- 42% of search users click the top-ranking link. 8% click the second-ranking link, and the click-through rate (CTR) continues to drop thereof.
- When these two top-ranking links are artificially switched, the click-through ratio of 42-8% drops to 34-12%, demonstrating the importance of engaging copy in addition to rank position.
- 62% of search users click a link on the first page of search results
- 23% of searches progress to the second page. Presumably the difference between 62% ans 23% stems from searchers trying either another keyword or another engine, or giving up.
- 80% f unsuccessful searches are followed with keyword refinement.
- 41% of searches unsuccessful after the first page choose to refine thir keyword search phrase or their chosen search engine.
- 77% of search users choose organic over paid listing when searching, 67% choose organic search when purchasing.
- When the searcher is purchasing, organic click-through generates 25% higher conversion rates than equivalent Pay-Per-Click (PP) click-through.
- 40% of SEO campaigns aware of their ROI achieve returns in excess of 500%, while only 22% of PPC campaigns were able to achieve this value.
- Daily use of search engines rose from 33% in 2002 to 59% in 2005. The average day in 2005 reported 60 million people using a search engine. As of March 2007, Google accounts for 64% of US searches and 77% of UK searches
Friday, August 20, 2010
Points that demonstrate the value of Search Engine Optimization (i.e. SEO)
These statistics source from a compilation of SERPS behaviour studies. If you disagree with a figure, or have additional figures or sources, please do post them to the discussion.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Viewing non‐present devices in Windows XP's Device Manager
Note: This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional.
When troubleshooting driver problems in Windows XP, one of the first places you may look is Device Manager, which provides detailed information about every piece of installed system hardware. But with devices such as removable USB drives becoming more and more common, you may need information about devices that are not currently connected. Device Manager recognizes these as non‐present devices. Here's how to get information about them:
1. Go to Start, right‐click My Computer, and select Properties.
2. In the System Properties dialog box, select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variable es button.
3. In the Environment Variables dialog box, locate the System Variables panel and click New.
4.In the New System Variable dialog box, type DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES in the Variable Name text box and type 1 in the Variable Value text box.
5. Click OK twice.
6. To view the non‐present devices, go to Start, right‐click My Computer, and select Manage.
7. Click Device Manager, pull down the View menu, and select Show Hidden Devices.
For more "enhanced technology solutions" please visit www.nbtes.com
When troubleshooting driver problems in Windows XP, one of the first places you may look is Device Manager, which provides detailed information about every piece of installed system hardware. But with devices such as removable USB drives becoming more and more common, you may need information about devices that are not currently connected. Device Manager recognizes these as non‐present devices. Here's how to get information about them:
1. Go to Start, right‐click My Computer, and select Properties.
2. In the System Properties dialog box, select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variable es button.
3. In the Environment Variables dialog box, locate the System Variables panel and click New.
4.In the New System Variable dialog box, type DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES in the Variable Name text box and type 1 in the Variable Value text box.
5. Click OK twice.
6. To view the non‐present devices, go to Start, right‐click My Computer, and select Manage.
7. Click Device Manager, pull down the View menu, and select Show Hidden Devices.
For more "enhanced technology solutions" please visit www.nbtes.com
Saturday, February 6, 2010
10 ways to make invisible content visible
We have discussed what type of content is invisible and where we might find such information. Now imagine if there were some way to make some of that invisible content more visible. That's possible for some Web pages.
Do a static dump. If you have a small database of content, you may want to simply dump it out to one static HTML page, with relevant formatting and necessary hyperlinks, then link to this static page from an already "visible" (indexed) page.
Do categorized database publishing. If you have a database of, say, products, you could publish select information to static category and overview pages, thereby making content available without form-based or query-generated access. Of course, this works best for information that does not become outdated. Job listings, for example, may not suit this method.
Convert formats. Word processors, spreadsheets, slideshows, PDFs, audio, video all used to be part of the invisible Web. However, Google and other text search engines started indexing their contents a few years ago, adding to the available pages of the visible Web. The benefit to librarians and researchers, etc., is that it's now easier to find a particular piece of text. But if you have a format such as Flash, which isn't indexed, you could publish a static version of the text content, to supplement the rich media.
