If you don’t know it yet, recently there was a debate about a marketing campaign Google launched to promoting its browser, Chrome.

In brief, Google started a video marketing campaign to promote its browser, and pay some bloggers to post videos on their blog.

The problem behind this marketing strategy  is that some of these bloggers used dofollow links to the Chrome homepage. But paying people to include such links violates Google’s guidelines.

If you want to know more about I’ll suggest to read this Search Engine Land post: Google’s Jaw-Dropping Sponsored Post Campaign For Chrome.

Of course the first question I ask myself was whether or not Google would penalize its own website for the sponsored link violation.

Well, initially I could not believe it, but yes, Google did it.

“The Chrome homepage used to be the first or second result for the term “browser”, but if you search for it now you probably won’t find it anywhere on the first page. Here’s Google’s statement about the case:

We’ve investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site’s PageRank for a period of at least 60 days.
We strive to enforce Google’s webmaster guidelines consistently in order to provide better search results for users.

While Google did not authorize this campaign, and we can find no remaining violations of our webmaster guidelines, we believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site.“

This video give more info about how Google Chrome buys links and bans themselves.

I’m sure this will sends a strong signal to the webmaster to change the way they do business, in particular when it comes to search rankings and penalties, and not to lose ground with the search engines.

Let me know what do you think.

Author: Nicola Deiana

Jan 10, 2011

One of the best and most effective way to getting a higher ranking in search engines is back links.

I just recently got a message by Mark, who asked me:

“Hi Nicola, can you tell me how did you get backlinks for the3dtechnologies?“

Well, as my readers know, I have already launched a mini-guide on how to get backlinks on my recent post, so today I decided to add more tips at the list.

As the new Panda Updates came out, while getting contextual backlinks from high quality websites is as powerful as ever, building thousands of back links, even from comments, forum signatures, some of which coming from PR0 pages, seems to help a great deal.

In these year I had the opportunity to test different ways to build link back to my site. One thing I’ve not tried yet is use paid services. Not because I do not recommend it, but just because I think they are useful only in the case you’ve not time to do things yourself.

Usually, when we have to build link back to our site, there are two approaches we could take::

• Do the entire job by yourself.
• Asking to someone(The company I mentioned today is called Monsterbacklinks) to make the job for you.

How Should I Build Backlinks After The Google Panda Update?

The list of tips I mentioned below are free to apply, but requires efford and time.

1. Providing quality and interesting content for the readers. If people like what you write, them they will be happy to spread your message. (It’s an accessibility thing.)

2. Reduce grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need to link to your site by authoritative people.

3. Submit an article to industry news site. Sites like WebProNews are ideal if you have an SEO site. So, when you have a bit of time submit an article to WebProNews.

4. Many do request for link back. I never suggest to force someone for getting link back. Instead, try to ask them to consider your blog and if possible to add a link back to your site.

5. Depending on your category and offer, you could ask or answer questions on Yahoo Answer. I’ll suggest to do not make spam. I’m already got banned by Yahoo team and I can’t acess to their…

6. If your site offer local services, then try to list it to relevant city resources, or local library website in order…

7. Even the new algoritmic, Panda has penalized site like Squido and Hubpages, consider to set up a topical Squidoo or Hubpage.

8. You could start relationship with non-competing businesses in the same field.

9. Submit a story to digg or other social book.

10. Forum help a lot. I’ve set up a personal account on different forum related my site like digitalpoint.

11. Google group is another great way where to promote your site.

12. Arguin a point strongly is great for getting people to comment and link.

While it is clear that on one hand, the tips mentioned above are all good to increase the number of backlinks, on the other hand, finding the right technique for your site can take time.

Here’s where services like Monsterbacklinks.com comes into play. Now, the first thing we have to do is to see what this service bring into table and when It should be an alternative to the techniques above.

First at all, I recommend using these service when:

• If you run a reputable company.
• You’ve no time to do the entire job alone.
• You want to reach the results as quick as possible.
• If you have a bit of money to invest in this type of campaign.

Should I Pay For Quality BackLinks?

From an operational standpoint these services generally do all works in the same way.

All you have to do is to pay to add back links for your website, so that you don’t have to do manually the hard work.

But, today I will tell you why Monsterbacklinks.com looks have something more than competitors.

