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Tag: Search Engines

  • ‘Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web’ Shuttered

    Yahoo Directory that began service under the name ‘Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web’, a brainchild of the co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo, has finally shut shop. This guide was a directory of websites that were listed under various headings which started way back in 1994. The way the websites were arranged here was in the form of a hierarchy rather than a searchable index of pages, unlike the prevalent norm today. It was an influential directory then, long before search engines were the de facto gateway to the Internet. Back in the day this directory was what people perused before browsing the Internet for information that they wanted.

    But there is no need for such a directory now as search engines can give you information on everything residing on the Internet with the right set of keywords, in a fraction of a second. But still the Yahoo Directory holds an emotional value to some people who want to reminisce of an era when search engines were still part of science fiction.

    yahoo-directory

    Image shows the original Yahoo Directory way back in 1995!

    Unfortunately, the advertisers serving ads on this nearly 20 year old platform will now have to find a new platform to deliver ads. Yahoo has shut down more than 60 services in the last two years and this  is a part of a giant restructuring program at the company. Due to intense competition from the likes of Google, et al, Yahoo has been steadily losing its edge.

    Under the charismatic CEO Marissa Meyer, Yahoo is looking for a mobile product strategy, all the way. All the products that don’t fall in line with this new company goal are ruthlessly terminated. This gives the company more resources to focus on cutting-edge technologies of tomorrow. Thus the Yahoo Directory has got the short end of the stick, in an era where tablets and smart phones rule the roost.

    Today it is unlike 1994 when the Internet was a novelty and a website directory was a beacon of respite for people trying to get aboard this new information super highway a.k.a the Internet! Fast-forward two decades and people clearly have no time for something like Yahoo Directory, when Internet is ubiquitous and inextricably associated with all things business and personal. Today time is a luxury that people just can’t afford to waste perusing a directory of websites on the Internet. Thus was written the epitaph of Yahoo Directory!

    So how do you view this decision of Yahoo to shutter its Directory services! Do let us have your views on it!

    Contact us for your website’s improved visibility on Search Engines now!

  • Schema Mark-up Recommendations for B2B Websites

    Schema.org

    What is schema.org?

    Schema.org markup assists search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Yandex to take in the information present on the web pages and provide richer results, which makes it easier for users to find the right web pages.

    Here are some benefits of schema markup:

    • Higher click-through rates
    • Lower bounce rate
    • Increase in long tail conversions

    Recommendations for B2B websites

    B2B marketers can leverage schema.org markup for corporations, products, ratings, reviews, authors, events, locations, videos, etc. Sites that implement structured markup can see an increase in click-through rates. The following list shows some of the recommended schema.org elements with examples:

    1. Product

    Schema.org markup helps search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing gather information about products that companies offer. With the product schema employed, the following rich snippet shows what would appear in search results:

    IBM Lotus Symphony

    Search query: IBM

    The rich snippet will provide all the basic information for the product (description, reviews, offers and price), which will help customers determine whether the page is worth visiting.

    For more information, click here.

    2. Video

    An increasing number of companies are featuring videos on their websites as part of their marketing strategy. Video and the surrounding content can be marked up by setting the schema type to ‘VideoObject’ for the page.

    HD video conference

    Search query: HD video conference

    Schema.org has markups for the following elements: description, ratings, headlines, audio, awards, copyright, creator, publish date, creation date, genre, publisher, reviews, video quality, thumbnails and version. For videos, defining as many elements as possible will drive in more relevant traffic.

    For more information, click here.

    3. Organization

    There are different types that come under the organization schema.org markup like ‘airline’, ‘corporation’, ‘EducationalOrganization’, ‘GovernmentOrganization’, ‘LocalBusiness’, ‘NGO’, ‘PerformingGroup’ and ‘SportsTeam’.

    Within the above types, ‘corporation’ and ‘LocalBusiness’ schema.org markup have more relevance for B2B websites.

    a) Corporation Markup

    Here we can include the logo (image), company name, global navigation (SiteNavigationElement) and phone number (telephone). You can place the company name inside an h1 tag and mark it up with the ‘name’ markup. Global navigation can help search engines understand your page hierarchy better. In order to do that, we need to declare that the links are for navigation.

