Msn Link: Command Is Live Again!

Reported earlier by SEOROUNDTABLE that finally MSN/Live.com search engine starts showing result for LINK: command to count backlinks in MSN Live Search Engine. Though the operator is a bit different than the previous simple link: command

For a link command you now need to use +link:www.xyz.com and for a link domain command you need to use +linkdomain:http://www.XYZ.com

Its working at the time of writing this post, so I don't need to give you evidence by providing screen captures, but if you want you can go to seoroundtable where Rusty Brick got some screen shots while using this command.

As for your memory refresher, MSN stops this feature earlier in March thss year cause of mass automated usage. But now its back for us ..the SEOZ.

MSN Live Webmaster Portal

So after Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer, SEO'z and webmasters are waiting for something similar from Microsoft and here it is at-last...Live Search Webmaster Portal. It is definitely a good effort from MSN to take SEO seriously. As reporting in their Official Blog, MSN Webmaster Portal initially offers

• Troubleshooting tools to ensure MSN Bot is effectively crawling and indexing your site
• Sitemap creation, submission and ping tools
• Statistics about your website
• Consolidation of content submission resources
• New content and community resources

Since its Beta version also not available publicly instead Microsoft invite people to send emails to participate and enjoy that beta version of their webmaster portal. The email is : lswmp@microsoft.com

Here is the original post on Microsoft official blog. LINK

Link Exchange

Link Exchange was and is always a major part of any link building campaign. Almost every site has a pages labeled as Links or Resources. These Pages contain links to other sites and in return other sites place a link of website eon their pages. Some times ago Google gives importance to how many links pointing to a site from different websites. But now It gives importance to from which site links are coming.

This not reduce the importance of Link Exchange but give this process a more non-spamy look. Before this purpose of Link exchange is only to get more and more links without considering the site from where its coming and at most only Page Rank is considered doing this. Result is obvious Google change its algo, which in general also moving to Quality rather than Quantity.

So doing Link Exchange will enhance your ranking but only if you consider the following points.

Always Do Link Exchange with related sites. For example your site topic is related to Health, do link exchange with only health related sites. You don't need to look for sites that exactly match your site theme means if your site selling herbal supplement, its not necessary that you do link exchange with only sites that are selling herbal supplements instead do the Link Exchange with sites that are closely related to your site topic such that a herbal supplement site can do link exchange with a site giving info about Health and Fitness.

Don't use same title for every Link Exchange.

Don't use a title more than three times.

Tweak your description also for every link if possible. Its a bit hard to provide a new description for every listing so you should at least use 4 descriptions randomly.

Don't do link exchange with sites that are a single product page. Means they just offer a single product and nothing more.

Now the question is How can you find related sites for link exchange. Here are some queries you can use to find websites that are closely related to your site and offering Link Exchange. Determine Your keyword first and then use it with these queries.

“Submit a link” + “your keyword”
“Submit a site” + “your keyword(s)”
“Submit URL” + “your keyword(s)”
“Submit an URL” + “your keyword(s)”
“Add a link” + “your keyword”
“Add a site” + “your keyword”
“Add URL” + “your keyword”
“Add an URL” + “your keyword”
“Suggest a link” + “your keyword ”
“Suggest a site” + “your keywords”
“Suggest URL” + “your keyword(s)”
“Suggest an URL” + “your keyword”
“Your Region” + “Add url” + directory
“your keywords” + “directory”
“your keywords” + “directories”
“your industry” +add url, directories,
“related sites” + your keyword + directory
“related urls” + your keyword + directory
keyword reciprocal + directory
keyword exchange + directory
keyword add site + directory
keyword resources + directory
keyword links + directory

Any more suggestions are welcome.

Directory Submission

According to Wikipedia

"A web directory or link directory is a directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links."

Directory Submission For anyone trying to promote their website, submitting to directories can be a great means of getting free or cheap links to their site. Submitting to internet directories can be a valuable tool in your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. If you are in a competitive industry and you don't have a large number of backlinks pointing to your site then the major search engines (Google, MSN and Yahoo) won't list your site high in their search engine results (SERPS). As the search engines are refining their techniques all the time it may be to your advantage to get links from related websites.

