If you are a regular blogger, you must have noticed that i have been frequently blogging about Google Pagerank each and every time it’s updated. So here i am once again blogging about it. Google just updated Pagerank of various website all along the web world, today itself and thus this Pagerank known as Google Pagerank update April’2009.

For the newbies who do not know much about the Google green bar, Pagerank is basically a rating Google gives to your website. Let’s say it ranks you on a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the highest one can achieve. The pagerank updation is actually a continuous on-going process. It is only that Google updates the toolbar pagerank once in a quarter or so, which we webmasters like to term as Pagerank Update.

Time n again, i have mentioned on my blog how useless the Pagerank is. Why even Google employees use to mention it every single time that Pagerank is just a measure taken by Google for it’s own interest and is by no means a judging criterion. Yet many, in fact most webmasters continued to buy/sell space/links etc. on websites or web pages with high pagerank. That’s not a big deal. Even i did that couple of years ago. But Google had other plans. They started penalizing any website that sells pagerank juice to others or even those sites that were spending heavily to get link juice from others. I still remember that i had PR 5 on a blog that i own for phpLD Templates. And as soon as i got pagerank on it, i sold some seven or eight odd links on that blog. Next update Google Pagerank hit a zero on that blog. Till date, even after removing all those links, even after best possible content in that niche, the blog still remains a big fat zero. It’s been 5 or 6 updates after that, but the PR won’t budge. That’s evil cast of selling advertisements on pagerank websites. Good thing with that blog however is that i have my search engine rankings intact. But it has been lot of hard work ever since. Anyways, summarizing the long story, selling links on pagerank base is Bad Bad Bad in eyes of Google. And one should refrain from it.

I did mention above about uselessness of Google Pagerank to a webmaster. However in a recent Matt Cutts interview, i noticed how he was defining branding in the search engine rankings. At two instances he spoke the words “Pagerank” and it’s importance among other factors. Not sure but suddenly pagerank seems to be a big issue with Google. I am yet to discuss this with other webmasters so i think this is a good place to start.

And just for the sake of it, yes, this Google Pagerank has been a little better for my websites. No Pagerank change for SharatJaswal.com but i see Ally Directory getting it’s previous Pagerank back. Strongest Directory got nothing (Remember my rant?). Majority of my directories saw a good increase in pagerank. So pretty good result this quarter.

I hope you can share your thoughts on Google’s sudden importance to Pagerank criteria. Also i hope this Pagerank has been good for you!

Update: If you read the comments, you will understand why am linking this YouTube video of Matt Cutts. It’s a little question on branding and just notice how Matt Cutts brings in “PageRank” with all factors as far as searching goes.

Last year, on 10th March i blogged something similar when my Ally Directory became an authority site, i.e. a website that Google shows up in search results with few Sitelinks.

Almost an year later, my personal blog SharatJaswal.com becomes an authority site as well.

As mentioned an year ago, the term that most webmaster refer to as “Authority” is actually a feature of Google search wherein there are few links shown below the normal search result which are solely meant for the user to browse thorugh the site in a more easy way. “Accordingly to Google, they have a system (algorithm) which analyzes the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users to quickly find the information that they are looking for on your site”. Ohh, i repeated the exact same line in the last year’s blog post as well so that’s some duplicate content for you! LOL. Sorry Google.

To all those who wonder if getting the so called “Authority” status and so many sitelinks…would this all matter with Google Pagerank in some way or other? Well, the answer is NO!!! Google Pagerank comes with original informative content and how useful your site is to the web as a whole. Sitelinks, Authority, Link Purchase, Advertising etc. on other hand, are all helpful in bringing more visitors to your site. Sooner or later, all webmaster will hopefully realize that Pagerank doesn’t mean much. Traffic is THE factor that you need to make a site successful.

Anyways, this blog post ain’t much informative to many. It’s just a new that i am breaking to everyone who visits here often and dunno about the sitelinks thing. I really don’t know if sitelinks will stay with my blog in future or not. So just for the reference, here is my site search result with sitelinks:

Sitelinks For SharatJaswal.com In Google

Unfortunately, even after getting sitelinks/authority… Google still asks the question : “Did you mean Sharad Jaiswal?”

