Fetch As Googlebot : Google URL Submission Tool

Have you ever been in a situation where you have posted about an upcoming event in your website or blog and waited for Google to index that content? Now there is a solution. Google in its Webmaster Tools have added "Fetch as Googlebot" in the Diagnostics section. Earlier it was in the Labs section.

With this tool you can submit your new website or updated pages to Google for review. If the submission is successful then the page will be added to Google's index. Googlebot will crawl your website within a day according to Google Webmaster Blog.

How to submit URL to Fetch as Googlebot?

Sign into Webmaster Tools. Go to Diagnostics. You will see the option Fetch as Googlebot. Type the URL to fetch.

After a succesful fetch you will see the option Submit to Index. There are two options. Either you can submit the individual link or the individual link and all the links on that page.

This tool is useful in many ways.

Suppose you posted a content which has some errors or is outdated and Google stores a cache of that erroneous content. Now even after updating you will need to wait some days for Googlebot to crawl that page and to update the cache. You will try to get some backlinks to that page for this to happen faster. Fetch as Googlebot will help to update the Google cache of your website within a day.

Fetch as Googlebot can also be used when you have added new pages to your website or posted upcoming events.

In order to prevent spam the number of individual link submission is limited to 50 per week and URLs with linked pages is limited to 10 per month. So use this tool wisely.

Hotel Check In and Check Out in Google

Google has introduced a feature that allows a person to book hotels straight from the SERP. It may be called "Google Hotel Search". This is an improvement in Google Local search.

When searching for hotels in Las Vegas one might see an option for check in and check out.

If you change the dates the prices also change. In the first image the website Bellagio.com shows $179 and in the second image $239.

The feature is provided with the help of some travel websites and some of the best hotels in the city. As more hotels participate in the program, the search will become better.

This will help to reserve hotel rooms with out visiting Tripadvisor or Expedia.

Happy Journey!!!

Google Realtime Search is Disabled

Google has disabled its Realtime Search. The Google Realtime Search returns a 404 error. It was disabled from July 2. Google Realtime Search showed results from Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, Google Buzz.
Google's explanation for discontinuing Realtime Search is

           "We've temporarily disabled google.com/realtime. We're exploring how to incorporate Google+ into this functionality, so stay tuned."

This appeared on their Google Realtime Twitter account and Google Web Search Support.

Google is going to launch a new Realtime Search with Google+ posts along with twitter.

To search in Twitter you can use Topsy. It shows tweets from even 2008.

Let's hope for a better version of Google Realtime Search.

Google Loses PageRank

Google's new PageRank is 9.

Yes, it is true. After a recent toolbar PageRank update google's PageRank was reduced from 10 to 9 by its own PR algorithm.

This happened after Google became the first website in the history of internet to cross 1 billion unique visitors.
Facebook retained the PageRank 10 award.

For the past few months there are lots of changes happening in Google's search page. The appearance, introduction of +1 button, all these changes are aimed at making search better and improve the quality of search results for the user.

It seems like Google may be busy with changing its PageRank algorithm.

Google+ Social Media Project From Google

With the introduction of Google +1 button in search all were waiting to see what Google is really up to? The +1 button according to Google is "this is pretty cool" or "you should check this out". It is actually a recommendation that any user can make if he finds the result he got using Google search useful. Only thing required for the user is a Google Profile. When a user +1 a search result, his friends will also see it while making the same search.

Google was pushing +1 so hard in the past one month and their effort is showing results. It seems like Google is trying to build a "Social Search Engine" or a "Social Search Network"!!!

Now the wait is over. Google announced a new Social media project called "Google+". It seems like Google is going to revolutionize the concept of social media.

Take a tour of the Google+ features. Some of the features of Google+ are +Circles, +Sparks, +Hangouts, +Mobile.

The key feature is called "+Circles". With this you can create groups based on your interest like Family, Friends, Office and any group name as you wish. What is interesting is you can share your thoughts to any one group or groups you have created. This is something exciting because it is like "real life sharing". In Facebook everything I share can be seen by my Friends and Family. So the +Circles is useful in controlling what I share online. There are so many other exciting features.

Watch out for the next big competition between Facebook and Google. Before any sort of agreement between Facebook and Bing or Blekko or any search engine competitor for a social search media, Google wants to make it clear that they are up for the challenge.

The Google+ project is in field trial and one can join only by invitation. You can join the project.
Few videos have been released.

Play 3 Engine Monte game from Blekko

Are you interested in checking your knowledge on the SERPs of Google, Bing and Blekko? Even a beginner to SEO should be able to analyze the SERP to know about how the search engines are ranking the websites for a search query. Why the search results differ in each of the search engines.

Then you should check out this feature in Blekko. Blekko an open source like search engine introduced a new SEO game.

Visit Blekko. At the bottom you will see a link to the game called "Play 3 engine monte". When you click it a result page will be seen for a random keyword picked by Blekko. The search result pages are of Google, Bing and Blekko.

Now if you are good in analyzing each result then select a result which you think will be of Blekko. Actually I tried to guess Google. Check out the result. Try your luck for various search queries.

How is traffic and Google PageRank related

How is website traffic and Google PageRank related in SEO?

Website traffic and its PageRank have a correlation. One might help the other. But not necessarily.
To get high traffic you don’t need a high PageRank and to get high PageRank you don’t need high traffic.

If traffic to my website is high will it improve my PageRank?

Google has not mentioned about traffic when it comes to PageRank. Google PageRank is calculated only on the basis of your backlinks. Please refer my post Google PageRank - Relevancy, Quality and Quantity.

Suppose I have a website www.Example.com. I used the domain name “Example” as my anchor text in my link building campaign and because of my domain popularity I gained a high PageRank of 5. My competitor who has a PageRank of 2 actually has a very good link building strategy and he targeted for some of the main keywords. The result is that he outranks my high PageRank website for those keywords and his overall traffic is much higher compared to my site.

So which is important? PageRank or traffic?

To me Traffic to my website is more important. If I am getting good business why should I care about PageRank? I am sure that my PageRank will improve in the long run.

You might have seen in so many search results that low PageRank websites are above high PageRank sites. This is because of their proper link building.

Stop worrying about that little green bar and worry more about the visitors. Find solutions to improve traffic.