We have a lot of webmasters ask the big PR questions very frequently: When is the next Google PageRank Update?

The truth is no one knows exactly when the next PageRank update by Google will actually take place. Based off of their past updates I created the unofficial Google PageRank Update Schedule. The “schedual” is my estimate on when the next PageRank update will take place.

PageRank Update Schedual:

Google PageRank Update  -   December 31, 2009 – January 10, 2010
First PageRank Update      -    March 31, – April 10, 2010
Second PageRank Update  -  June 31, 2010 – July 10, 2010
Third PageRank Update    -    December 31, 2010 – January 10, 2011

What is pagerank? PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web (Per Google). Google calculates that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes (Links) that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be. Also, the importance of the page that is casting the vote (Linking To You) determines how important the vote (Link) itself is. Google calculates a page’s importance from hw many pages and what pages link to it.

PageRank is a scale of 0-10

Post a comment and let us know when you think the next updat will be or tell us when your site was last updated!

I found this video on SearchEngineWatch.com, it is a Video put togeter by Jonathan Allen while at the SES London event in 2009. It asks 50 SEO’s a simple question: What should we do with the balck hat seo’s?

What do you think? Post your answer below!

Recently Google announced the unleashing of Google’s “Real-time search” in the search engine results. Matt Cutts covered it in his blog. This is a new feature that will facilitate Google to provide up-to-the-minute updates (“freshness” and “relevance”) on any search inquiry/subject a user researches.

According to Amit Singhal of Google (responsible for Google search algorithms), “Light can travel around the world in 1/10th of a second, and we won’t rest until the speed of light is the only barrier to getting good search results to you.”

How to use the Google Real-Time Search Feature:

Matt Cutts said in his blog that Google processes billions of documents per day for their real time search. Google has really enhanced considerably in speeding up the crawling and indexing procedure, which is exceptional even with the already-enormous and mounting size of the web.

Step 1: Go to www.google.com

Step 2: Type your query and press “search.”

Step 3: When the results load completely, find “Show options” under the search box. Click it.

Step 4: Under “Any time,” click “Latest.” This will let Google give the latest results (real-time search results).

It is very extraordinary that Google is still able to grant updates as early as “1 minute ago.” This is very fast, and is really “real-time.” You can even observe that Google regularly adds updates even when the browser is not refreshed as indicated: “New results will appear below as they become available.”

One feature I noticed that was neat was the Twitter updates included in the Real-Time Search Results as seen below:

To stop receiving frequent updates, you can click “pause.”

Why you need to focus on Organic SEO

1. The majority of people still trust the organic results on search engines. If your website is not within the top few listings, you are losing traffic and possible sales to your competitors.

2. Peoples search habits have changed. Today, people search in different ways and you cannot predict the exact keywords that your customers use to look for your products or services. But by optimizing your content to a specific keyword theme, you can amplify your website reputation in the search results listing.

3. If your competitors are up there, you need to be there also. If not, you are losing possible sales to your competitors because they are going to get more traffic than you.

4. When you optimize your website with appropriate content, you get people to stay at your site longer and this will raise your conversion rate.

5. With appropriate SEO, more people are visiting your website. This means that even with your current conversion rate, you can get more sales.

6. Always stay ahead of your competitors. As competition gets stronger, you need to leverage SEO to get more traffic and sales than your competitors.

7. With SEO, you can grab a larger market share. This makes your company an authority in your industry, which at the end of the day translates into added sales.

8. 24/7 spotlight with SEO. When your website is optimized, you get traffic all day long.

9. You do not need to pay for each click that SEO brings you. Clicks from the organic listing are on the house. So you are saving more money in the long run with SEO.

10. Repeat business. Customers referred from search engines are inclined to stay around longer, which increases client lifetime revenues via SEO.

These tips are provided by DotShot, an internet marketing company with several SEO veterans behind the scenes. If you need help with SEO Services, visit them here: SEO Services

A lot of people on Forums and other sites ask how to get in touch with Google. Here is Google’s customer service phone number. Some people say it is not really anything but a phone number for you to call and they have no customer service. Anyway give it a try. Either try an extension if you know or just press 0.

Google’s Phone Number: 650-623-4000 Press 0.