Transcribe information. Have audio or video content such as a podcast? Transcribe the information and publish it as supplementary text.
Build links. Link to your own pages from other related pages. If you write about, say, trees on page A, then write about trees again on page B, link from page B to page A to give A more relevance. If page A hasn't been indexed, it will be after B is indexed. Points 6-9 are alternate ways to build links, hence helping make content visible.
Publish a sitemap. Not the new XML kind that the Big 3 search engines agreed to a standard on, but an HTML page that maps out the main sections of your site. This is essentially a way to build links (#5). Each main section will in turn link to specific pages. The result is that a spider has a relevance map with which to decide what to index. Then again, you can also use the new type of sitemap to achieve deep indexing. Chris Pearson offers a sitemap generator and template.
Build a topic pyramid. This is a specialized form of sitemap that actually spans many pages. The apex (top-most) page has general topics and links to the next layer of pages, which have more specific topics and links to the next layer. The bottom-most layer of the topic pyramid are your original Web pages or blog posts, which have the most specific content. This method builds page relevance via the serial linking, which induces spiders to want to visit and index.
Write about it elsewhere. This is a form of link-building. When someone writes about an invisible page and links to it, it becomes visible by proxy, once an engine follows through and indexes it.
Socially bookmark it. If you find something, say a book at The Gutenberg Project, that you like, bookmark the URL at a social bookmarking site such as Del.icio.us and a brief description.
Remove access restrictions. Get rid of the need to login, or don't apply time-limits.
Do a static dump. If you have a small database of content, you may want to simply dump it out to one static HTML page, with relevant formatting and necessary hyperlinks, then link to this static page from an already "visible" (indexed) page.
Do categorized database publishing. If you have a database of, say, products, you could publish select information to static category and overview pages, thereby making content available without form-based or query-generated access. Of course, this works best for information that does not become outdated. Job listings, for example, may not suit this method.
Convert formats. Word processors, spreadsheets, slideshows, PDFs, audio, video all used to be part of the invisible Web. However, Google and other text search engines started indexing their contents a few years ago, adding to the available pages of the visible Web. The benefit to librarians and researchers, etc., is that it's now easier to find a particular piece of text. But if you have a format such as Flash, which isn't indexed, you could publish a static version of the text content, to supplement the rich media.
Transcribe information. Have audio or video content such as a podcast? Transcribe the information and publish it as supplementary text.
Build links. Link to your own pages from other related pages. If you write about, say, trees on page A, then write about trees again on page B, link from page B to page A to give A more relevance. If page A hasn't been indexed, it will be after B is indexed. Points 6-9 are alternate ways to build links, hence helping make content visible.
Publish a sitemap. Not the new XML kind that the Big 3 search engines agreed to a standard on, but an HTML page that maps out the main sections of your site. This is essentially a way to build links (#5). Each main section will in turn link to specific pages. The result is that a spider has a relevance map with which to decide what to index. Then again, you can also use the new type of sitemap to achieve deep indexing. Chris Pearson offers a sitemap generator and template.
Build a topic pyramid. This is a specialized form of sitemap that actually spans many pages. The apex (top-most) page has general topics and links to the next layer of pages, which have more specific topics and links to the next layer. The bottom-most layer of the topic pyramid are your original Web pages or blog posts, which have the most specific content. This method builds page relevance via the serial linking, which induces spiders to want to visit and index.
Write about it elsewhere. This is a form of link-building. When someone writes about an invisible page and links to it, it becomes visible by proxy, once an engine follows through and indexes it.
Socially bookmark it. If you find something, say a book at The Gutenberg Project, that you like, bookmark the URL at a social bookmarking site such as Del.icio.us and a brief description.
Remove access restrictions. Get rid of the need to login, or don't apply time-limits.
9 reasons a web page is invisible
By "invisible", this does not mean a Web page is necessarily inaccessible. It simply means it's not indexed by a search engine and is thus "invisible" to a searcher who does not know of its existence. There are several reasons why a page may be invisible. Keep in mind that some pages are only temporarily invisble, possibly being indexed at a later date. The general rule of thumb is that just because a search engine finds no results does not mean it's not there. The list below also includes examples of content types gleaned from Internet Tutorials.
