Improved Search Box With Instant In Search Results

As stated earlier on Sep 5, 2014 by Google, they have started implementing search box in site links with instant (auto complete) option enabled. This feature helps us to find the products/news within that particular site.

Find the screen shot below for the implementation.

The keyword which you search in the search box will take you to the site search of the site. For example, if I search for "Kid's Wear" in the box, the below result will be displayed.

Enhanced E-Commerce Tracking in Google Analytics

Ecommerce Plug-in (ecommerce.js)

Google has introduced an enhanced Ecommerce Plug-in for analytics.js (universal analytics) which enables the measurement of user interactions with products on ecommerce websites across the user's shopping experience, including: product impressions, product clicks, viewing product details, adding a product to a shopping cart, initiating the checkout process, transactions, and refunds.

Advantages of E-Commerce Plug-in

By using Ecommerce Plug-in the below advantages can be availed.

• Identify the brand, category, name, SKU, price of products that have been viewed. 
• Transaction ID, Affiliate network (if any), Revenue, Tax, Shipping Cost and Coupon Code (if any) of the product which has been sold. 
• Checkout, Purchase, Refund of the product that has been sold.

Steps to implement enhanced Ecommerce Plug-in

If you've already implemented Ecommerce tracking and want to start using Enhanced Ecommerce tracking the below steps has to be followed:

• Ecommerce Plug-in requires universal analytics, if you're using Classic Analytics (ga.js) you have to migrate your property to analytics.js. 
• Add an additional tracker for a newly created property and tag/enable Enhanced Ecommerce for the new property. 
• To migrate from the existing ecommerce plug-in to the enhanced ecommerce plug-in, current analytics.js users should be removed and replaced references with enhanced ecommerce code.

Detailed Procedure to add E-Commerce Plug-in is stated below in the link

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/enhanced-ecommerce

Steps to Migrate to Universal Analytics

Step 1: Transfer Property

• Transfer your properties to Universal Analytics from the Google Analytics Admin page. You may also customize session and campaign timeout periods. 
• Only users with Edit permissions may initiate the property transfer from the Google Analytics Admin page. 
• The transfer takes minutes to initiate, but you should allow 24 - 48 hours for it to complete. 
• When the transfer is completed, the property is ready to receive data from Universal Analytics tracking code. 
• Move on to Step 2 after the transfer is complete.

Step 2: Update Tracking Code (optional)

• Replace existing tracking code with new Universal Analytics tracking code. 
• A developer (or person with technical knowledge) should complete this step in your development environment (web pages, SDKs, etc.). 
• The time it takes to update your tracking code will vary depending on your current implementation and your tracking needs. 
• When this step is completed, you will have access to the full benefits of Universal Analytics, including new reports and features. 
• After completing this step, your full upgrade to Universal Analytics is complete.

Detailed procedure to migrate to universal analytics is stated below in the link

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/upgrade/reference/gajs-analyticsjs

Flavors Profile page to Sub domain

Flavors.me is a service which helps you to integrate your social activities like Twitter tweets, Flickr images, Facebook status, your blog posts and your favourite RSS feeds in single place to boost up your on-line presence.

In general a flavors page can have a short bio about the profile with five services like Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Tumblr and Flickr that can be integrated for a free flavors profile. You can add/remove your preferred accounts with your flavors profile.

Previously when a user creates a profile in flavors the user was provided with a profile page say http://flavors.me/rajsidharth, now every user of flavors are now provided with a sub domain from their domain like http://rajsidharth.flavors.me.

Can anyone say why they have changed the user's profile from profile page to sub-domain?

Out Of Stock E-Commerce

Handling out of stock products in e-commerce sites is explained below

1. Removing the category page when the products in the category are not available will make the authority of the category void in search engines. In case if you add some products relevant to that category in future, the page will be considered as a new page by search engines and the value of the page has to build again to rank them in Google.

For example : http://www.example.com/tech-accessories/nexus-cases.html in this category page has been deleted. In case if you add some nexus case products to the site you have to add it in a new category and it may take time to gain authority and rank well on search engines.

2. If you determine that there will be no products added to the category any more, you can redirect the category page to a relevant another category to transfer the authority without any wastage.

For example if you decide there will be no more sale of nexus cases and only nexus 5 cases will be available on the site then you can 301 redirect http://www.example/tech-accessories/nexus-cases.html to http://www.example.com/tech-accessories/nexus-5-cases.html which will pass all the authority to the new page.

3. If a category is a seasonal and will have products only for a particular period, then you can remove the link of the particular page from the site and not the page entirely. The temporary products category can be handled as mentioned below.

• Make a 302 temporary redirect(Only if the new products will be added to the category as soon as possible)
• Show out of stock for the products
• You can hide the links on the site as mentioned in the image shown below. Since there are no products more than 10$ the link has been disabled

Google's Private and Public Search Toggle

Google has now implemented a new change in its search option. It now displays two new buttons called "Show Private Results" and "Hide Private Results".

For example:

Look at the below search with "Show Private Results"

Look at the below search with "Hide Private Results"

This option is right now available with only a certain browsers. This implementation was performed using Mozilla Firefox.

Private Results: The private results are results which are based on your browsing history. The browsing history will be collected when you are signed in to your Google account. Google collects your interest of browsing from Gmail, Google Calendar and Google+. The pages and information which you +1 from your Google+ account contribute more in collecting your interests.