Today I checked my email at 6AM and Yahoo Mail was up and running, then it went down and has been down for over an hour. What is up yahoo? The fact that I still use Yahoo’s web based email service may make me a little behind on times. It seems that most people who use web mail have moved to Google or just use their own mail server.

Is it time to migrate over to Gmail? Or use some other solution. I like Yahoo Mail because I am familiar with it and I like the classic interface they offer. I have been using Yahoo mail for about 9 years or so. I must be afraid to switch over or something.

The fact that their mail service has had a lot of glitches (at least on my end) lately, is almost reason enough to abandon Yahoo.

Using a web based email service has a lot of benifits for someone like me. I can check my email from any PC without any major worry of security. Most people know what Yahoo is and can spell it so I don’t have to repeat myself over and over on how to spell a domain name. There are more benifts but I wont list them now.

My main concern is Yahoo! being down for over an hour. That is a long time in internet time. I mean an hour online is like 10 hours in the real world! Come on Yahoo!! Tighten up or sell-out already. Wonder if yahoo bothers to monitor their online reputation and will read and comment on this?

Have you experienced any problems with web based email providers like Yahoo? Post a comment and tell us!

Online Reputation Management Tips

Managing your online reputation is very important to all business. It doesn’t matter if you are an online “Internet Based” business or a traditional offline retail establishment. The internet can create success for you, or disaster. The worse thing you can do is ignore your online reputation and have the “It won’t happen to me” mind-set.

There are many types of internet complaints and negative items that can affect your online reputation. There are dozens of online complaint sites where consumers can file complaints against businesses.

Rip Of Reports:

The most popular complaint site is RipOffReport.com – Having a rip off report is a nightmare. Online complaints on Rip Off Report rank very high on search engines, especially Google. There are many tactics to “removing” a rip off report from the top of search results. It is nearly impossible to MAKE or FORCE rip off report to delete a complaint from their website. The best option is to hire a reputation management company to help you: remove rip off reports.

Remove Blog Complaints and Negative Blogs About You:

A growing problem is also blogs like BlogSpot/Blogger and other free blogging platforms like typepad.com and LiveJournal.com. Anyone can create a free account with them and start a blog that is merely a smear campaign blog against you. It can be hard to get these negative blogs removed. Many blogs like these gave a form or contact form you can use to report abuse. Below are a few popular sites and links to contact them. When you contact them let them know you mean business, but do it in a nice way. It is not the blog provider’s fault someone is pissed off at you.

• Blogger.com/Blogspot.com – Report a Terms of Service Violation.
• TypePad.com – here you can: report a Terms of Service violation.
• WordPress.com – contact WordPress Support to report a problem.
• LiveJournal.com – use the LiveJournal Report Abuse form whether you’re a LiveJournal user or not.

Those are just a few tips and resources on removing negative information from the internet. As always, being proactive when it comes to reputation management is always the best policy. If you do not piss people off, they should not complain about you or your company (In Most Cases). Great customer service will normally thwart online complaints.

Google Profiles Looking Weak To Me!

I recently entertained the idea of creating a Google Profile for myself and went through the process and decided to not use it. Why? Well, it did not have many feature that were up to my expectations, at least from Google. As far as reputation management goes, it will make a 1st page listing at the very bottom of the results page when someone searches your name. I think that is they really want to lure users in and entice them to use Google Profiles they should make the Profiles appear on the top of search results or within the search results like they do videos from time to time.

The #1 use of online profiles (As I See It) is for reputation management and reputation repair. The Google Profile offers very little in my opinion when dealing with reputation repair.

Sure, it is free and you might as well make a profile with them if you are actively repairing  your reputation. The service has a few basic feature and none that really excite me. Here are the features as listed on Google’s site:

1. Receive messages. Enable the ‘Send a message’ feature to allow anyone with a Google Account to email you without revealing your email address.

2. Add photos. Enhance your profile by embedding photos from Flickr or Picasa.

3. Create a page about you. Write a short bio in the About me tab, reveal your superpower, and tell people what you still can’t find using Google.

4. Add your contact information. Share your information with your friends and family, so they always have the most up-to-date information. You control who sees it.

4. Add links to your other profiles and sites. Make it easier for friends to see your other content on the Web. You can link to Google content, including your Blogger blog, public Picasa Web Albums and Google Reader shared items as well as other pages on the Web such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

5. Show your location. ‘My places’ includes all the cities you’ve entered on your profile. Your current location and where you’ve lived are displayed on a map.  

