How does Google Treat Websites with Sub-domains?

Making sub-domains on a domain has now become pretty popular, and many bloggers are now using sub-domains to create custom pages, such as contact and about pages. Although they look professional (and classy :P), they raise a concern. Usually, they are not part of a theme or template, and are custom designed. So some of the on-page SEO elements might be present. And Google Panda and Penguin is said to be domain-level penalty, with one low quality page effecting the whole site. So the popular question arises; how does Google view these sub-domains? And what is the difference, if any, between sub-directory structure and sub-domain structure?

Sub-domains and sub-directories

A sub-domain is an extension of a domain name. But instead of the www prefix, you have your own custom prefix, such as blog.mybloggertricks.com etc. The option to create a sub-domain really is provided by your hosting provider. And those who have the option with their hosting, they take benefit from it, and create sub-domains. You might have seen people having contact pages like contact.domain.com or about.domain.com. This looks professional, which is why many bloggers and webmasters use the option.

(Note: You might be running sub-domain blogs, such as domain.wordpress.com. These sub-domains work differently, so don't get confused)

Sub-directories are folders within your site's main directory. Some people have their blogs or other CMS installed in sub-directories too, such as www.domain.com/blog. This is another way of organizing your site.

But as far as the question of which is better is concerned, it is entirely up to you. Sub-directories are located in a single sub-domain. But there is nothing wrong with having many sub-directories. You can go for what's easy. But I would personally prefer sub-domain structure, because it is easier to implement, and keeps the URLs short(er).

Sub-domain or no?

Now comes the question of what Google thinks. A long time ago, Google only allowed two results from one single sub-domain to appear in search results. Hence, people started making a bunch of sub-domains to make sure most of their content gets into search results. Now, Google considers results from all the sub-domains.

As far as how those sub-domains are treated, well, they get the same treatment the whole website gets. So any malicious software you install on a sub-domain will effect the whole website, so be careful.

Hope I made it clear. You can watch the video by Google above to get a clearer picture. And as always, feel free to ask questions. Cheers :)

Source : mybloggertricks[dot]com

Top 10 Tools To Search Twitter For Popular Bloggers

Twitter is a really great tool when it comes to looking up for news or getting updates from your favorite Twitterers. For bloggers, it's an especially good way to build interactions, and get ideas. In our  blogging tips, we have countlessly discussed about following other blogs in your niche tio find out what's hot, and what they are doing. This gives you ideas to improve your own blog. But how to find such blogs? More importantly, how to look for people who share interesting stuff that relates to your own niche as well? Here are some tools that we believe could be invaluable to searchers looking for updates and ideas on Twitter.

1. Twitter Research

Twitter research should be the very first thing you do when searching for people to follow. Hashtags are a really smart way of finding information. People use hashtags to monitor conversations, and get their tweets listed in results. This also makes tweets publicly available easily. When you search for hashtags, you will get results from bloggers and other people who are interested in your niche. But mostly, you'll find bloggers. And the top bloggers in your niche are usually the ones talking about the niche often. Take a look at what comes up, and follow the people you think have a substantial following.

2. Bitly Realtime

Realtime is a relatively new search engine by Bitly that not only returns results from Twitter, but also other social media. It basically tracks the URLs that has been shortened through Bitly. And since many bloggers use URL shortners, this is a great way to find top influencers as well. Although the project is still in its beta phase, it already is starting to make a mark for itself.

3. Listorious

Listorious is a really great tool for finding popular people on twitter. It has more than two million Twitter users registered, and if you visit the site, you will see a list of niches you can choose from to see the top Twitterers for a specific niche. You can search for a niche too. And if you think you're popular, you can get listed too by signing up :)

4. FollowerWork

FollowerWork comes with SEOmoz PRO. It's another great tool for analyzing user bios, searching, tracking, sorting followers and users. All data is constantly updated, so you will get the latest results.

5. SocialBro

SocialBro has been specially designed for the purpose of discovering influencers based on user-defined criteria. It has full analytics data on followers, social contact, profile management, and more. It is a very powerful tool, but alas comes at a price starting from $6.99. Still, a pretty good tool for power users and analysts.

6. Klout

Klout is another very large application that lets you find influential people. it has over 100 Million registered users, and you can find from among them. You can also get listed by signing up with Twitter of Facebook.