Niche Directories The search engines, especially Google are always improving their algorithms. They now provide more weight for a link from a site with the same topic. For example, a travel site will benefit more from a link from another travel site rather than a link from a legal site. For this reason, it is beneficial to have your site listed in directories related to your site. The internet has thousands of directories and there are directories for every niche you can think of. Examples included travel, business, finance, sports, webmaster, SEO, kids, blogs, entertainment, law, games, gambling and web hosting.

You can find listings of 2000 internet directories at web-directoires.ws. This site has 50 categories of well categorized niche directories LINK, including business and financial sites. Listing your financial site in financial directories will improve your search rankings. Remember that the Search Engines (especially Google and Yahoo) like links sites with similar content. Within the niche directories you can find general sites or sites that deal with a very specific topic. .A business directory would be an example of a general niche directory. The Offshore Directory would be an example of a specific niche as the site lists websites related to offshore tax shelters. This site offers specific tax information related to offshore shelters such as tax consultants, legal help, banking and investment. Another example of a specific niche would be the software directory, a site dedicated to software, tools and utilities.

Image Optimization

mage optimization is significant to search engine optimization. It is the process of making graphic arts ready for a website. Image optimization services as part of SEO Process. Image optimization consist of strategies to make your graphics search engine friendly. This includes optimize your image file for maximum speed, editing, sharpened, condensed and cropped for quality. A well optimized image reduces the time required to download web pages.

The image optimization process involves:

Image selection
Size determination
Compression
Defining length and width of image
Alt-tag (alternate text) generation


Alt tag increases your website’s chance of getting top ranking in leading search engines. aming of image file and content of the alt tag is also important in image optimization. Making file names related to your web page content and include appropriate keywords in image file name is alo consider in image optimization.

MICROSOFT PRIVACY POLICY

Ok. First we see a great step from ASk.com, launching of Ask Eraser that allow users to erase their search history, and then Google at last reducing their cookie expiration period from 2038 to 18 months. Now yahoo and Microsoft also comin with same steps towards Privacy Protection. According to Wall Street Journal, Yahoo will announce in coming days, plans for a policy to make all of a user’s search data anonymous within 13 months of receiving it.

Msn is an step ahead from yahoo and officially announce a privacy policy on 22nd July, according to which

Microsoft® Windows Live™ users can make search query data anonymous after 18 months by permanently removing cookie IDs, the entire IP address and other identifiers from search terms. Microsoft will also work to give customers more control over what information it uses to personalize their online search experience.

Moreover Microsoft also announce that

Microsoft will join the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) later this year when it begins to offer third-party ad serving broadly.

Microsoft Press Release

Google-Yahoo-Msn Ranking Factors

How to get your site in top rankings in Search Engines?

you have heard that question very often in SEO Forums. But No one has a correct answer or a Secret Way (Black Hat SEO's claims they have).

why?

Its simple. There isn't one.

Search Engine Optimization is not a one day or one week or one month or(OK.. Enough) process. Its a continuous process that requires regular attention and working. But still some sites got top ranking in such a short period.

How?

The answer for that question is they optimize their sites and follow all the guidelines created by search engines to be on top results.

What are they then?

That's the question which can lead you to the actual process or way for getting top ranks for your website. After long experiments, observations and extensive researches by SEO's (Like Me); it has been noted that each search engine give priority to something (SEO Related of course). This something would either be On-page factor or Off-page factor or even both.

So what are these?(Sometimes questions change your life but damn they annoy when you ask something which is just coming next)

Here are some factors of major search engines, that SEO'S believe will help your site to rank high if you pay a little more attention to them. Tweak them and optimize them but most important thing for any Optimization process is to watch closely its results.

Starting with the big one ..

GOOGLE RANKING FACTORS

It has been said that Google consider almost 100 factors when ranking a website. Many of these 100 factors are actually same for example PR is a factor then inbound links is another factor but inbound links is also a factor of PR so it get counts again.