The best feature above in my opinion is the ability to link up to your other profiles like Twitter, faceBook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. I guess Google Profiles are not for me. I am certain many people will find a good use for them. If Google adds more visibility features to the profiles I will jump on board also.

What do you think about Google Profiles Service? Let us all know by posting a comment. Google if you read this will you please let us know if new feature may be on the way?

How To React To The Google Ban

Google expects that you should make pages for users, not for search engines: “Don’t deceive your users, or present different content to search engines than you display to users,” they say, and Google goes on to list the following banned advice:

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
• Avoid Keyword Stuffing – Adding random Keywords In Your Footer.
• Don’t employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Don’t send automated queries to Google.
• Don’t load pages with irrelevant words.
• Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

You can get your site back in to Google’s good graces if you follow some simple steps. It may require a complete revamp of your website and SEO techniques, but it is worth the effort.

• First, clean up your act. (Fix the Issues)
• Then send Google a very polite email where you acknowledge and describe what you (or your search engine marketing firm) have done.
• Tell Google that you have read their guidelines and that you will not anything like this again.
• If you hired an SEO firm that spammed on your behalf, release the firm’s name.
• Always Include full contact information.

Do apologize and make no excuses. Google will frequently reply to such polite requests and you may find some of your pages back in the index within a couple of weeks. However, it can take months before the search engine has spidered your complete site again.

The Google Ban Notice – How to get Google to tell you when you have crossed the line

It is in fact possible to get Google to inform you when they deem you have broken the rules.

Webmasters using Google’s Sitemap feature may possibly (we repeat: may) get an email from Google telling them when they have crossed the line.

Google’s Matt Cutts puts it this way:

(…) I think the ideal search engine would also tell legitimate site owners when they risk not doing well in Google. On the other hand, if the webspam team detects a spammer that is creating dozens or hundreds of sites with doorway pages followed by a sneaky redirect, there’s no reason that we’d want the spammer to realize that we’d caught those pages…”

So Google may try and tell you when they believe you have broken the rules. This is the kind of email you might expect:

No pages from your site are currently included in Google’s index due to violations of the webmaster guidelines. Please review our webmaster guidelines and modify your site so that it meets those guidelines. Once your site meets our guidelines, you can request reinclusion and we’ll evaluate your site.

If you find the issue and clean it up, then click on the “Submit a reinclusion request” and fill out the form.

Stay on top of the issue and be proactive in getting your website Re-indexed. Do not bug the spam team every day or every other day. They are very busy and will reply when necessary to your requests. Give it time, you made the mistakes and it is not Google’s fault that you were banned. It is yours or your SEO guys mistake.

Have you ever been banned by Google? How did you react? What did you do? Share your tips below by commenting so others can learn how to fix a Google Ban.

A Nice Social Media Search Tool

I normally don’t review a lot of websites and services and I NEVER do paid reviews. I did however find a website today that for some reason I had never heard of. The website is WhosTalkin.com and they claim to be a Social Media Search Tool. I personally think it is much more than that. Since I do a lot of Reputation Management for clients and am an extremely active “searcher”, I am always on Google looking for stuff. Sometimes I get a little bored doing the same old daily routine of “Googling” everything.

This site offered me a few neat features and a breath of fresh air, something fresh, a change of scenery if nothing else. You can search all types of different categories from this site. For example, you can search Blogs (Like Google’s Blog Search does) and twitter is included, you can search social networks for “Chatter” about you or your company or find people you know that may use social networks.

You can also search Tags, Networks, Images, Videos (YouTube), Forums, News, and more.

The site also offers plug-ins for Wordpress, FireFox, and iGoogle Gadgets. O ne ting that caught ny eye while on the site was that they offer URL API, a service open and available to third party applications and services. They release a URL API that will allow other sites and services the ability to easily integrate the WhosTalkin.com platform.

I think that this is a site worth checking out if you have never heard of them. Again this is not a paid post and we do not offer that type of service on our blog.

I do want to mention in closing that on a few searches I performed the site ran a little sluggish. Give it a try and comment here on our blog and let us all know how you liked it.

On The Web: http://www.WhosTalkin.com