1.Dynamic URLs. Engines have traditionally ignored any Web pages whose URLs have a long string of parameters and equal signs and question marks, on the off chance that they'll duplicate what's in their database — or worse — the spider will somehow go around in circles. Danny Sullivan refers to such pages as part of the "shallow web".
2.Form-controlled entry, non-passworded. In this case, page content only gets displayed when a human applies a set of actions, mostly entering data into a form (specific query information, such as job criteria for a job search engine). This typically includes databases that generate pages on demand and hence cannot be indexed by a spider. Applicable content includes travel industry data (flight info, hotel availability), job listings, product databases, patents, publicly-accessible governent information, dictionary definitions, laws, stock market data, phone books and professional directories.
3.Passworded access, subscription or non subscription. This includes VPN (virtual private networks) and any Web site where some pages require username and password information. Access may or may not be by paid subscription. However, BrightPlanet found in 2001 that 95% of the invisible Web is publicly accessible without fees or subscriptions. Applicable content includes academic and corporate databases, newspaper or journal content, and academic library subscriptions.
4.Time-limited access. On some sites, such as the New York Times or Marketing Profs, content becomes inaccessible after a certain time without a password. Search engines retain the URL, but the page generates a sign-up form, and the content is moved to a new URL that requires a password. Note that the content is sometimes cached by an engine. The NY Times also has alternate URLs to some time-dated content that show the original content without a password. You just have to know how to get to it.
5.Too new. If a site is relatively new, it's likely that most or none of its Web pages will be indexed by any engine. This results in the site's pages being mostly invisible for a short period of time (2-6 months).
6.Robots exclusion. The robots.txt file, which usually lives in the main directory of a Web site, tells search robots which files and directories should not be indexed. Hence its name "robots exclusion file." If this file is setup, it will block certain pages from being indexed, which will hence be invisible to searchers.
7.Flash presentation. Text content in Flash presentations is not indexed, though additional meta-information might be.
8.Geo-tagged. A site's Web server can check for the supposed geographic location, via the IP address, of a visitor's computer. Those computers from certain regions can be blocked out. That may include blocking some search engines. For example, several American TV broadcasters are now showing video online, but the pages are only accessible to US citizens, sometimes only in certain regions or certain states.
9.Hidden pages. One of the simplest and most common reasons for invisible Web pages is that they are hidden. That is, there is simply no sequence of hyperlink clicks that could take you to such a page. The pages are accessible, but only people who know of their existence know how to view them.
1.Dynamic URLs. Engines have traditionally ignored any Web pages whose URLs have a long string of parameters and equal signs and question marks, on the off chance that they'll duplicate what's in their database — or worse — the spider will somehow go around in circles. Danny Sullivan refers to such pages as part of the "shallow web".
2.Form-controlled entry, non-passworded. In this case, page content only gets displayed when a human applies a set of actions, mostly entering data into a form (specific query information, such as job criteria for a job search engine). This typically includes databases that generate pages on demand and hence cannot be indexed by a spider. Applicable content includes travel industry data (flight info, hotel availability), job listings, product databases, patents, publicly-accessible governent information, dictionary definitions, laws, stock market data, phone books and professional directories.
3.Passworded access, subscription or non subscription. This includes VPN (virtual private networks) and any Web site where some pages require username and password information. Access may or may not be by paid subscription. However, BrightPlanet found in 2001 that 95% of the invisible Web is publicly accessible without fees or subscriptions. Applicable content includes academic and corporate databases, newspaper or journal content, and academic library subscriptions.
4.Time-limited access. On some sites, such as the New York Times or Marketing Profs, content becomes inaccessible after a certain time without a password. Search engines retain the URL, but the page generates a sign-up form, and the content is moved to a new URL that requires a password. Note that the content is sometimes cached by an engine. The NY Times also has alternate URLs to some time-dated content that show the original content without a password. You just have to know how to get to it.
5.Too new. If a site is relatively new, it's likely that most or none of its Web pages will be indexed by any engine. This results in the site's pages being mostly invisible for a short period of time (2-6 months).
6.Robots exclusion. The robots.txt file, which usually lives in the main directory of a Web site, tells search robots which files and directories should not be indexed. Hence its name "robots exclusion file." If this file is setup, it will block certain pages from being indexed, which will hence be invisible to searchers.
