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technologywww.biztechreport.comGoogle Panda:What it Meansfor Your Businessby Rajani BaburajanWhat do you see when you open your Internetbrowser? Well, most of us have theGoogle home page that opens with a searchbutton “ready to go.” What is your desiretoday? A decent restaurant nearby? A hotelbooking? Admission to college? For anythingand everything, Google is the answer.The search browser has become an inseparablecompanion for most Internet users.With the recently introduced Google Panda(also known as Farmer update), things aregoing to be even easier. There’s lot more toexpect from this search engine in the comingyears.While Google Panda is going to makethe search process more meaningful, it’sgoing to impact the web sites, and in turn,businesses, in a big way. The impact ofthe search engine update is already visibleamong several web sites. While the pageranks of some sites have shot up, those ofothers have fallen, creating a panic amongweb site owners and businesses alike. Thus,a journey through Google Panda will helpalleviate the worries of businesses active inthe Internet space.“The name “Farmer update” is related to theconcept of removing content “farms.” However,there’s no clue why the Farmer has beenrenamed Google Panda. Some geeks attributethe name change to Google CEO’s passion forKung-Fu and the Kung-Fu Panda.What is Google Panda?Search engines play a crucial role in improvingthe quality of web sites. Google,the search engine king, has been at theforefront of innovation, acting as a rolemodel for similar web sites. Google Pandais a major step in the evolution of searchengines, as it filters web sites based on thequality of their content. Unlike many previousalgorithms that didn’t bring noticeablechanges in search results, Google Panda isclearly going to have a great impact on theperformance of web sites.The Real ImpactAccording to Google, the new algorithmhas had an impact of 12 percent of its searchresults in the US, where it initially rolled outthe changes. With worldwide rollout beingcomplete now, Google Panda is likely to havethe same level of impact in other countries,as it is applicable to non-English search resultsas well. The company also announceda few minor updates in April, which is estimatedto have a further 2 percent impact onUS search results, Google said.“This update is designed to reduce rankingsfor low-quality sites -- sites which addlow-value for users, copy content from otherweb sites, or sites that are just not veryuseful,” Google said in a blog post announcingPanda. “At the same time, it will providebetter rankings for high-quality sites -- siteswith original content and information suchas research, in-depth reports, thoughtfulanalysis and so on.”In April, CNET analyzed the impact ofGoogle Panda on web sites and found thatsome of the new sites have gained advantagesfrom these changes, while reputed siteslike WikiHow and eHow that have a hugeuser-generated content have been hit hard.Demand Media, which operates sites likeeHow and Livestrong, revealed the changeduring an earnings call with investors inApril. “In February and April, we experiencedtwo major algorithm changes,” saidRichard Rosenblatt, Demand Media CEO.“For eHow, here is the impact: as comparedto the levels before the first Februarychange, we saw a net decline in search enginereferrals of 20 percent.”Other web sites that have slid in popularityinclude Nextag.com, a price comparisonweb site, and TravBuddy, which promoteslots of user-generated content. Followingtheir decline in page rank, these companiesare rigorously trying to improve the qualityof their web sites by removing low-qualitycontent.According to SearchMetrics, Panda hasnegatively impacted popular web sites likeAssociatedContent.com, FindArticles.comand EZineArticles.com. It has also pusheddown some legitimate sites including Cult ofMac and the British Medical Journal. However,web sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, Amazon.com,and IMDB retained their earliertop positions. Social networking sites likeTwitter and Facebook made a significantupward move, while Yelp, Flickr, Apple.com, and WebMD slipped a bit. US governmentweb sites benefitted significantly. Forexample, WhiteHouse.gov climbed fromNo. 125 to No. 79, and web sites like NASA,the Centers for Disease Control, and theNational Institutes of Health also recordedsignificant rise in their page rank.What it all Means for Your WebSite…Simply put, Google Panda propounds theidea of originality in content. To be friendlyto Google, you need to ensure good quality,original content. The more original the contentis, the better the page rank will be. Itmeans it’s time to remove all the poor qualitycontent in your web page and replace itwith fresh original content that is appealingto your users. The Google search engine advocatesthat the content given on a web siteshould be authentic and relevant. This newalgorithm is a clear “no” to content spammersand copycats.Another aspect of Google’s search updateis so-called Social Validation. Today, websites adopt several social tools to rate theircontent and make it