Is Page Rank Still Important For Websites?

No matter who you ask, where you go to find the answer and who you might find to offer the definitive opinion, the topic of PR (page rank) still causes more debate and controversy than most SEO subjects currently flying around the internet.

In simple terms, Page Rank is a link analysis algorithm used by Google which looks at the inbound links to your website, the quality and relevance of them and then assigns a rank based on these and many other factors. The page rank you see in your toolbar is not the actual page rank of your site, despite what many people continue to say about this, it is simply not a reflection of the true page rank of your site. The true page rank site changes frequently and is only really used by Google, which therefore makes the Page Rank toolbar almost useless in my opinion.

Years ago it is true to say that everyone hunted for higher Page Rank and this in turn is what has made Page Rank semi redundant today. In theory, it was a good idea. The more work you put into getting links back to your site, the more your site should benefit from higher SERPs. Sadly, many exploited the algorithm and thus undertook in link farming, selling links and a few more dodgy tactics aimed at playing, if not beating the system.

Over the past couple of years the decrease in importance of Page Rank has become apparent. No longer do many experienced webmasters and SEO specialists get excited when a Page Rank rise is given or upset and devastated when they drop from four to two for almost no reason. I had a couple of clients that gained PR on the last “update” and showed no improvement in rankings, yet one that lost some saw their rankings increase massively, even further stressing the importance that PR has little, if no effect on your SERPS and rankings.

As the Page Rank algorithm has slowly faded away, more algorithms have come into play, such as domain age, URL domain name, alt tags, anchor text and so many more that all aim to tick as many of the SEO boxes as possible.

So, to get to the answer most people seem to be asking the question to, is Page Rank still important? In my opinion, yes, it still has some importance but compared to how important it used to be, it is no longer the be all and end all of SEO. Only Google will know how and why your site ranks for the terms that it does, all webmasters and SEO experts can do is try to make sure all websites are full of good quality content, are fully optimised and that many off page factors are taken care of. Of course, we all have our strategies and white hat techniques to use with our clients, but the basics of quality content and a regularly updated website will also make sure that your site is ranking in the engines.

New Social Networking Website Launched In Assocation With Clear Web Services

Buttas.com is a fun social networking website where users interact, compete and discuss the latest celeb news and social topics with others through  picture rating facilities, and a celebrity entertainment blog.

Clear Web Services have been asked to work on the SEO for the next year, and have recently started on a successful social bookmarking and press release campaign in the first week.

The title of the site is derived from the word Buttas, which is UK street terminology for Ugly, and is generally used as an insult.

The quirky site is spearheaded by a fictional host MC Gremlin, who is a hilarious, hideously looking wannabe ladies-man and rapper. The buttas protagonist is joined by fellow comic characters; Dahsheeka, Mary Anne Blanc,Maneetah,Kingsley Cash and Mikee Mix. Each character has their own page with a bio. Some of the characters also front an aspect of the site relevant to their personality and characteristics e.g. Mary Anne’s News Watch is actually the celebrity news blog, where celeb gossip and media content is uploaded daily.

The site will initially target young people based in the UK with an interest in urban music culture. Users are able to purchase Buttas branded merchandise including; EBooks and T-shirts through the online shop facilities.

Buttas.com is the brainchild of David Bellgam, a recording artist/songwriter from South London. David claims the concept of the Buttas site was inspired by the Underground Garage hit record (also titled Buttas) he created along side former Streets Singer Leo’The lion’Ihenacho in 2003. The song was also responsible for the creation of MC Gremlin who was voiced By David on the recording.Gremlin’s facial features were actually developed from a caricature of David’s face(he vehemently claims that his facial features were exaggerated and distorted and the use of hideous fake teeth were employed to achieve the legendary buttas-ness)

View the site at: www.buttas.com

The Pros And Cons Of Making Users And Visitors Register

Making a user, visitor or customer register is a quite a big decision for any site, as there are advantages and disadvantages of doing so.

When weighing up the decision to provide a registration facility, you first need to ask yourself is it really necessary for you to make this step. If you are selling products or offering sensitive data, of course you should offer a registration facility, but if you are simply looking to gain visitors data for up selling or marketing, the decision becomes a little more difficult, as more and more web visitors are refusing to register with sites, due to the large increase of spam and cold marketing over the past five years.

Advantages of User Registration

Capture Data – Arguably the main reason most websites ask their visitors to register is to capture their data, specifically email addresses and phone numbers. This then allows for the website or company to advertise future products and services to anyone that has registered.

Make Money – If you are looking to charge for some content or offer different levels of access for users, you can use registration as a way to make some money. You will of course need some kind of payment processing, but this is often used when looking to upgrade listings or offer premium content etc

Control – By making visitors register, you can control the content each access group can see, which means you can release new content exclusively to members, giving visitors a reason to register. It can also mean only the people you want to see any sensitive data are the ones that have registered and in effect been vetted.

Feel Exclusive – Even in this day and age, offering content to only registered users does attract a little bit of interest and some people do seem to like this exclusivity of only registered members being able to see this content or access this area.

