Do Human "Quality Raters" Influence Which Sites are Impacted by Panda?

Okay. So this is an important question that many people have now started asking: Do Human "Quality Raters" Influence which sites are impacted by Panda? You might have heard of a manual penalty for a site, and in our post about removing backlinks to avoid penalty, we talked about when a website gets hit by an algorithm, and when a site gets manually penalized. This concept gives rise to a common question: if these 'quality raters' influence whether a website gets impacted by an algorithmic update, such as Panda or Penguin, then how is the consumers' reaction gauged? Meaning who is to say which site gets penalized and which doesn't?

It's an important question, and has caused confusion and frustration among bloggers and webmasters who have been hit by Panda or penguin. Most think they have been unfairly hit, since there are humans manually rating their site, and humans are bound to make mistakes. So they should be given the benefit of doubt, right? Well, there are a few misconceptions involved here.

How are websites manually rated?

It is important to note that the team of human quality raters at Google doesn't just take things for granted. Besides working on personal judgement, they are also provided with guidelines on when things are navigational, when they are vital, what content is off-topic, and which things are spam etc. There are clear-cut guidelines that those people follow. Any website that fails to qualify of course comes under the inspection.

But as far as the question of influencing is concerned, well those people don't have a direct impact on any site's ranking on search results. According to Google, when an engineer comes up with a new algorithm(s), that algorithm is put to the test and the search results returned by that algorithm are compared by others and the existing one. This comparison is then sent to the quality raters to analyze.

Now it is the job of those quality raters to cross reference with the guidelines provided to them, and then tell whether search results returned by that engineer's algorithm are better, or worse than others. The quality raters just provide the feedback. They do not directly say "I do not like this website, it should rank below others".

As far as the quality guidelines are concerned that are given to the quality raters, Google says they will soon be made available to the public, so that people can read through them and benefit from the instructions. It'll be easier on both Google and the webmasters. In the meantime, watch the video by Google, and stay tuned for those guidelines. We'll keep you updated. Cheers :)

Source : mybloggertricks[dot]com

Google Answers Top 5 Questions Of Government Webmasters

According to an estimate, around 20% of searchers on Google search for local content. And since local or state or federal government sites are the primary source of information for civilians, they are important to Google search. Besides, such governments are experts in their local communities, and often have a lot of information. Due to their importance, Google has decided to address some issues faced commonly by Government Webmasters who run or organize Government run websites. These are some frequently asked questions answered by Jason Morrison from Google's Search Quality Team.

1. Fixing incorrect contact info in search and Google maps

Incorrect contact information is one of the biggest complain civilians make, which in turn webmasters make, their contact info has not been updated by Google in Google Search or Google Maps. To address this issue, webmasters can claim local listings on Google Places. Once claimed, they can update contact information, and this info will be updated in search and Google maps.

Most locations on Google Maps have Google Places listings. These listings contain information about that place. For example, if it's a shop, it'll contain closing and opening times, customer reviews, and contact information. All this can be added and updated b the webmaster who has claimed the listing. Ownership of the listing can be verified through a post card or a phone call. This way, Google will instantly update contact information and stuff.

Here's a little tip. If you need to claim a lot of listings, say parks and other such public places, then go to Google Places, and sign in. Clink on Get Started Now, and then click on Bulk Upload. This will enable you to add multiple listings at once (for more than 10 listings).

2. Getting Google to Index your website

Webmasters also have the ever-present concern that Google might not be indexing their website. For government websites, keeping information updated is particularly important. But what's more imporant is, that content should be indexed, and searchable in Google. For this purpose, you can tell Google to index your site. There's no rocket-science involved here. Here are two ways you can notify Google about changes in your site, so it will be indexed.

• Submit a sitemap of your website to Google Webmaster Tools to tell Google what new pages you have added.
• You can also go into your Webmaster Tools dashboard, go to Health, and Fetch your site as Google. You can then submit it to index, and Google will automatically start indexing your website after some time.

3. Moving from a .gov to a .com domain

Moving from one domain to another is never easy. But there are some best practices recommended by Google that'll help you in the process. When moving, here are some steps you should follow.

• Verify both the old and the new domains in your Google Webmaster Tools under the same account.
• Make sure both locations are indexable by Fetching as Google.
• Use the Change of Address Tool to notify Google of the change
• Use 301 permanent redirects instead of 302 temporary redirects. And use them wisely. It's considered bad practice to redirect all your old URLs to the new domain's homepage. Redirect to the same pages on the corresponding domain. And if there is no one-to-one correspondence, then it's best you redirect to similar content.
• Notify the sites linking to your old domain to update their backlinks.
• Finally, Fetch your new domain as Google again, and submit it to index to get Google started on your new domain.

4. Utilizing YouTube features

Previously, to utilize some advanced YouTube features, users had to participate in a partnership program. Although that feature is no longer available, some features of that service have been made available to the common user, and it'd be a good idea to utilize them.

• Firstly, you can now upload videos longer than 10 minutes, so you no longer need to be concerned about the time limit.
• If you create a Google+ account, you can broadcast a live streaming video to YouTube via Hangouts On Air
• If you link your YouTube account with your Webmaster Tools account, you can set that channel as the official channel for your website.

These were some tips and useful advice for webmasters involved with Government websites. If you have further questions, you are free to as in the comments below. Peace :0

Source : mybloggertricks[dot]com