails, link buying etc. Not any more. They’re all old-school stuff people try and waste their time on. Now since the social media revolution, there’s a whole new array of sites available that allows SEOs and webmasters to get some link juice from them for free. Now, these features will be taken for a ride, if given out freely, and they know. For the same reason, many of the sites have converted from “dofollow” to “nofollow“.

Social Media sites are basically communities where like minded guys gather up and share stuff. Be it SU, or Digg, there’s a community within. And universally, SEOs and Webmasters are looked upon with a raised eyebrow because these guys (you and me) tend to manipulate the system, and benefit from it. So let me warn you, what I’m going to tell you is of course a part of SEO, but this does not mean we have flock to all of them and start building links from day one.

Social media sites are seen generally as traffic generation machines. Be it Digg or SU, people see it as a medium to get the extra ordinary visibility for their websites, and take advantage of the large communities there. This is something that’s open to discussion. Whether to use social media sites for link building or to leave them off as communities and let them exist for what they are.

Now, here are the social media sites that are known (as of today) to pass link juice apart from teh community benefits. Some of them give huge traffic, some does not, but give you good healthy, relevant google juice.

Digg - Digg gives link juice from all the stories submitted. If you are on a top page, you have higher PR link juice, if you are on the upcoming page, lesser.

Mixx - Mixx does pass link juice and it’s easy to use it to rank high on SERPs as of now. But it’s a growing community, so it may not be easier later. Bit right now, it’s a good tool.

Hugg - Hugg is almost like digg with focus on environmental issues. Links are crawlable and passes juice.

Linkinn - Linkinn has some offbeat categories that you won’t find in the mainstream, popular social media site. A PR 6 site it features videos and pictures. Links are indexed and pass juice.

Reddit - One of the most popular guys around, reddit still have it’s links dofollowed so if you make it to the top pages, you’re lucky.

Indian Pad - Audience that’s Indian targeted, this guy is the only most popular social media site in India. Links are crawlable and indexed, and does pass on Google juice. The most popular categories are Tech and News

Backflip - Social bookmarking site with PR 6. Links are crawlable and passes on link juice.

Mister Wong - One of my favorites, Wong is a PR 6 social bookmarking site that allows dofollow links.

Mylink Vault - This guy gives you PR 5 backlinks, clean interface, good tool.

Swik - A clean social bookmarking site that gives you PR 6 backlinks. The community id for developers and open source enthusiasts.

That’s it for now. There are quite a number of other niche social media sites that help you with link juice and targeting niche communities. A healthy participation in these communities respecting the members and the laws can ensure you long lasting help with link building and traffic.

Link building is the trump card in SEO. As I have stated on many occasions, a wise and clever link building strategy can take care of a stupid on site optimized site. So even if everything on your site went wrong. Having a carefully planned link building strategy will rescue you and push you up the SERPs more than a good on site optimization strategy.

The only problem is that link building can be a bit more costly. I would never suggest you to buy links from other sites, but if it is essential, try to source some good relevant links from related sites on the same domain space.

However, there are still some myths regarding link building that still exist, and people a bit scary or skeptical when talking about it. I would tell them that link building is nothing to worry about, in fact if carefully planned it can work you wonders. Let’s discuss some common myths on link building and why shouldn’t you worry about link building.

1. Link building is not just about numbers.
   Link building is not about getting the maximum number of links. There is a widespread belief that the more links you get, the better. Well that’s true but it doesn’t mean that you can beat an existing top rank guy on the SERPs ONLY by having more number of links than them. Many a imes, when I talk to SEOs and clients, many of them first counts the number of links to their competitor, and says that we got to gather more links than them to beat them. And I cannot completely agree. Go to point 2.
2. Less links but more power
   In my opinion, to beat an existing guy, you don’t need to gather more links than him. But you should collect more “meaningful” links. I’d say “Power” links. Power links even though lesser in number, by their value and authority will give you stronger and bigger pushes up the SERPs. So essential, if your competitor has 100 backlinks, then it’s possible to even have 20 power links and get a better position than him on the SERPs.
3. How old are you ? I mean the links.
   Another crucial factor is that the age of links does matter while counting the backlinks. Sometimes, people asks me, why can’t you set up 100 blogs on blogger.com or wordpress.com and then link all of them to my main website? Wouldn’t that be like 100 backlinks for free? Well, I wish if it was easier that way. It works perfect if you had a blogger.com blog running for a longer time and you had decent PR on it. But you can’t just create 100 of them on one fine day and get links from them. The reason is that they dont have the age advantage. Unlike in real life, the older the links are the better. So it makes sense to gather links from an aged domain (check with webarchive.org) rather than a new one.
4. Link boosters
   Now, to help fight tight competition, we have the link boosters. They are “special” links that can be sourced from exclusive domains. Like .edus, .govs, and .orgs. Well, since this Google guy is so clever, he thinks that links from a .gov and .edu are hard to source, and if some one did link to you, that means you are likely to be an authority, just like the way you are. And they are partially right. .Gov sites are government authorizations and they are not generally willing for link sales. So once you have their links that’s most likely because your site is relevant to the content.
   Google also should be knowing that many of them has blogs. I’ll stop it there.
5. Just any text link won’t help. Why?
   I wish if it was that way. But the problem is that gathering links from any source just doesn’t matter. It even becomes like a no link at all situation. Valid links should always come from contextual content and related sites. So if you want a link to a dating site, you source a link from a relationship site.
6. Contextual links?
   And also it’s important that the links should be contextual. NO sitewide links, single anchor text links. They are OK, but what’s of value to you is contextual ones that are more like a suggestion from the webmaster, or recommendation to visit your site, naturally.
7. Google v/s Yahoo v\s MSN
   Finally, if you have been checking Google for backlinks, then you’d be having a tough and confusing situation. Google (deliberately) does not show all links to your site. But Yahoo and MSN are more fair on this and will show you more links. So don’t check your backlinks on Google and fret over it. Yahoo is better than the big G in some aspects.

Hope it all makes sense.