7. Suila

A very simple application that's easy to use. It has gathered data from millions of users, and ranked the popular ones. You can search for a topic simply and find out the experts on that topic within seconds!

8. Twellow

A basic list of users based on popularity, there are a number of categories with users listed within. You have niches such as News and Media, Sports, Government, Education and more. You can find results based on smaller niches, location or other factors

9. Endorse

This app works on a relatively different concept. Rather than ranking users according to their number of followers and other data, it ranks them based on 'endorsements', or recommendations from others. The idea being, the best way to find out about influential people is through socializing.

10. SciencePond

This is a perfect site for the science geeks out there. It will help you find influential scientists on Twitter. SciencePond has a full list of scientists from Twitter, and whom better to follow than an influential scientist?

So, have you found any influences lately? If so, tell us about your experience, and how you came by them. Happy tweeting :)

Source : mybloggertricks[dot]com

How To Fix Rejected Ad Request Errors in AdSense

Google AdSense Ad serving has been a hot topic since like forever, as lots of bloggers and webmasters use AdSense to make money online. Many people have asked questions regarding errors associated with Google Ads. And indeed, the rejected Ad request errors are quite common. These occur majorly when the ads on your site are not properly set up, and hence they can't crawl the correct URL. In such cases, an error occurs, and 'blank ads' might be served as a result. These errors have become quite common. But if you are encountering them, there's nothing to worry about. In this post, we will show you what causes such errors, and how to remove them.

What are Ad requests?

An Ad request is counted whenever a site requests ads from Google to be displayed. For example, suppose there are three ad blocks on a page. When that page is loaded, all the three blocks request ads from Google, and the ads are then displayed. Even if there is some error in displaying, it is still counted as an ad request.

Ad request errors basically occur when the requests are rejected, or could not be fetched. In that case, backup, or blank ads are displayed. This gives the first heads-up that something is wrong with your ad units.

Reasons for errors

The most common reason for such errors is that, your ad blocks are located within one or multiple iframes. This causes problems for the unit, because it crawls and targets the wrong URL. It becomes isolated, and hence cannot access and determine what sort of content you have, hence contextual ads become useless. And when Google can't determine your site's correct information, blank or backup ads might be served.

You might also be getting errors because you are using an SSP (Supply-Side Platform). SSPs include yield managers or ad servers that are used for ad optimization. You need to contact them and notify them of the issue you are having.

Fixing ad request errors

To fix these errors in AdSense and Ad Exchange, you generally need to pass to them the URL of the page that displays the ads.

DoubleClick for Publishers

For DoubleClick for Publishers users, if you are using the Google Ad Manager, then in your ad call, you can try adding this line of code to make your ads work properly

GA_googleAddAdSensePageAttr("google_page_url", "URL");

For Google Publisher Tags, you can try adding the following line of code to your ad call.

googletag.pubads().set("page_url", "URL");

For DART, in AdSense or Ad Exchange, you can pass the correct URL by using the dc_ref parameter in conjunction with the google_page_url parameter.

Other domains

For  tag.admeld.com errors within your report, you need to contact your Admeld representative and ask for JavaScript tags instead of iframes. This should take care of most errors caused by nested iframes.

For other domains, to target correct URLs, you will need to use google_page_url. here's a demonstration. Below is a code which contains a typical ad code

Typical ad code 

<script type="text/javascript"> google_ad_client = "ca-pub-XXXXXXXXXXXX"; /* 728x90, creado 14/04/08 */ google_ad_slot = "XXXXXXXXXXXX"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; </script> <script type="text/javascript"  src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script>

And below is a code with the google_page_url added. Notice the line with bolded text.

Ad code with google_page_url 

<script type="text/javascript"> google_ad_client = "ca-pub-XXXXXXXXXXXX"; /* 728x90, creado 14/04/08 */ google_ad_slot = "XXXXXXXXXXXX"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; google_page_url = "http://myurl.com/fullpath"; </script> <script type="text/javascript"  src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script>

You need to update code for all ad units that are showing problems. I know this might be a bit too much to grasp, especially for beginners. But you can contact us and ask questions anytime using the comment section below. All the best with your errors :)

Source : mybloggertricks[dot]com