As many of you must be knowing, twitter is THE next best thing that happened to internet social networking. Other social networking sites like MySpace and Google Orkut, etc may simply are fading out slowly and will soon go down as memories. I do not mean to say that those networking sites weren’t good. They had their days but simply can’t keep up with the growing trend of networking. Facebook is still pretty good networking site but in my opinion, i still think Twitter is far better. Anyways……

I basically wrote this post for people who have already signed up with twitter or are really thinking of the same. I made an account a week back and am really enjoying my stay in there. I have followed some 900 people so far including likes of Lance Armstrong, Britney Spears, Barack Obama, CNN, John Chow, Shoemoney, Problogger, Gul Panag and many many others. I really don’t feel ashamed to follow many others randomly as it gives me a chance to know them better. And you know what, many people think on the same lines. Out of 900, around 455 tweeple (twitter people) have followed me back and that does include John Chow and ProBlogger. It feels good to be followed by so many people. It’s basically your social network or your fan following. So basically, everything is going in the right direction. Perhaps, this much information on twittering might interest some of you to join it right away. Am really hoping to motivate my good friend Nicole Price on to twitter.

Okay, so moving ahead. Joining twitter is one part of deal. How do you go to twitter plus stage?

Well, making your twitter profile look unique is one way to go. If you are keen on making an impact with your brand name, then probably a good designed profile is the best solution. And when it comes to twitter profile designing, there is one and only Hugh Briss from Twitter Images. He has already created twitter backgrounds for some of the Internet biggest bloggers like John Chow, ProBlogger, DesignerDepot and many others in all kind of niche business. He charges $100 for the twitter background design, which considering your brand is pretty reasonable amount. Either you can have a great “branded” design from Twitter Images or you can probably have the same backgrounds that million other twitter users are using. It’s all about the brand and about being professional.

So if you think your brand really matters to you, i would recommend you to at least visit Twitter Images and see the designs yourself. I am sure you will be fully satisfied with the design from Hugh Briss.

If you however cannot afford $100 for the design, you may want to checkout the other free but good looking backgrounds from Twitter Images.

Update: I actually had an affiliate link to Twitter Images.com, but if you have been keeping up with that site, you might be knowing that Hugh Briss has discontinued the affiliate system. Now i cannot delete this article for content issues, so i have removed my affiliate link and placed a direct link to his site. Thanks

I am actually disappointed by the techniques people use for link exchange and stuff. Firstly, i don’t believe much in link exchange, yet i constantly get emails regarding the same. The most irritating thing is that all emails have the common tag line that says “We found you website on net and we see it as a highly related niche. We would request a link exchange and we have added your link already to our site. We expect the same from you”. Huh? Firstly, these people should notice that sites like AllyDirectory and few others do not have a single homepage or a sitewide link. So it should be a complete waste of effort mailing such sites. Secondly, when i check their sites, it turns out that both the sites have no relation by far. For my directories, sometime i get emails from fishing based sites, some from golf, some from Malaga travel and so on. Frankly, i am very disappointed with them.

However, this time around i got a unique email for the link exchange which actually made me very very angry.

Here is the copy of the mail:

Hello,

Recently I visited your website AllyDirectory.com ; while visiting your site I noticed that you link to WebDe.biz at this address: (Had the AllyDirectory’s link here). As we are closely related to them, I would love to exchange links with your website, currently there are about 5,000 – 7,000 people per day that go to my site and search for information, Therefore I would to link to an excellent site like yours.

I have taken the liberty of adding your site to my home page: (His Site’s Address) to determine if it is of any benefit to you, if you have a stats program you can check it and let me know. By looking at my stats, it looks like today I have sent you 33 visitors but it may change by the time you receive this email.

Some website owners do not like when other sites link to them so I thought I might ask first. I think the information on your website could be useful to my visitors; and maybe you could receive some extra relevant traffic if you want. Please get back to me when you have a chance to let me know if its ok to link to your website like this.