Disadvantages of User Registration

May Put Some Users Off – A few years ago it was not that hard to get users to register, in fact, people seemed to want to have the odd email from the company or website they visited. But, thanks to the influx of spam, users are now very reluctant to register for anything that they do not see some benefit from, so you might need to give something away to make most register.

Data Protection – If you are storing visitor’s data, their names, emails or anything to do with the visitor, you need to make sure you are abiding to the Data Protection Act, which is vital to protect yourself and your users. Also make sure your Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy are strong.

Security – Make sure that any data you do collect, as mentioned in the Data Protection Act is secure, as many companies have seen major issues due to not storing the data correctly. Also, make sure you have a back up of registration as there is nothing worse than asking thousands of people to re-register!

Of course, there are many more reasons why it can be a good idea and also a bad idea to make users register, but the ones above we have heard the most consistently from our clients. If you feel the user will benefit from registering, then go ahead and ask them to, but you do need to make sure you give them a reason to do this, maybe give away a free guide, enter them into a competition or just make the content good enough to warrant registering with you.

The Top Ten Search Engines Based On Visits

Google is the most used search engine on the planet; I think we all know that, but do we know who the others are and how popular they are. If you were asked to name as many search engines that you can, I am sure you could mention Google, Yahoo and possibly MSN (which was called Live and is now called Bing), but did you know there are a few others? It would appear even if we do, few UK internet users ever use anything but Google.

According the Hitwise, the leading gatherer of internet usage statistics, the top ten search engines for UK users consist of only the really big names, suggesting that very few UK searchers will go further than Google or Yahoo, which is not really much of a surprise.

The following report shows websites for the industry ‘Computers and Internet – Search Engines’, ranked by Visits for the week ending 30/05/2009 – according to Hitwise.

1. Google UK
2. Google
3. Google UK Image Search
4. Yahoo! Search – UK & Ireland
5. Windows Live Search
6. Ask.com UK
7. MSN UK Search
8. Google Image Search
9. Ask.com
10. MSN Search

Google is the leader by a long, long way, with its UK search engine (google.co.uk) capturing well over 64% of search engine queries, with Yahoo coming fourth with a not so close 3% of search engine queries. Google also takes the second and third position with its international search and image search facility, with MSN and Ask also making up some of the places.

Google’s domination is clearly shown on the above list, with its three search facilities managing to capture an amazing 83% of UK search engine queries.

With the launch of the new Microsoft engine Bing, which replaces MSN and Live Search, they are going to have to really go a long way to catch up for Google, which even for the most optimistic person would be somewhat of a challenge. But, Bing does have a chance to work its way into the top three, of that there is no doubt, but it will really have to capture the hearts of the UK internet user to climb into the top two positions, but only time will tell.

Top 5 Things You Might Not Have Seen In Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools has been a brilliant web optimisation tool and SEO accessory for millions of webmasters, site owners and business since it was introduced. Most users know how you can see the keywords you are ranking for and find all your links back to the site, but there are some other things you can do that might help to improve the performance and accessibility of your site.

Add A Site Map – One of the first things you should do is create an XML Sitemap and add this to your webmasters account. Simply click onto the Sitemaps link and click Submit a Sitemap. Simple enter in the extension of where the sitemap sits and its name and submit this. Try to make sure the sitemap is on the root of the server / site as this makes accessibility a bit easier and also gives you more control.

Set Your Crawl Rate - If you have quite a few new pages you would like to get seen and possibly indexed by Google, you can set the crawl rate to be at the highest possible. The crawl rate is how often the Googlebot comes to your site and how many requests it makes per second, once it’s on there. If you have a decent web host, set this to the highest, especially if you are a new site as the more requests you can handle, the more likely it is to get the pages indexed quicker, although there is no guarantee of this.

Choose Preferred Domain – The age old debate about whether Google sees www.clearwebservices.com and clearwebservices.com as two different websites continues and will continue for many more years. The way we see it is, if you don’t use the www, like we do not, tell Google you do not use it. You can simply select whether it should see the www or not and even if this is not massively beneficial, it doesn’t hurt to make sure the way your site is seen and indexed by Google is the best it can be.

Define Geographic Target - If your site targets visitors in a particular location, you can provide Google with the information that will help determine how your site appears in our country-specific search results, and also improve the Google search results for geographic and location specific queries. This is great if you only sell products to the UK, it means you can tell Google to try and only send your UK Traffic, which is of course more relevant for your website.

Fix Crawl Errors – Although you will never be penalised for submitting a sitemap, with errors or without out, it is vital to pay attention to any errors Google is telling you about, and of course also fix them. The fewer errors you have, the better, so make sure you keep any eye on the crawl errors section periodically and fix any issues that are reported.

The Google Webmasters tool has really been developed to make sure your site is as good as is possibly can be for Google, and we think this is a great thing. But, you have to make sure you use the tool for more than just checking your rankings and links back, and by implementing a few of the above tips, will hopefully make sure your site is indexed in the most efficient way.