7.Flash presentation. Text content in Flash presentations is not indexed, though additional meta-information might be.
8.Geo-tagged. A site's Web server can check for the supposed geographic location, via the IP address, of a visitor's computer. Those computers from certain regions can be blocked out. That may include blocking some search engines. For example, several American TV broadcasters are now showing video online, but the pages are only accessible to US citizens, sometimes only in certain regions or certain states.
9.Hidden pages. One of the simplest and most common reasons for invisible Web pages is that they are hidden. That is, there is simply no sequence of hyperlink clicks that could take you to such a page. The pages are accessible, but only people who know of their existence know how to view them.
Dark side of the web or Invisbile Web
When you use a search engine on the Internet and can't find what you're looking for, what do you do? Maybe you're seeking to learn something, which means you're probably going to keep trying until you find it. Or give up in frustration. Don't give up that easily. There's information out there that is actually not indexed in the big search engines. Such Web pages are part of what's called the Dark, Deep, Hidden or Invisible Web. Those pages that are actually indexed are known by some as the surface Web. Fortunately, the invisible Web is getting easier to search, with tools beyond the standard big three search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
In the early days of the Web, computing power and storage space was at such a premium that the few search engines that were around often indexed only a tiny fraction of Web pages and not even full pages at that. But eventually space became relatively cheap and engines started indexing pages in full (full text), as well as more pages. Still, engines miss a lot of pages. Here's a guide to those "invisible" pages.
Background of the Invisible Web
1.The term. "Invisible" is purely search engine-centric, indicating any Web page that can be accessed by at least one person but which is not indexed in a search engine. Many people prefer the term "Deep Web" instead.
2.Its size. No one knows for sure. Danny Sullivan, a search engine expert and formerly of Search Engine Watch, wrote in 2000 that the invisible Web was about 500 times Google's index of one billion pages. New estimates [NY Times' free registration may be required] of Google's index sets it at over 8 billion at the time of this writing. (Claims by its archival archrival Yahoo! of 19+ billion pages were considered questionable.) Search engines are said to only crawl 16-20% of the Internet
3.Its real size. The most likely entity to be able to make any sort of "accurate" estimate is Google, though if they've made a recent estimate of either the current size or growth rate of the invisible Web, that information itself appears to be invisible. (They would have a list somewhere of never-crawled URLs, which would be a mere starting point, as there would also be all those countless URLs even they cannot get to. Without this, how could an estimate be calculated?)
4.A guesstimate. Any astute mathematician with an understanding of Web content management systems, content databases, and dynamically-served Web pages would probably say between 1 and 4 trillion pages, then conclude the near impossibility of an accurate estimate, especially because of the rapidly increasing number of invisible sites. It's easier to compare search engine index size .
5.Example of futility of estimating. A library or museum gets gifted with a collection of one million digital images and decides to create a Web-accessible database. Each image will have its own dynamically-served page, accessible via a query form. Just like that, one million new pages have been added to the invisible Web.
6.How many invisible sites. In the same article by Danny Sullivan (above), he indicates BrightPlanet's estimate of 100,000 as being the number of "significant invisible websites" out of about 200,000. That was in 2000, so it's a hopelessly outdated estimate. Since then, weblogs have been added to the mix, and many of them go uncrawled, increasing the number of invisible sites.
7.Rate of growth of invisible sites. Technorati's David Sifry said that 10,0000 new blogs are created daily as of October 2006, but he also said 175,000 daily as of July 2006. Even at the lower figure, if at least one page on each new blog is never indexed, the size of the invisible Web is growing at around 36.5 million new pages per year. That doesn't even include other types of invisible content (described elsewhere in this article).
8.Will this change? Google recently filed a patent application related to searching content through Web-based forms. SEO by the SEA speculates that they are planning to index more of the invisible Web and goes on to explain a possible methodology. Google's Eric Schmidt (or possibly founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin) has said Google is dedicated to indexing the world's content, however long it takes. Also, more previously invisible pages are getting indexed because of manually-added links to them from visible pages.
In the early days of the Web, computing power and storage space was at such a premium that the few search engines that were around often indexed only a tiny fraction of Web pages and not even full pages at that. But eventually space became relatively cheap and engines started indexing pages in full (full text), as well as more pages. Still, engines miss a lot of pages. Here's a guide to those "invisible" pages.