QR Code For Facebook Profiles

Facebook now introduces QR Code for Facebook profiles. Scanning a particular QR Code using your mobile camera will redirect you to that cotresponding time line. In my opinion this option will work with smart phones which have auto focus options. This is the QR code for my profile.

Custom URL for Google+ Profile

Google now allows Custom URL for profiles too as Facebook does.

Here is the criteria to be followed and maintained to Get your custom URL.

1. You should have a minimum of 10 followers
2. Your profile should be minimum 30 days old
3. Your profile should have a profile picture

If your profile has the above mentioned criteria you will get an option to get Custom URL under

1. Go to Profile->About-> Links
2. Now Click "Get a custom URL"
3. You will be allotted a URL and in some cases you will be asked to add some numbers or alphabets to make your profile unique.
4. After entering the required URL you have to check agree to the terms
5. Click change URL.
6. You will get a password to your mobile number to make the Custom URL. Type the received code and click confirm.
7. Now the custom URL for your profile is ready. 

For example look at these profiles

1. https://plus.google.com/+RajKumar1989
2. https://plus.google.com/+RajKumar6

Google's changes in their visual

As discussed in our previous post about Google' Changes in Site links and Navigation, now they have made another update in their appearance and site links.


When you click "sign in"

 a new login page appears

 

 Also they are trying a new appearance for site links and it is in test phase. Below is the screen shot of the new appearance of site links. 

Google Ads in Gmail Inbox

Google now displays ads in your Gmail "Inbox" under the folder "Promotions"

Google has already added all their products and conglomerates in Display network. My opinion says now Google concentrates only on Paid searches and Displaying ads.

Smart Phone user gets only Google local listings and ads for their searches rather than organic listings.

The first seven positions of SERP in mobile are now occupied by Sponsored ads, Maps and Google Places.

Look for this keyword "packers and movers"

In future finding organic results in SERP will be difficult?

Share your opinion in Comments. 

Images in Sponsored Results

Google now displays Images in Sponsored Results. This can help the investor to get a good CTR(Click Through Ratio) and get a good conversion ratio through these paid traffic. 

For example search for this query "The Indian Pulse" and look at the sponsored ads displayed by Google. 

Here is the screen shot of results displayed in Google for the query "The Indian Pulse"

Give your opinion in Comments. 

Facebook Photos even after removing

As discussed in the previous post about no privacy for image in Facebook, images that you have uploaded in Facebook can be viewed and downloaded at anytime even if you have removed that photo from your account, if a person has the image location of the picture of yours.This is because Facebook uses an individual server for having images.

The best example.

This is the image location of the picture which I have removed from my timeline and from my album.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/396043_406999379337903_321241800_n.jpg

If you click this URL you can view and download my picture.

The screen shot you see below is taken by reaching the above URL after removing the picture from my album.

Do you think uploading images or pictures in Facebook is confidential?

Google's Navigation Links Updated

Google has made a test phase in their navigation links including Google+(your G+ profile), Maps, Drive and Google Play in their drop down menus, which makes users navigate and browse through their site more easier and comfortable.

Please look at their new look.

For information to @+Rand Fishkin , +Search Engine Land, +Danny Sullivan, +Mark Zuckerberg

Site links Appearance in Google SERP Changes

Google has now changed their site links appearance in their SERP.

Google has made some modifications in appearance of site links in their SERP, which makes users to identify pages of site for which they have Googled.

Search for a brand sulekha.com in google. 

No Privacy for photos in Facebook

Information about our most favorite social network Facebook

Facebook has the images on an individual server. 

If you block a person or if you put privacy for your photo, the photo will not be fully displayed and it will not be clickable.

If you copy that image location and open in separate tab ,it will be displayed like 160x160 size image.

For example:

If you have added privacy for your photo the image will look like

https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-ash4/c50.50.621.621/s160x160/603043_563194917051681_506234444_n.jpg

If you want to see the full size image of the photo (even if you are not in my friends list)

Just remove "s160x160/" from the above URL, it will look like

https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-ash4/c50.50.621.621/603043_563194917051681_506234444_n.jpg

If someone knows your image location even if he/she is not your friend, he/she can see ur photo (even if you have put privacy for that photo).

So please don’t use your original images on Facebook.

Canonical Tags for ranking

How canonical tags can be used for back link?

Canonical tag                     : In general canonical tags are used for avoiding duplicate content issues.

Canonical tag use               : If two or more pages in your site have similar content there may be possibility of getting penalized by search engines for duplicate content issue, search engines gets confused in deciding which page to be displayed in their SERP. In that case you can use canonical tag for suggesting search engines about which page to be displayed in their SERP.

Canonical tags are also mentioned as similar to a 301 redirect.

If canonical tags are similar to a 301 redirect, then they will pass the link juice from the page which has the tag to its original (canonical page).

Consider two domains uvw.com and xyz.com

Host the site in both domains. Both sites can have similar content and similar pages.

Add canonical tag to every page of uvw.com.

For example:

Assume both sites have pages

Uvw.com	Uvw.com/page1
Xyz.com	Xyz.com/page1

Mention xyz.com as the canonical page in source code of uvw.com

<link rel="canonical" href="xyz.com">

Mention xyz.com/page1 as the canonical page in source code of uvw.com/page1

<link rel="canonical" href="xyz.com/page1">

This makes xyz.com as the original content and they will be displayed in SERP and not the pages of uvw.com. Now the authority, page rank of the domain uvw.com is gained by xyz.com