popular among readers.Sharing on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,LinkedIn and other social networking sitesimproves the social value and search enginerank of the content. Google has beena strong proponent of social content sharingmethods like RSS feeds, which allowfor content sharing among web sites in anethical manner. With Google Panda furtherstressing this point, it becomes imperativefor web sites, especially those in the publishingindustry, to incorporate social mediatools into their sites. Plus, they shouldencourage readers to bookmark their sitesand share the pages with other users.Will Google Panda be a sword to articlemarketing companies? Article marketingthrough directory submission web sites hasbeen a lucrative business opportunity forSEO companies. With the new Panda Update,article marketing gets a new face. It cannotbe the same old keyword-rich clichéd articles.Content writers will be restricted from“lifting” ideas from other web sites. GooglePanda strongly opposes the idea of fillingthe Internet space with repetitive content,most of which is irrelevant to informationseekers. The result: companies now have topublish fresh content that has the relevantinformation for their users. That said, bloggersmight get a better say in Google space.The search engine values the contribution ofauthentic bloggers who contribute to informationsharing. Inviting authentic bloggersto your site should enhance the visibility ofyour web site. Article marketing still is an option,but companies need to ensure that thearticles are unique in all respects.Google’s Suggestions to Improvethe Page Ranking of yourWeb siteHere are some important suggestions that couldbring quality to your web site:• Make a site with a clear hierarchyand text links. Every page shouldbe reachable from at least one statictext link.• Create a site map with links to importantpages of your site.• Share links with sites, which youthink should know about your pages.• Restrict the number of links on aweb page to a maximum of 100.• Make the web site informative withoriginal, high-quality content withoutgrammar and spelling errors.• Make the content keyword-rich sothat it gets caught by search enginesquickly. The ideal keyword densityis 3-7 percent.• Label the images using text values.Google crawler doesn’t recognizetext contained within an image.• Make sure that your elementsand ALT attributes are descriptiveand accurate.• Test your web site’s compatibility indifferent browsers.• Test your browser in a text-onlybrowser such as Lynx. If the web siteis heavy with rich media content,provide the text-only alternative tosearch engines to crawl and indexyour web site.• If you buy a content managementsystem, make sure that the systemcreates pages and links that searchengines can crawl.• Improve the load time of your website. Fast sites increase user satisfactionand improve the overall qualityof the Web, so they get rankedhigher in search engines.• Use web site performance monitoringtools like Page Speed, YSlow,WebPagetest, or other similar tools.Meanwhile, Google also warns web siteowners against the use of any deceptive ormisleading practices intended to improvethe page rank of the site. Some of them include,but are not restricted to, using misspellingsof popular web sites, camouflagedtext, keyword spam and content spam.Google collects spam reports on a regularbasis and penalizes web sites that abuseGoogle’s quality headlines. These spam reportsalso play a major role in the buildingof new search algorithms.Follow these quality guidelinesto prevent being penalized byGoogle• Do not use cloaking, i.e., presentingone content for search engines anddifferent content for users.• Present the content from a user perspectiveinstead of search engineperspective.• Don’t participate in link schemesthat claim to increase your site’sranking or PageRank. Avoid links toweb spammers or poor quality websites as they would have a negativeimpact on your web site.• Don’t use unauthorized computerprograms to submit pages, checkrankings, etc. These programs consumecomputing resources and violateGoogle’s policies. For example,Google does not recommend theuse of products such as WebPositionGold that send automatic or pro-Mobile HandsetMarket in Indiaby Meenakshi ShankarThe rapid growth of thetelecoms sector in Indiais having a greaterimpact in India’s mobilehandset market.The country is now the 2nd largest mobilehandset market in the world. Withfacts and figures pointing to approximately811.59 million mobile phone subscribers inIndia as of March 2011, growth is expectedto continue rising steeply through to 2012.Spurred by a variety of products and services,the industry has become well-defined.The market offers phones ranging from theVodafone VF150 to the super cool iPhone4G, all due to improving awareness amongconsumers coupled with the vast amount ofinformation available and advertising thatcomes with a clean focus.The introduction of 3G in the Indianmarket, along with the availability of smartphonesthat use the technology, is playinga crucial role in the growth of the mobileindustry in India. These smartphones improveuser