Have a good week,

Mark (Cannot reveal his full name as i respect his privacy)

The mail technique is surely very unique. But hell no. I haven’t had such stupid mail in long time. Firstly, AllyDirectory and WebDe are both sites owned by me. So his relation technique failed miserably. Secondly 5000-7000 visitors a day, well i had a in depth look at the forum and honestly, i do think he meant 500-700 visitors. Then he says i sent you 33 visitors, well i use awstats and webalizer and i didn’t receive a single visitor from that site. So another failure in the technique. Amazingly in the same mail he contradicts his own sating. First he says that i have taken the liberty to add you link to my forum And in next paragraph he says that some website owners do not appreciate linking this way, so he thoughth he might ask me first. Lol. Please, some one pinch me as i cannot believe this stuff.

What really fumed me is that the concerned site of his is actually a poker forum. That’s right. A gambling forum. And my Ally Directory is right up there, linked sitewide from his forum and that too without a “no follow” attribute. How can someone do this to me, specially when we have never talked even. Now you all know Google. Their stupid algorithms and bots are going to visit that poker forum, see my link over there and penalize me for purchasing link on that forum. nd a link to a good site, from a gambling site is never good. They are considered bad neighbours. Another problem is, that i received the mail on 4th March. Very likely the link was added on the same day. Ten minutes after receiving the mail, i replied him back, politely refusing for the link exchange and requesting him to remove Ally Directory’s link from his forum. After 48 hours i still see my link there

I am not sure what to say. Sometime i do feel powerless because of such marketing techniques. Google already has made our life pretty miserable. Last i wanted to see were guys like these. Shame on people who use such techniques for their success and killing my site in the process.

Twitter

I know am pretty late in doing this, but i just signed up with Twitter.com.

Honestly, i originally saw Twitter as an useless tool. I don’t like many of the social networking sites anyways. So Twitter was no exception. But i guess something about the way it works. It really caught my attention once again. And i ended up signing up with them.

Those who do not know what Twitter is, well, it is a free social messaging utility. It is a great application to stay in touch and keeping up with your friends, no matter where you are and what you are doing. You can send instant mobile updates for friends or you can simply message via twitter from web. In summarized words, Twitter is free messaging service for friends.

Why i thought Twitter was useless?

Well, very honestly, no one cares what the hell you are up to. No one cares what you are doing. Everyone is busy in his/her own damn life. But this didn’t stop increasing number of twitters and tweets from coming up. People telling the world what they are doing in 140 characters or less.

What interested me now?

I am now on twitter. This wasn’t a sudden interest. I have been reading a lot about it in recent few days. And what i realized after all was that Twitter is not just a web application. It is a great social networking tool. But the fact that all the user status are searchable, it makes it more of a search engine. Now, i started searching for people who thought about on same lines and ended up visiting ArtFagCity.com weblog wherein i found this post on twitter.

Here are his four major point that he mentioned

“Twitter isn’t just a web app, it’s a search engine.”
“Twitter is a filter.”
“Twitter is a headline generator ideal for scanning.”
“Twitter is a semi-permeable membrane (excuse the cliche), that allows users to filter the information coming in, while maximizing the distribution outwards.”

In just four points, Twitter was compared to Google, Feedburner and Facebook. And in many ways it turned out to be better than Google or facebook. And that was it. This post prompted me to sign up with twitter immediately.

By the way, the news that Twitter is integrating a search engine on it’s homepage also prompted me for signing up, as this shows that this social networking application ain’t gonna stop ith major hurdle cleared. They are going to come into search engine industry, the move that will make them a competitor of Google or Facebook. They can surely be better than Facebook with that move but perhaps they won’t be a big threat to Google. Anyways, i see bright future for Twitter. So joining em, isn’t something worth ignoring.

Hey, if you didn’t notice. Facebook redesigned the user’s home page and the profile page. I see that more as a twiiter page now. Many have felt that this redesign is actually an attempt to compete with the real-time social messaging offered by Twitter. So tough competition ahead for everyone.

Anyways, enough of talks. I have signed up  with twitter and that’s the major news in this post . I have no followers as on yet but you can add me to your twitter if you want some crappy, useless, not bothering updates from me.

I will try to add you to my follow list as well. Just let me know if i don’t.

My Twitter Profile: http://twitter.com/SharatJaswal.