Why Is The SMB Market For Web Presence Services In India Promising ?

Author : Bharati Ahuja

SMBs are slowly but steadily realizing the importance of web presence and want to forge ahead online arena with great enthusiasm and hope. But, there are some factors which make them delay the decision.

The Indian SMB market is second largest globally and the SMBs are clustered across all the Indian states giving the local web presence providers their share of the pie and helps maintain healthy competition.

SMBs contribute significantly to the economy:

Many SMBs have a web presence on industry portals and want to extend this by having their own website and social media presence. But the main reasons stopping them is the cost and the lack of technical knowledge in-house for managing and maintaining the website.

According to a Survey in 2013 there were 40 million SMBs and only 1 million websites which surely shows the immense business potential available.

According to a White Paper in 2013 by https://www.verisigninc.com/ the methods of online presence by country is as follows:

As India experiences a rapid adoption of internet in all areas of business and everyday transactions, the number of small business owners taking to an online presence is also growing. Riding on this growth wave is GoDaddy, one of the world’s largest web hosting and domain name registration providers, with its new marketing campaign starring Bollywood dancing icon Mithun Chakraborty. The campaign made of two films has Mithun explaining small business owners how creating a website can bring them more customers.

Google too had already focused the Indian SMB market in 2013 by announcing its plans to get 50,000 Small and Medium Businesses in Gujarat to have an online presence by 2014. This initiative was a part of its new national campaign "India, get your business online" that offers free websites and hosting to small and medium businesses in India. As part of the initiative, SMBs could also get to have a presence on Google Maps and garner technical support from 200-plus Google-trained agency partners in Gujarat for hosting the website.

"Small and medium enterprises are a key driver for economic growth in India, but very few businesses have been able to utilise the benefits of the Internet. Gujarat houses the largest number of SMEs in the country.

The Indian web presence market was also an area of growth, increasing by a substantial 45 percent in 2012, reaching a market size of Rs. 2.7 billion (US$55 million) in 2013. However, overall use of websites is still low, even when compared to other developing countries, indicating strong continued opportunity in web presence and web applications over the next several years. Parallels expects the growth in web presence and web applications to remain high over the next several years, with the Indian SMB web presence market growing by at least 36 percent year-over-year, reaching Rs. 6.8 billion (US$137million) in 2016

According to a study by http://zinnov.com/

• India's domestic IT spend to reach USD 36 billion by 2015, growing at a CAGR of 12%
• IT adoption in SMB segment is growing at 15% and expected to reach USD 15 billion by 2015
• Domestic spend on IT currently stands at USD 24bn
• 20% of the total 50 million SMBs in India are technology ready today.

We have been offering web presence services since 2000 and have seen the bubble burst as well as also seen the increasing demand for web solutions in the recent past.

But the major reasons according to us that are stopping the SMBs to go ahead confidently on the web are :

1. Many think that the cost is too high. 
2. If they get a website developed they think it is enough and stop there and do not invest in online marketing or SEO. 
3. They lack technical expertise in-house so they shy away from integrating eCommerce or online payments on the website. 
4. They have burnt their fingers in the past and it becomes difficult for them to invest more for online presence. 
5. The ROI from online presence accrues over a period of time and needs a plan and a strategy to reap dividends but the expectations of quick returns many time dampens their spirits and they lose patience and interest in maintaining the search presence.

Will This Be The Biggest Google Algorithm Update Of The Year 2014?

Author : Bharati Ahuja

If you are facing a turbulence in the rankings of many keywords then read the following information.

Chris Hooley drinkbaiting Matt Cutts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• Google is rolling out our Panda 4.0 update starting today.

Google is rolling out our Panda 4.0 update starting today.
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) May 20, 2014

• Dan Petrovic also mentioned on his blog: 

Coming Up: The Biggest Google Update of the Year?

• Search Engine Land http://searchengineland.com/google-begins-rolling-panda-4-0-now-192043 mentioned that Panda 4.0 affects different languages to different degrees. In English for example, the impact is ~7.5% of queries that are affected to a degree that a regular user might notice.

Here are the previous confirmed Panda updates, note, that we named them by each refresh and update, but 4.0 is how Google named this specific update:

1. Panda Update 1, Feb. 24, 2011 (11.8% of queries; announced; English in US only)
2. Panda Update 2, April 11, 2011 (2% of queries; announced; rolled out in English internationally)
3. Panda Update 3, May 10, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
4. Panda Update 4, June 16, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
5. Panda Update 5, July 23, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
6. Panda Update 6, Aug. 12, 2011 (6-9% of queries in many non-English languages; announced)
7. Panda Update 7, Sept. 28, 2011 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
8. Panda Update 8, Oct. 19, 2011 (about 2% of queries; belatedly confirmed)
9. Panda Update 9, Nov. 18, 2011: (less than 1% of queries; announced)
10. Panda Update 10, Jan. 18, 2012 (no change given; confirmed, not announced)
11. Panda Update 11, Feb. 27, 2012 (no change given; announced)
12. Panda Update 12, March 23, 2012 (about 1.6% of queries impacted; announced)
13. Panda Update 13, April 19, 2012 (no change given; belatedly revealed)
14. Panda Update 14, April 27, 2012: (no change given; confirmed; first update within days of another)
15. Panda Update 15, June 9, 2012: (1% of queries; belatedly announced)
16. Panda Update 16, June 25, 2012: (about 1% of queries; announced)
17. Panda Update 17, July 24, 2012:(about 1% of queries; announced)
18. Panda Update 18, Aug. 20, 2012: (about 1% of queries; belatedly announced)
19. Panda Update 19, Sept. 18, 2012: (less than 0.7% of queries; announced)
20. Panda Update 20 , Sept. 27, 2012 (2.4% English queries, impacted, belatedly announced
21. Panda Update 21, Nov. 5, 2012 (1.1% of English-language queries in US; 0.4% worldwide; confirmed, not announced)
22. Panda Update 22, Nov. 21, 2012 (0.8% of English queries were affected; confirmed, not announced)
23. Panda Update 23, Dec. 21, 2012 (1.3% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
24. Panda Update 24, Jan. 22, 2013 (1.2% of English queries were affected; confirmed, announced)
25. Panda Update 25, March 15, 2013 (confirmed as coming; not confirmed as having happened)

