Category: Google News

It sounds like a silly question when it seems like anytime you have a question, can’t remember an actor’s name or want to download a song, you turn to good old Google to find the answer for you. But have a second think and answer this – do you use it all the time, for every search, to find everything you are looking for on the wide, wide world on the web?

Now the yes doesn’t come so easily does it? No, I don’t use Google for everything either, not for every single thing because sometimes I feel like I would be better results if I looked somewhere else, in a different way. Depending on the product or service I’m looking for, before turning to Google, I’ll look in the Yellow Pages, or the local directory under the industry I am looking for.

Doing this kind of search I feel as though I get better results because rather than typing ‘graphic designer’ into Google and coming up with results for companies in Australia, companies which are either too big or too small for what I need, or just results which happen to have ‘graphic designer’ as the keywords, in the Yellow Pages I can judge the size of the companies by the size of the ads, and choose one in my area.

So does my search technique have a fatal flaw or do other people have this problem?

Search engine optimisation (SEO) for Google is a vital part of any website or web based business if you want it to be successful.

In the past the things you did on site, such as, keyword optimisation, meta tag creation and internal link building were all very important. And whilst they are still a very important piece to Google optimisation they are probably not the biggest piece of the puzzle any more.

Off -site search engine optimisation (off-page seo) is now something you cannot ignore. If you want your site to rank well in Google, Yahoo or Bing search engines you will need to explore this in further detail.

The basic key to off site optimisation is to get credible, quality links back to your site. These links need to be from relevant sites of reasonable quality so no to actually damage your search engine ranking. Links allow Google and other search engines make the assumption that if your site about a said topic is linked to by many sites of similar content then your site must be a good reference for said topic and thus you get a better rank than the guy next to you.

Seems simple enough? But unfortunately it isn’t always easy for a new site to get such good links. It’s a catch 22 situation in some cases. Some sites won’t link to you because of your low Google page rank but in turn you can’t increase your page rank with out those links.

But there are things you can do to help you get these quality links. You can hire a specific Google SEO company who will be able to submit your site to specific directories and key social networking sites (more than just Facebook). They will be able to help you in submitting excellent original written content to article submission sites as well as devising a regular link building plan for your site.

All these things will get you topic relevant links back to your website, increasing your ranking in search engines like Google and ultimately raising your profile and traffic of your website.

Google has launched a new programme whereby it will offer cash rewards to anyone who spots potential vulnerabilities in any of its systems.

Known as The Bug Bounty Program, computer whizz kids can earn anything from $500-$3,133 for uncovering a flaw which could potentially lead to the confidentiality or data of its users being compromised in some way. As well as the cash reward, the researcher will also have his or her name included on the Google Credit online page.

The level of pay for seeking out vulnerabilities in Google’s system will be judged by the rewards panel. The upper tier of pay is reserved for those researchers who uncover a highly serious or intricate bug.

The cash reward offer stands for anyone who is able to uncover vulnerabilities on all Google related web pages including YouTube, Blogger, Gmail and Google.com. This is just one way in which the internet giant is striving to ensure the safety of its users.

The programme only pays out to researchers who discover flaws in scripting language or injecting code of a Google webpage.

The scheme does not relate to issues found with Android or Google desktop programs. Google have revealed a list of the bugs which they won’t pay out for uncovering so it’s advisable to check this out before you embark on a spot of bug hunting.