When it comes to save time, services like Monsterbacklinks.com could give you a great hand. They have received some high praise in industry that’s hard to break into, so we decided to make a full monster backlinks review of their services out to find out if it is worth all the deal.

How Do They Works?

They use multiple pieces of sofware combined with manually professional writers that submitting your web address to high-quality websites.

The best part of Monsterbacklinks is that they doesn’t add too many link doing it all in one day. Add too many link doesn’t make much sense and you risk to be penalized by Google too.

Another factor that did me have trust to this service is that, by surfing around the net, I noticed positive feedback and review that let me hope in better.

What I Find Refreshing About Monsterbacklinks.com

When I have to choose a service than another, the first thing I see is the  is their transparency and simple package descriptions.

Many online marketing companies make vague promises with confusing jargon and other details that don’t seem important trying to hide what they are actually doing. All of Monster backlinks packages are straight forward. For X amount of dollars we will add X amount of links.

According to their FAQ:

“Will Google ban/sandbox me for getting so many backlinks?

We have never had any problems with getting sanboxed or banned by google. None of our customers have had any problems either. If our methods of placing backlinks were to get a site penalized or banned then we would be sending thousands of links towards our competitors sites. But since our methods work great for increasing search engine rankings, we would never use our backlinking on our competitors because that will damage our rankings and boost theirs.“

Price remain competitive with comparable services. Also, a full report were given once they finished adding the links.

Final Conclusion

Many experts say that the Google Panda update rendered the “low quality” backlinks worthless and that if you want to see some upward movements, you should aim at getting quality links from high authority sites only. So, my suggestion is to be carefull while you choose the backlink.

If you have any experience with backlinks feel free to share a comment below.

Happy back-linking!

Image Credit: Thingies

I already mentioned about Geosurf in my old post, and how it lets you view websites in different geographic locations.

Well, the service I want to highlight today called ‘GeoEdge‘ and make the same thing, but it provides a simple way to view up more locations and do your local searches more competitive.

This is useful for two simple reasons. First at all, for who are doing research for the market that we’re targeting. Another use is for those who are running SEO optimization campaigns for their clients or even for themselves.

Aside from GeoEdge Pro, they also have other tools that you can use with it. One is GeoEdge search and the other one is GeoEdge Analytics. The first one is basically just a package that’s more suited for search optimizers and marketers. The second one is more targeted to Ad networks and Media Buyers. We’ll talk about this last, after.

What Is GeoEdge?

Developed by a company that specializes in geo-location(targeting), the PRO version of GeoEdge allows you to view up to over 100 locations (which is more than what GeoSurf offers).

Through GeoEdge you are able to:

To install Geoedge, all you have to do is installing their toolbar on your browser. Currently there’s a toolbar for Firefox and  Chrome (beta). You can also be able to install The GeoVPN (Virtual Private Network) client that allows you to test ads inside applications.

Once installed, you are now ready to use GeoEdge.

How Does GeoEdge Works?

Before to start writing this review, I’ve joined to a free trial version and I was able to surf within many different countries.

As you can see in the pic above, the logo pic is not intrusive. When you move your mouse over the icon and click on it, a series of windows will appears magically. I love as the toolbar is  organized by continents. Instead to scroll down to a list of gazillion countries, they’ve grouped them accordingly so if I want to select. E.g if I select ‘Argentina’ as my location, I can simply just go to Latin America and then select Argentina.

Of course, the first thing I did was to browsing Google.common several locations and GeoEdge never failed in delivering me to right Google page based on the location that I selected.

Of course, you could tell me that we have all a “Free” web proxies that are available ever since, but how do we know they’re really reliable? Or how do we know they’re not infecting our system with all those malwares and viruses?

GeoAside also provides a mobile emulation feature which let you see the look of a page on a specific mobile handset. I’m owner of an Android phone, and I can speak for it, but I don’t really know if the page looks the same in Symbian or iOS.

Mobile emulation feature let you:

• View web pages exactly as they appear on more than 20 handsets, in locations around the globe
• Monitor and analyze mobile content, ad placement and campaigns
• Research your competition’s mobile market campaigns

The version work perfectly with any browser version versions, because since GeoEdge is a browser add-on, they need to keep up with endless updates from the browser.

Cons

As far as the connection speed, not sure if its normal but when you change to some other locations, the page loads slower. I know that the servers are located on different places that might have been far from my location so that’s probably the reason why it happens.