experience by allowing access tothe Internet, video calling, streaming music,and much more. Even rural circles seemto be expanding fast in mobile handset use.All of this has been presenting smartphonemarketers with a gamut of opportunitiesto market mobile phones with cuttingedge technologies, high-end cameras, andgrammatic queries to Google.Say “No” to• Hidden text or hidden links• Cloaking or sneaky redirects• Sending automated queries toGoogle• Loading pages with irrelevantkeywords• Filling pages with duplicatecontent• Don’t create pages containingmalware• Avoid “doorway” pages createdjust for search engines• Avoid “cookie cutter” approachessuch as affiliate programswith little or no originalcontent.Antonella865 | Dreamstime.comQWERTY keypads to a huge market. Localplayers are also trying to catch up with globalmanufacturers in terms of better satisfyingIndian consumers.Key players in Indian MobilePhone MarketNokia – the Finnish telecommunicationspioneering giant, has been seeing successin the Indian market due to its varied userfriendlyproducts. This brand has been therefor more than a decade and the companyfirst saw a breakthrough with its model1100. Marketed with a tag saying Made forIndia, the product was a huge success andconsumers started believing in the brandphenomenally. Nokia still commands anextensive market share due to its brand positioning.It is also trying to reinvent its imageto cater to the vast new age populationwho wish to stay connected all the time.Other entrants such as the Canadianpower player Blackberry are also leavingno stones unturned by appealing to everyvertical segment of society who desire asmartphone. This brand has come out witha more attractive price, making it moreaccessible, and it is also appealing to thecrowd by leveraging applications such as itsmessenger.Google Panda: The Result ofExtensive ResearchGoogle adopts several methods to improveits search process. The search enginehas an extensive resource wing that compilesdata from search results and analyzestheir relevance based on factors like contentquality, the web site’s performance (howlong it takes to load), anchor text links,user behavior (whether they blocked thesite or not), and more. Recently the companylaunched a “block link” option in itsChrome extension, which appears when auser clicks a site, opens it, and returns thesame search result.Google says that while they designedthe Panda algorithm entirely through logicaland scientific methods, it has also beenfound that Panda was validating what thesearch engine has been observing for yearsthrough various methods. For example,Google says over 84 percent of sites thatwere negatively impacted by Google Pandafell within the sites that were blocked usingthe Chrome extension.Why Google Designed PandaIn its earlier form, the Google search algorithmhad several flaws. In fact, they werenot flaws, but rather, certain limitations thathelped search engine gamers “outperform”the Google algorithm. They succeeded inmaking low-quality content more “technicallyappealing to Google crawlers” thanthe high-quality content generated fromauthentic web sites. The result: the web isnow loaded with “search engine-friendly”content, but not user-friendly content. Thishas questioned the soul of Google’s searchethics.With Panda at the forefront, Google is allset for a war with content spammers. Arethey listening? A-PApple – the Next Wave…Bharti Airtel, yet another of India’s mobileservice providers, launched Apple’s latestdevice, the iPhone 4G, in India for theprice of US$780 for the 16GB version andUS$920 for the 32GB version, incidentally atthe time when private operators rolled outtheir 3G services in India.Consumers today are demanding phonesthat do much more than just calling or messagingand helping them stay connected.Effective prices, affordable voice and dataplans, sign-up charges, and air-time chargesalso appeal to customers who are now experiencingthe facility of disposable incomes.Brands such as Micromax, Karbonn, Beetel,Alcatel, Spice Mobile, and Fly Mobile are thenext leaders who are now experimentingwith their part and feeling the pulse of Indianconsumers.Reports indicate that tele-density inIndia reached 67.67 percent during January2011. Urban tele-density is indicatedas 150.67 percent and rural tele-densityis 32.11 percent. Wireless tele-density is64.74 percent. Private operators hold 87.88percent of the wireless market share,whereas BSNL and MTNL, two PSU operators,hold only 12.22 percent market shareeach. The broadband subscriber base hasincreased from 10.92 million in Decemberof 2010 to 11.21 million in January of 2011.This is leading to a highly-optimistic futureforecast, and Indian telecoms growth is expectedto grow further with 208.4 millionphones being shipped by 2016. The Indianmobile phone market is definitely witnessingan era of revolution, and customers arealso rapidly shifting from a standard featuredmobile phone to one which can offerthem all the greatest features at an affordableprice. A-P42 | A-P BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY REPORT A-P BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY REPORT | 43