    Just using the markup doesn’t guarantee that your logo will be used. It only helps suggest this to Google, which takes the final decision. However, this markup is a strong signal to Google algorithms to show this image over others. For example, when Google is showing Knowledge Graph on the right hand side based on users’ queries.

    For more information, click here.

    Lear Corporation

    Image Source: Search engine land

    b) LocalBusiness Markup

    This schema.org object provides information on an organization’s specific office locations, thereby supporting local listings where geographical intent might be a clue in search relevance.

    Local business markup is relevant as the dealer and distribution information is of significant value for businesses. It also provides the organization’s headquarters and regional offices’ geographical location supporting local listings.

    The Google SERP displays the address of the business that has been marked up on the website (LocalBusiness) with additional information like reviews, ratings, etc.

    For more information on this, click here.

    Position2 Inc

    Search query: Position2 Inc

    In the case of B2B marketers, they should consider implementing this markup in the following locations:

    • Organization’s headquarters’ address information
    • Regional office locations
    • Address information of regional dealers, distributors and resellers

    4. Events

    Any event (concerts, shows, theatre, lectures, conferences, webinars, etc.) that is happening at a certain time and at a certain location can use this markup. Repeated events may be structured as separate event objects.

    The event schema lets you be really specific about the type of event you are describing. For ex: BusinessEvent. The information that is visible on the snippet, such as the name and location of the event, also needs to be clearly defined. Since this feature isn’t designed for advertising, your event name should not contain any promotional elements such as the price of the event, a call to purchase, an indication of a sale or temporary discount.

    Amazon Web Services

    Search query: Amazon Web Services

    5. Person

    Under the ‘Person’ (CFO, CMO, CEO) schema, you can interpret most pieces of personal information about employee pages. You can start off by marking up their names and job titles with “name” and “jobTitle”. You can also mark up headshots and descriptions with “image” and “description”. You can also define several other fields including ‘birthdate’, ‘awards’, ‘address’, ‘email’, ‘fax’, ‘phone’, ‘children’, ‘spouses’, ‘company’, ‘nationality’, ‘gender’ and many more.

    For more information on this, click here.

    Google Authorship

    By connecting authors’ names on the website to their Google+ profiles through the ‘rel=Author’ tag, Google is able to categorize a person’s written content better, possibly leading to greater exposure, traffic and ‘AuthorRank’ (especially if the person is an expert in the local community or industry).

    Barry Schwartz

    Search query: Barry Schwartz

    6. Mobile and Software App Listings

    You can add authenticity and trust to your mobile apps using schema markup. Here is a screenshot of the ‘SQL Server Database App’:

    SQL server mobile

    Search query: SQL Server mobile

    This works for software applications as well. When users search for apps, Google uses the information that is marked up on the website of the page to display your app details better in search results. We recommended that properties like ‘aggregateRating’, ‘offers’, ‘operatingSystems’ and ‘softwareApplicationCategory’ be integrated into the code for better display results.

    7. Others

    a) Careers/Job

    Job posting schema markup provides a list that describes a job opening in a certain organization. This makes it easier for search engines to index jobs.

    For more information on this, click here.

    b) Breadcrumbs

    This is a set of links (breadcrumbs) that can help a user understand and navigate your site’s hierarchy. Google can identify the breadcrumb information in the body of a web page and use it to understand and present the information on the pages in the search results.

    For more information on this, click here.

    c) Offers

    ‘Offer’ markup is an extension to ‘product’ schema markup, which provides a specific structure markup to support product information meant for sale.

    For more information on this, click here.

    Personalization of Google SERP’s

    Having semantic markup does not guarantee Google will display rich snippets in the SERP’s. It’s up to Google to decide whether rich snippets would be useful or not. Also, based on the user’s search intent, the best experience/results are provided for the users search query.

    Conclusion

    Remember that everything you mark will be clearly seen by search engines. So it is important to mark only relevant information that you need the search engines to index.

    Using the rich snippets testing tool, you can check your markup and make sure that Google can extract the structured data from your page. This tool will display the markup found on a specific web page, as well as a preview of how that page might appear in Google search results.

    Do you have anything to add to this post? Drop your comments below!

    Contributed by Susanna Varghese, Junior SEO Analyst