Background of the Invisible Web
1.The term. "Invisible" is purely search engine-centric, indicating any Web page that can be accessed by at least one person but which is not indexed in a search engine. Many people prefer the term "Deep Web" instead.
2.Its size. No one knows for sure. Danny Sullivan, a search engine expert and formerly of Search Engine Watch, wrote in 2000 that the invisible Web was about 500 times Google's index of one billion pages. New estimates [NY Times' free registration may be required] of Google's index sets it at over 8 billion at the time of this writing. (Claims by its archival archrival Yahoo! of 19+ billion pages were considered questionable.) Search engines are said to only crawl 16-20% of the Internet
3.Its real size. The most likely entity to be able to make any sort of "accurate" estimate is Google, though if they've made a recent estimate of either the current size or growth rate of the invisible Web, that information itself appears to be invisible. (They would have a list somewhere of never-crawled URLs, which would be a mere starting point, as there would also be all those countless URLs even they cannot get to. Without this, how could an estimate be calculated?)
4.A guesstimate. Any astute mathematician with an understanding of Web content management systems, content databases, and dynamically-served Web pages would probably say between 1 and 4 trillion pages, then conclude the near impossibility of an accurate estimate, especially because of the rapidly increasing number of invisible sites. It's easier to compare search engine index size .
5.Example of futility of estimating. A library or museum gets gifted with a collection of one million digital images and decides to create a Web-accessible database. Each image will have its own dynamically-served page, accessible via a query form. Just like that, one million new pages have been added to the invisible Web.
6.How many invisible sites. In the same article by Danny Sullivan (above), he indicates BrightPlanet's estimate of 100,000 as being the number of "significant invisible websites" out of about 200,000. That was in 2000, so it's a hopelessly outdated estimate. Since then, weblogs have been added to the mix, and many of them go uncrawled, increasing the number of invisible sites.
7.Rate of growth of invisible sites. Technorati's David Sifry said that 10,0000 new blogs are created daily as of October 2006, but he also said 175,000 daily as of July 2006. Even at the lower figure, if at least one page on each new blog is never indexed, the size of the invisible Web is growing at around 36.5 million new pages per year. That doesn't even include other types of invisible content (described elsewhere in this article).
8.Will this change? Google recently filed a patent application related to searching content through Web-based forms. SEO by the SEA speculates that they are planning to index more of the invisible Web and goes on to explain a possible methodology. Google's Eric Schmidt (or possibly founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin) has said Google is dedicated to indexing the world's content, however long it takes. Also, more previously invisible pages are getting indexed because of manually-added links to them from visible pages.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Why you need a website?
Global Reach
The Internet is being used on a regular basis by millions worldwide with more "connecting" every day. Many of the new users come from countries around the world. They want to buy the "latest and greatest" products. With the Internet they can become your customer!
How much do you think it would cost you to advertise in the Times of INDIA, Mumbai Mirror or any newspaper? Compare that to the cost of a website. The information you provide on your website is instantly available to every one of these users
Money Savings
Today your long-distance phone bill can run into the hundreds of dollars. Using the e-mail to talk to your customers, suppliers, partners, etc., can save you a large portion of this expense.
Be Open For Business 24 hours a day
This sounds bad but in reality it's a big plus. With e-mail, people can contact you anytime it is convenient for them. You can respond anytime that's convenient for you. When you have a website, potential customers can find out about your products and services 24 hours a day.
The Internet is being used on a regular basis by millions worldwide with more "connecting" every day. Many of the new users come from countries around the world. They want to buy the "latest and greatest" products. With the Internet they can become your customer!
How much do you think it would cost you to advertise in the Times of INDIA, Mumbai Mirror or any newspaper? Compare that to the cost of a website. The information you provide on your website is instantly available to every one of these users
Money Savings
Today your long-distance phone bill can run into the hundreds of dollars. Using the e-mail to talk to your customers, suppliers, partners, etc., can save you a large portion of this expense.
Be Open For Business 24 hours a day
This sounds bad but in reality it's a big plus. With e-mail, people can contact you anytime it is convenient for them. You can respond anytime that's convenient for you. When you have a website, potential customers can find out about your products and services 24 hours a day.
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