What Is GeoEdge Analytic

As I said before, GeoEdge Analytics is more targeted to Ad networks and Media Buyers.
It takes advantage of the reach of their global proxy network and combining it with a powerful BI engine, they enable to make a global ad scanner that not only sees ads but also understands them!

Now, for the first time ever, publishers have a systematic tool to capture and analyze any ad displayed on any website, everywhere in world. According to the site:

Publishers – GeoEdge Analytics compliance suite allows publishers to see a consolidated view of how content and ads appear globally.

Just enter your site URL or Ad tags, and we will continuously monitor your site from all over the world, capturing and analyzing all banners to ensure your compliance rules are not breached.

Media Buyers & Planners – GeoEdge Analytics Media Buying suite focuses on analyzing global media buying opportunities. Now, you can locate the best performing, best suited media for your specific ad inventory. Easily verify prospective sites using GeoEdge Analytics to obtain the best possible insights as to which ad segments perform well on any site, guaranteeing high ROI from day one! GeoEdge Analytics helps you make better buying decisions.

Advertisers - We know how important it is for you to know just what your competition is doing on a global scale. GeoEdge Analytics maps your competitors’ campaigns in real time. Wouldn’t you like to know that your largest competitor just launched a campaign in Australia?.

The following video demo will go into detail.

Plans And Pricing

Although GeoEdge provide a free package, it is  limited and you anyway can not use it to a specific URL, but rather to search results, only. Anyway you can still benefit from the free version, in my view. You get up to 8 Locations, no Mobile Emulator and search limit.

If you’re making things serious, you can start with the cheapest package at $59/month. You get up 8 Locations, it’s fully customized packages and have an unlimit usage.

The other packages, rispectively at $99/month and at $169/month differs from the previous because it give you more locations, more usage limit and more features like GeoEdge VPN Client and Web proxy.

Final Consideration

GeoEdge differs from the rest because is developed for marketers who want to see how their page are viewed in different geographic locations.

If you are in the marketing industry and you have the problem in tracking your webpages locally, then I definely suggest this service..

Today any retailers uses the internet to push new clients to purchase its good or service.

Anyway, although they utilize the Internet as its primary means of retailing, is not enough to just open an online store and waiting someone purchase your stuff. You need to take some other action, first.

A recent study by the e-tailing group revealed that 71% of online shoppers want personalized information and three-quarters make additional purchases when given personalized suggestions.

For pure e-tailers like Dell and Amazon this is no news. These sites already integrates this new kind of informations while the old store can get good results if they are ready to take advantage by this new system.

The truth is that the term Social Commerce and Social Shopping can be seen as two faces of the same coin:

• Social Commerce: Adding a social layer to retail
• Social Shopping: Shopping with social tools

If we type the keyword “social Commerce” at Google Trends for the US, we see the rise of

As you can noticed, it’s popular search term in 2009, but in mid-2010 the search term “social shopping” really increased quickly – with a volume index weighting three times that of social commerce.

How To Build Social Commerce On Your Site: 5 Simple Tips To Keep In Mind

1. Build the community - This step isn’t easy and just like build relationship in the real life, it takes a bit of time and effort. Try to encourage your current customers to engage with you on your Facebook and Twitter accounts, many will join in.

If you using your site to sell stuff, don’t forget to use sharing tools in your page, ‘like’ G+ button and other similar stuff.

2. Use promotions - No matter whether through discount, coupons code, free trial offers, and so on, people will rally their troops when they see that can save money.

3. Review - As I mentioned early, review can influence the buying behavior. Take a look to Amazon site. it made the ratings and reviews the core of its site. So I’ll sugges to add a plugin like that I use on my site

4. Consumers prefer use search engines – Traditional registration form can be very annoying for everyone, in particular for those is used to have networks like Google, Facebook or Paypal.

While Facebook is the most popular social login choice, and many websites using Janrain Engage for social login,  all consumers prefer to use an identity from Google, Yahoo! or another network.

5. Mobile – Mobile is become a new channell to uncover new revenue stream. Imagine the benefit if you could have if you are able to show your products to customer on your site and mobile app, or send special discount through it.

If you have other ideas on how social commerce can help you improve your business this year,  feel free to share your comment below.