How Do i Change my Default Browser

by on March 5, 2013

Recently was searching the Internet, I wanted to look for a few organic rankings for a couple of keywords. Seeing as I had already logged into the browser I was using I didn’t want to use that one to search because I didn’t want to see personalized results for me. I decided to use Opera as it is a browser that I don’t normally use. When it started up that prompted me to set it as the default browser, not thinking I pressed okay. It wasn’t a big deal to change it back but I thought perhaps not everybody would know how to change the default browser. Here is a quick walk-through of how to change Google Chrome, Firefox, or Chrome to the default browser for your system.

 

Firefox 

On the menu click on “Tools” followed by “Options”

Firefox Options screen

Across the top of the window that opens you will see a variety of Choices, select the one that says “Advanced” and Press “Make Firefox my default browser”

Firefox Opt”

 

Opera

In Opera Press the “Opera” Button located on the very top left part of the browser, followed by “Settings” and then “Preferences”  (Shortcut: You could just press CTRL+F12 from within Opera).

Opera Setting

In the window that opens select the last tab “Advanced” and then “Programs” from the list on the left, and finally check the “Check if Opera is default..” box and restart Opera.  You will get a prompt that you can now accept to make it your default browser.

Opera settings 2

 

 

Chrome

Open Chrome and press the button with 3 horizontal lines located to the right of the address bar followed by “Settings” and then “Make Google Chrome my default browser”.

Chrome settings

 

Internet Explorer

Open IE and press the gear icon to the right of the address bar and tabs.

IE setting

 

On the window that opens press on the “Programs Tab” followed by “Make Default”.

 

IE settings 2

 

There you have it, a quick and simple way to change the default browser on your system for all of the major Internet browsers.

 

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What are SPAM Websites?

by on March 5, 2013

Ever wonder what Google considers a Spam website? One of the features of Google’s new “How Search Works” is a fighting spam section where they show real time sites that are being removed from the search index.  Very insightful way to tell just what Google doesn’t want to see.

 

Google’s Live Spam Screenshots Highlight ‘Useless’ Web Pages

searchenginewatch.comMonday, March 4, 2013 7:30:00 PM

Google has launched a new website called How Search Works. One feature SEOs may want to check out is the Fighting Spam section, which shares a stream of real examples of “pure spam” pages that Google has identified and removed from search results.

 

Really interesting stuff here…. If you investigate the URLs that are being removed you can really get a sense of what Google doesn’t want to see.  Looks like the biggest issue that i have noticed so far is velocity of links. Most have in the thousands of links built recently, looks like there is really a case for slow and steady.

So the two things that we as webmasters really need to pay attention to are:

1. Backlinks – Build them slow and natural

2. Content – Keep it unique!  That doesn’t mean rearrange the words in someone else’s post, that means write your own content OR have someone write it for you but ensure that they are honest with you on how they wrote the material.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How Does Search Work?

by on March 4, 2013

Google has posted a sort of infographic about how search works that is certainly worth a scroll.  The elements of the search appear as you scroll down the page.  If you have ever wondered how Google does what it does this is worth a watch.

bradabbott

How Search Works… http://t.co/CChI4PdweO

 

 Here is Matt Cutts talking about How Search Works almost 3 years ago, Do you notice anything different?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Max Title Tag Length

by on March 4, 2013

Someone recently asked me  ”How long should a title tag be?” I told them that the general acceptance is around 65 characters but its not a hard fast rule so much as guidelines. If you think about it, you rarely see more that 65 characters in Google’s results, past that are truncated. So if you go much past 65 characters you’re pretty much just doing it for the search engine as users cannot see it anyway.  If you are doing something for a search engine above the reader chances are you wont be rewarded.

 

Hotel

Search Engine Optimization With the Title Tag

www.paulteitelman.com2/15/13

What are Title Tags? The title tag is the clickable text that is shown on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP’s), it appears within a page’s header code, before the main body of content (it doesn’t actually appear on the website). Most people think of a banner and possibly a navigation bar when they hear header, but in reality it holds much of a page’s important information. The title tag, for example, introduces a page to a search engine crawler. It is what appears at …

 

Title Tags – Is 70 Characters the Best Practice … – SEOmoz

www.seomoz.org9/29/11

It’s often pretty difficult to make a short title for a webpage that offers a lot of varied or super-specific information. At SEOmoz, we say that the best practice for title tag length is to keep titles under 70 characters. That’s pretty pithy …

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Google Webmaster – Have I Been Hit?

by on February 12, 2013

Matt Cutts has relesed a new video in the GoogleWebmasterHelp page on Youtube that basically says that Google will soon be giving examples of bad links to help the efforts of those that have been hit with a penalty. From the rumblings that I have heard it seems that the webmaster community, while ready for this help, is wondering why it took so long for Google to identify what they consider a bad link. The service doesn’t seem to be live yet, whichh also begs the question; “When Mr. Cutts? When?”

Have you been hit with the wrath of Google Penalty? Have you managed to recover? Or have you just moved on?

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