Even the tracking tools are all over the place MozCast, SERPS.com shows major activity on Saturday, so does SERP Metrics and Algoroo.

We all know that the Panda Update targets sites with low quality content and prevents them to sneak their way to get a good search presence and algorithm updates are nothing new. In fact they are the much needed boost for genuine SEOs as with every update true SEO campaigns get a push forward and spam gets a beating. Looking forward to track and monitor search results in the coming weeks.

SEO Friendly Redirects v/s Sneaky Redirects Guidelines

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Webmasters use ‘Redirects’ when they want to forward visitors from one page to another on the same site or from one domain to another domain.

Search engines have been wary of such redirects because, though redirects are a normal part of how the web operates, and are very valuable when well used but can mislead the search engines and if sneaky may result in spam on the web.

Google guidelines support the ethical and correct use of such redirects but Google may respond negatively to misleading and manipulative practices of such a facility.

Basic Google Quality Guidelines Are As Follows:

• Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.
• Don't deceive your users.
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you, or to a Google employee. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
• Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your website stand out from others in your field.

There are many good reasons to redirect one URL to another, such as when moving your site to a new address, or consolidating several pages into one. However, some redirects deceive search engines or display content to human users that is different than that made available to crawlers.

Redirects are particularly useful and considered as ethical by search engines in the following circumstances:

• You've moved your site to a new domain, and you want to make the transition as seamless as possible.
• People access your site through several different URLs. If, for example, your home page can be reached in multiple ways - for instance, http://example.com/home, http://home.example.com, or http://www.example.com - it's a good idea to pick one of those URLs as your preferred (canonical) destination, and use 301 redirects to send traffic from the other URLs to your preferred URL.
• You're merging two websites and want to make sure that links to outdated URLs are redirected to the correct pages.

The Redirect can be determined as a correct one or a sneaky one depending on the intention of its redirection.

Some examples of sneaky redirects include:

• Search engines shown one type of content while users are redirected to something significantly different.
• Desktop users receive a normal page, while mobile users are redirected to a completely different spam domain.

Types of Redirects:

• 301, "Moved Permanently"—SEO Friendly
• 302,  "Moved Temporarily"
• Meta Refresh 
• JavaScript Redirect
• URL Redirection Service

301 Moved Permanently

The 301 redirect is a permanent redirection. It indicates that the resource has moved permanently and people should update their information for this URL. A 301 redirect passes between 90-99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.

302 Moved Temporarily

A 302 redirect is a temporary redirect. It passes 0% of link juice (ranking power) and, in most cases, should not be used.

Meta Refresh

Meta refreshes are a type of redirect executed on the page level rather than the server level. They are usually slower, and not a recommended SEO technique. They are most commonly associated with a five-second countdown with the text "If you are not redirected in five seconds, click here."

JavaScript Redirects

JavaScript can cause a redirect by setting the window.location attribute, e.g.:

window.location='http://www.example.com/'

Normally JavaScript pushes the redirector site's URL to the browser's history. It can cause redirect loops when users hit the back button. With the following command you can prevent this type of behaviour.

window.location.replace('http://www.example.com/')

As per google Using JavaScript to redirect users can be a legitimate practice. For example, if you redirect users to an internal page once they’re logged in, you can use JavaScript to do so. When examining JavaScript or other redirect methods to ensure your site adheres to our guidelines, consider the intent. Keep in mind that 301 redirects are best when moving your site, but you could use a JavaScript redirect for this purpose if you don’t have access to your website’s server.

URL Redirection Services

A redirect service is an information management system, which provides an internet link that redirects users to the desired content. The typical benefit to the user is the use of a memorable domain name, and a reduction in the length of the URL or web address. A redirecting link can also be used as a permanent address for content that frequently changes hosts, similarly to the Domain Name System.

At times a hacking attack can result to sneaky redirects. Hackers might inject malicious code to your website that redirects some users to harmful or spammy pages. The kind of redirect sometimes depends on referrer, user-agent, or device. For example, clicking a URL in Google search results could redirect you to a suspicious page, but there is no redirect when you visit the same URL directly from a browser.

If your site has been hacked or infected with malware, you should act quickly to repair the damage. Google recommends reviewing the recommendations provided by the organization antiphishing.org.

Google recently updated the guidelines for sneaky redirect: Webmaster Guidelines for sneaky redirects updated