1. It is believed by many of the experts that Google gives more importance to a site that Google finds on its own.
2. Get Listed in The Major Directories
3. Incoming links - Quality + Quantity
4. Keyword in URL, Meta Tags, Titles
5. Freshness of Site, Pages (If Your Industry demand)
6. Incoming Text Link Keywords
7. CTR - Click Through Rate - How may clicks your site getting - CTR may now be monitored through cache, temporary files, bookmarks and favorites via the Google toolbar or desktop tools. Many have suspected for some time that sites are rewarded for good CTR with a raise in ranking
8. Content - First Paragraph and last paragraph plus bold or italic words get more attention.
9. Keywords placements - in h2 - h6 tags, title tag, in bold or italic, in image alt attributes
10. Synonym keyword density / use
11. Size of the site
12. Blogs
13. Google Bounce Factor - How much time a visitor is on your website
14. Google Analytics Data effect ranking
15. Links from .edu and .gov sites
16. Hyphens in URLs
17. Domain Age

YAHOO RANKING FACTORS

1. Relevant Content
2. Keyword Density - high
3. Inbound Links - Quality
4. Anchor Text Within Content
5. Aging
6. Title tag
7. Click Popularity
8. Site-wide linking
9. On Page Factors

MSN RANKING FACTORS

1. Keyword Density
2. Keywords in Title
3. Keywords Used In Incoming Links To Your Site
4. Keywords in bold

Search Engine Optimization Factors

Back in 2005, SEOmoz tried to assemble a list of all the possible search engine ranking factors out there and get various experts to rate them. I say tried to because while they had a list, and ratings, no one knows all the factors or exactly how each individual search engine chooses to use them. But I admired the determination. SEOmoz is back at it, with version two of the list now out. Some background about it here; the list is here.

There's a lot to digest here. A lot. That's why it's particularly useful to make use of the "Top 10 Positive Factors" section at the top of the report. In fact, I wish the report had been organized this way, with an alternative list showing everything and buried away from those new to SEO. Give them the most important basics; don't blind them with too much!

The most important factors based on expert voting are:

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag
2. Global Link Popularity of Site
3. Anchor Text of Inbound Links
4. Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure
5. Age of Site
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links To Site
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community
8. Server is Often Inaccessible to Bots
9. Keyword Use in Body Text
10. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site

Notice number one -- that you have HTML title tags that reflect the key terms you want your page to be found for. That's been the advice since I first starting writing about SEO back in 1996. Eleven years later -- and even in the age of it's all about links -- it remains the top ranked tip by so many experts.

Now let's flip the list around into how hard it is to control these factors:

Easy

• Keyword Use in Title Tag: Totally in your control. We continue to have sites that get ranking boost just for making this change. Remember that Jason Calacanis challenge where SEO already has gotten him a traffic increase of 21 percent? That's almost all down to title tag changes.
  
• Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure: This is easy in that you can link to your own pages in however you'd like. So do think carefully about how you link. Point to your own articles and describe them using the terms you want them found for. That can contribute.
  
• Server is Often Inaccessible to Bots: If you can't be indexed, you can't rank. Keep your server online. But don't freak. Being down on the odd occasion is unlikely to wipe you out.
  
• Keyword Use in Body Text: This is basic. Want a page to be found for certain words? It continues to be good advice that you actually use those words on the page. Not 100 times in a row. Not for any particular "density." Just use them as it makes sense to use them.

Medium

• Age of Site: Brand new site? Nothing you can do but get older, really, to control this. Some like to buy domains, but search engines can also detect transferred domains and count age from when the transfer happened. Google is the most noted for this. One thing you can do is register your domain for a long time, say five or ten years. That at least suggests you want to hold on to it more than the average person, so it might help.

Hard

• Global Link Popularity of Site: You can't do much here easily beyond building up good quality links. Get good links, and you should be helping your site mature. Links take work, but they're worth it. See our link building and linkbait sections for some articles and advice on this.
  
• Anchor Text of Inbound Links: Hard in that you can't control exactly how people link. But doing things like thinking about how you name your pages or articles (or site), or how you pitch a link request, can have an influence. Remember that Google will now tell you the most popular anchor text used to point at you. Google Now Reporting Anchor Text Phrases explains this in more detail.
  
• Topical Relevance of Inbound Links To Site: Are the sites linking to you related to what you are about? Hard to control, other than to make sure you are requesting links from sites that cover similar topics to you. That's just good marketing, of course -- but time consuming.
  
• Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community: Pretty similar to the above.
  
• Global Link Popularity of Linking Site: Is the site linking to you important? Then it can transmit that importance to you more than other sites might. This has been a known factor for years. It's not about number of links. It's about the quality (importance) and context (link text or anchor text) of those links.

In the report, note that there are comments for each of the factors from many of the experts that rated them (I was one of the 34 involved). These are great to read. But you won't see all the comments unless you use the "Show the rest of the comments" links for each factor. So do it!

ORIGINALLY BY SEARCHENGINELAND HERE : LINK