Google's new Layout : How it Affects You

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Google have just roled out a new layout with more in-depth search options down the left hand side of the page. The choices in this column aren't necessarily new, they've been available for some time.

Some of the options will already be familiar to users such as maps, videos, images & news since they've been available (and still are) along the top of the results page for a while now.

However the new additions to these search options are critical - they have been available for a while, but only if you went looking for them in the sub menus at the top of the results pages.

These new options include Blogs, Updates, and Discussions.

Blog Search

Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com) has been around for some time although people will notice it more now. If you want to find the latest blog post / opinion / review for a product or site then this is surely the easiest way to find it without specifically intending to use the blog search engine from the outset. If you needed another reason to start a business blog, surely this is it!

Updates

The updates option in the Google results pulls data from the real time search results (sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Google Buzz, etc.) It's now more important than ever to be listed in the real time search results - Get a Twitter account!

Discussions

This option returns results from the forums, Q&A sites & help sections. Helping out and answering questions in forums and message boards has always been a great way to get noticed and build a reputation in your industry, but now that there's a dedicated search option ... isn't it essential that you encorporate it into your online marketing strategy?

It's worth baring in mind that each of these options have sub-options to return and sort data by freshness (last 24 hours, last week etc.), length and also by location.

Therefore if you're running a local SEO campaign this could be a potential goldmine of relevant traffic!

Number Google Search Results - How To

Individually Number Google Search Results

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So you know how to increase Google search results to 100. But what use is that if you only know that the site you're looking for in three-quarters of the way down the page?

This requires no additional plugins or software ... we're just creating a bookmark.

Individually Number Google Search Results for Internet Explorer

• Create a bookmark to any page. Name it something useful like (Number Google Results).
  


• Open Internet Explorer (IE)
• Select Favourites > Add to Favourites
• Right click the Favourite and choose Properties
• Input the following code in the URL box (it may give you a warning about Javascript - just ignore it).

To use, just search for something on Google then open the favourite menu and click the bookmark you created in Step 1.

Individually Number Google Search Results for Firefox

• Create a bookmark to any page. Name it something useful like (Number Google Results).
  


• Open FireFox (FF)
• Choose Bookmark this Page (or use Ctrl + D)
  
• Select Favourites > Add to Favourites
• Right click the Favourite and choose Properties
• Input the following code in the Location box.

To use, just search for something on Google then open the favourite menu and click the bookmark you created in Step 1.

Why PageRank Doesn't Matter

Why Google PageRank Doesn't Matter

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What is PageRank (PR)?

Google's pagerank is a measure created by Google of a sites trustworthiness in the eyes of Google.

It is important to realise that PageRank applies to each individual page on a site & is not a sitewide value. One page can be PR 5 and another could have no PR.

Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important".

That is why you'll hear search engine professionals talking about how a single link from an authority (high PR) site can be worth more than lots of links for a low PR site.

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What? Two Versions?

Google has two versions of PageRank, a publically displayed metric and an internal value that they do not release to the public.

The public version is only updated once every 3 months or so (there's even rumours that it only gets updated once a year).

Therefore the public toolbar PR is almost always out of date by up to 3 months.

That's reason #1 why your PR doesn't matter.

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Rankings & PageRank

It is well known in the search marketing industry that good (high) pagerank doesn't equate to good (high) rankings. A PR 0 site can easily outrank a PR4 or PR5 site (and above).

Therefore concentrating on building PageRank in the hope that it will automatically convert into higher rankings for your keyphrases is a waste of time.

That's reason #2 why PR doesn't matter.

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Pagerank alone doesn't pay the bills, it doesn't generate enquiries, sales or conversions. A little green bar will never make your business or website a success, no matter how optimistic you are.

A great site with a PR0 doesn't make it a bad site. It may be a new site, have had recent server problems (downtime) or the toolbar itself may be reporting bad data.

As has been said many times before, concentrate on building quality content that people will want to share with others & build your inbound links to get rankings that bring traffic, the PageRank will follow ... but if it doesn't ... so what?!!?!

PS. You don't just have to take my word for it, most SEO experts agree on this. Here, and here and even here.

Does Google use META tags to categorise its web pages?

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They no longer use the keywords meta tag to rank sites in the results pages.

They do use the TITLE tag, meta title tag (two seperate entities) & the meta description along with other tags such as the robots meta tag.

While the meta description doesn't have a huge (if any) impact on ranking position, the keywords used to search will be bold in the description. Therefore a well written description tag will increase CTRs to your pages.

It is worth noting that the search engines can choose whether or not to use the description tag but in most cases they will.

See More Results from Google (not 10) - How To

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