SEO Kolkata - Experienced SEO Consultant India, Kolkata

It has been in discussion for quiet some time now that wether Microformats would play any role in search engine optimization in the near future. To understand how Microformats might come into play in respect to SEO, let us all first understand what Microformats are.

To quote Wikipedia, “A microformat is a web-based approach to semantic markup that seeks to re-use existing XHTML and HTML tags to convey metadata and other attributes.” Basically Microformats enable the use of XHTML and HTML tags in such a way that information on a web page that are actually meant for the users would become clearly comprehensible to software ( search engine robots in perspective to SEO ).

It might sound a bit confusing because all of us know that search engine bots can already read and understand the content of web pages which is the basic foundation of any organic search algorithm, then why do we need Microformats ?

Looking back at the Wikipedia definition, microformats “convey Meta data and other attribute” about the existing content that the search engines are already indexing enablng them to understand exactly what they mean and stand for; basically attach semantics to the information for better processing by software.

Let’s look at an example, my contact information can be displayed as

<div>
<div>Saptarshi Roy Chaudhury</div>
<div>SEO Consultant India</div>
<div>09963111179</div>
<a href="http://seo-kolkata.blogspot.com">http://seo-kolkata.blogspot.com </a>

A search engine bot can read this information , index it but it would probably not mean much more than that at this stage. Once we use Microformats for presenting this information, the same code would look like…

<div class="vcard">
<div class="fn">Saptarshi Roy Chaudhury</div>
<div class="org">SEO Consultant India</div>
<div class="tel">09963111179</div>
<a class="url" href="http://seo-kolkata.blogspot.com">http://seo-kolkata.blogspot.com </a>

Now, this is basically a simple use of the hcard ( HTML vcard) Microformat, and because the data is bound within the “vcard” class, search engines would now treat it as my virtual visiting card and interprete
fn as full name
org as organisation
tel as telephone number
url as web address

There are a lot of such mircorformats that add properties and attributes to the data available on a web page, which in turn helps search engine bots better comprehend and process the data.

So how can these Microformats change or effect SEO ?

We all know the main objective of search engines are to serve relevant results. So with enhanced data comprehension ability due to the use of such microformats they would be able to search more relevant results.

Again taking a leaf out of Wikipedia, “processing of microformats enables data items to be indexed, searched for, saved or cross-referenced, so that information can be reused or combined.” Note the point about “Cross-referenced”, I feel that would be one of the key benefits that search engines would have once the usage of microformats become ore common on the web. We already know that search engines are trying to have access to social network data of users ( twitter and Facebook are already in) now once search engines start getting more info on these and also cross reference this data with the data about the users found through other sources, it would probably allow them to weigh the social messages in a much better way.

Use of microformats can be a great help for search engines to parse local queries and serve relevant results.

Google has already announced last year that they are capable to read hProduct Microdata and encourage webmasters to use the same to mark up their products on their website and ecommerce store.

I have a strong feel that th use of Microformats would increase greatly by the end of 2010 and not just that search engines would start using them effectively to increase their search result relevance. While that would definitely be a big enough push for the SEOs to start advocating the use of Microformats, looking at the greater interest of forming a semantic web, it would be great if we start using these wonderful tags from now on and help make the web a better place.

For those of you interested to learn more about the different types of Microformats and their usage check out Microformats.org .

Labels: meta data, Microformats, semantic web

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Of the many one thing that I have often appreciated about my profession is that I can work from any corner of the World, wherever I might be, as long as I have a computer and a stable Internet connection. Not just about being an SEO or Internet marketing professional but most internet based businesses enjoy this luxury. However, the prerequisites remain the same a computer and an Internet. While computers are not really a lot of trouble as most of us today carry our own laptops, Internet connections and ISPs can at times put you in a soup.

While I have experienced it very frequently with my earlier provider Hathway in Hyderbad ( click to read about their pathetic service), my present service provider BeamCable is way better.

While discussing this with one of my overseas clients, he actually brought up the topic about getting a T1 connection for people like us. However, the fact remains that while businesses can easily afford a T1, individuals like us who do some business/official work on the Internet and primarily dependent on it can’t always afford to get a business T1 .

My client was telling me about the package he has got for his business with his service provider MegaPath that not just includes a very stable and robust business T1 connection, but they have a very stringent service level agreement and a hyper active customer support team that takes care of any rare issues. He is paying just $279/month and that too without having to spend anything for his router or installation as Megapath includes all those in his package. He is so happy with the service that he was actually thinking of taking up their Business Ethernet package for his other office. The whole thing sounds like a great deal to me.

Not sure, what the scenario is for business connections in India, but going by what I have seen in few of the companies in most cases a line equivalent to a t1 would cost much more than $279/month( or equivalent INR) here in India. Hopefully with the ever increasing number of internet users in India the cost of internet would continue to go down while the service level would improve. Let’s hope for the best.

Labels: BeamCable, hathway, Internet Connection, MegaPath

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Last year we have seen a lot of changes in how organic search works and how the algorithms treat different websites. Google alone has come up with Personalised search, Real Time search and Caffeinated search during the year. We have seen the birth of Bing; we have seen Yahoo losing out on the search war completely. Overall 2009 has been a pretty eventful year in organic search front.

However, even with all these changes some of the basic criteria of search ranking has remained the same – search engines still love good content and good links and so link building is something that will still go strong in 2010. Of course with so many changes happening all around us we might just see some new trends in link building or the way links are treated by the engines.

Here are some points that outline how links and link building might change in 2010.

1. TrustRank has been the buzzword in 2009 and it would continue to be the key focus for link builders in 2010. The previous emphasis on Page Rank will tend to shift towards Trust rank.


2. Link builders would hunt for links from authority websites and websites with higher traffic potentials more than focusing on websites with high Page Rank


3. Social Media will establish its position as major link building source. Link building process through social media is likely to evolve beyond the practice of just throwing in some URLs to various social media platforms.


4. Quality of Content would still be one of the key link pullers, however, link builders would focus more on engaging content with the realization that audience engagement is the key to gaining organic links


5. The old school tactic of emailing fellow webmasters for links would still work though the effectiveness might reduce. Here again value that your content can deliver would play a key role on whether webmasters link back to you or not.


6. Link buying would still be a standard practice under the hood. The hullabaloo with Google trying to curb down on all such paid links would relatively calm down.


7. Easily available links like article directories would have lesser significance. Also, site-wide links from footer, blogroll etc would be getting lesser importance compared to in content links.


8. Websites that also advertise offline would gain additional organic link as part of earned media


9. Yahoo would do away with Site Explorer. This would lead to a new opportunity for companies to build/ sell link explorer / competitive intelligence tools for link building.


10. Google would likely start using link data from Social media platforms now that it has access to live data from Twitter and Facebook. Google has also launched their own URL shortning service which would give them additional data as to how a link travels through social networks and platforms and this might be considered while evaluating a link or even in the overall algorithm.

Overall it seems that 2010 would be a year of developing links not just for search rankings but more for users and brand building. While it might sound like an extreme comparison, we are probably headed way back to the initial days of WWW, where link builders didn’t exist and people would link to a website purely on its merit and relevance. This year is probably going to experience a drastic shift in mindset among link builders when they would not see a link as just a link but more in terms of the exposure it can give to the website and its content. Content would remain the key driver for links and it would be a major part of a link builder’s job to see how well he can get the content noticed and syndicated.

Related Post:
15 Internet Marketing predictions for 2010

Labels: 2010 predictions, link building

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