Google updated its search algorithm on 1st of August and here is everything you need to know about it. This broad core update by Google focuses on medical and health sites. But many sites apart from them are also impacted by the update. There is basically nothing you can do to fix your site but you can offer great content and a unique experience to the users. The update is known as Medic Update because it focuses on the health and medical space. Google has stated that this is a broad, core update and it does similar updates many times each year.

There is no particular method you can use to fix the pages. Instead, remain focused on building great content for the users. Google stated that some sites could notice drops or gains. The changes introduced into the system are benefitting the pages which were previously under-rewarded. This rollout will impact all Google search results across different regions and languages.

Who was impacted?

This is a global update which means every type of site has been impacted. However, it has been noted that there is a focus on medical and health sites in addition to entertainment and gaming niches. It has also impacted ‘Your Money, Your Life’ sites. These sites are focused on money and life.

What can you do?

Now that you know there is a change in the Google’s algorithm, there is nothing you can do to fix it. There is no solution to the same but Google suggests that you improve your website, create better content and make it a unique experience for your users. This could lead to a better ranking of your site on the next update.

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YouTube Offers New Ways for Creators to Make Money

August 30, 2018 brainwork Leave a comment

The online video sharing platform YouTube has always been criticized for not compensating the creators. The platform will now allow the creators to set up their paid channel memberships. Majority revenue at YouTube comes from advertising which will still remain a focus. But the company is thinking beyond ads now. The creators will be able to make money through different ways and opportunities.

The viewers will be paying $4.99 every month for the membership of a channel. It will provide them access to the exclusive content which includes live streams, shoutouts on channels which have more than 100,000 subscribers and extra videos. Creators can sell merchandise like apparel on their channels as well. The merchandise will appear on a shelf below the video with up to 12 products available at a point of time. This will not cost anything to the creator and every sale will help them generate income. With regard to channel memberships, a channel needs a minimum of 10,000 subscribers for it to be eligible.

Currently YouTube returns a small part of the revenue generated from advertising to content creators who have constantly accused the platform for not paying them enough. The site has stiff competition from other platforms that use more and more video. With more than 1.9 billion users, YouTube is one of the top online video sharing platforms in the world. This move will give an opportunity to artists and influencers to make money through their video channels. One of its biggest competitors is Instagram that has recently introduced IGTV. The increasing number of users on Instagram could be a threat to the popularity of YouTube. With an opportunity to make money, YouTube has offered a reason to the creators to continue sharing their videos on the portal.

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WhatsApp business could help product listings through catalogue feature

July 12, 2018 brainwork Leave a comment

A feature on WhatsApp Business will allow businesses to showcase their products in an online catalogue. A screenshot that shows this upcoming catalogue feature was leaked online and first spotted by WABetaInfo. Businesses will be able to enter particular product information in the product page. The details include a title, description, stock keeping unit number, link and the image of the product. However, it will not allow direct transactions for the buyers and sellers on WhatsApp but will enable the business owners to improve the sales options and allow expansion of their consumer base. WhatsApp could earn from each listing and it could help the businesses reach out to the consumers in a unique manner.

The possibility of this feature could also be expanded to regular WhatsApp which has more than 1.3 billion users across the globe. WhatsApp will soon release a big update for the Business app which might include the catalogue feature. Businesses will be able to show their products to the consumers on the online catalogue and the same will also be visible on the normal WhatsApp application. Launched this January, WhatsApp Business caters to business owners across six countries including India, Mexico, UK, US, Indonesia, and Italy. The app has more than 3 million users across the globe. WhatsApp Business is currently restricted to the Android platform but they are working on an iOS version as well.

If the product catalogue feature is added to the application, it will work as a boon to business owners. Most consumers use WhatsApp and would prefer browsing through products on the app. Business owners will also be able to immediately handle any queries from the consumers and it will help boost sales in a cost-efficient manner.

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Will the New $156 Million ‘Project Insight’ Launched by the Government Affect your Taxes?

July 28, 2017 brainwork Leave a comment

Starting from next month, prime minister Narendra Modi’s government will begin gathering virtual information not just from traditional sources like banks but also from various social media sites such as facebook, Instagram etc. to compare individual’s spending patterns with their income declarations. This will help officials to spot those who pay too little tax without raiding offices and homes as they are doing nowadays.

Built over seven years at a cost of approximately Rs 1,000 crore, Project Insight will complement the world’s largest biometric identity database and India’s most ambitious tax overhaul as policy makers try to get more people to pay up. While the Indian economy is among the fastest growing in the world, revenues are not keeping pace, bloating PM Modi’s budget deficit and generating anxiety over tax sleuths.

Data analytics is way ahead for tax administrations across the world. This will put an end to aggravation by tax officials, as there will be no interface from the public. Countries like Belgium, Canada, and Australia are already using data to unearth tax evasion that may have otherwise gone undetected without technology. The efforts made by India somewhat resembles that of the UK which was estimated to have cost somewhere around 100 million pounds. Since its setting up in 2010, it has prevented the loss of 4.1 billion pounds in revenue.

Last year, the government contracted Larsen & Toubro, an arm of India’s largest engineering conglomerate to help build up the network and boost voluntary agreement. Project Insight is a long-term project for L & T Infotech without any specific timeline. The company has agreed to build own operate transfer model which means that while it will be running the project and earning revenues during the contract period, it will ultimately transfer all the network to the government once the contract runs out. Compliance will rise 30 to 40 percent during the first phase of the project. During this time, all the existing data including credit cards, property and stock investments, cash purchases and deposits will be migrated to the new system and a central team will push people to file tax declarations. The second phase will be rolled out by December during which the data analytics will mine, clean, and process the information. In the last phase which will go live around May 2018, advanced systems will be used to predict future defaults and flag risks.

It is seen that government uses its tools for tax forecasting. This data will show how much business has slumped in a certain town, which would help authorities better assess aid requirements and forecast local revenues. The scope of the project has also led to concerns in a country where the government has repeatedly told the Supreme Court it does not consider privacy to be an absolute right. Safeguards are a must, as stated by Rahul Garg, head of direct tax at PwC India. Now, it should be seen how effectively the data that has become invaluable is used for governance.

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Google Officially kills off the Link Command

January 23, 2017 brainwork Leave a comment

As per the latest updates to find a sampling of links to any site, you can perform a Google search using the link: Operator. Google’s link operator in the first place was never an efficient way to examine backlinks. Google’s famous personality Matt Cutts stated that admitting the link operator was only designed to return a small sampling of backlinks to prevent SEOs from reverse engineering another site’s rankings. Link Management is often considered to be an important aspect of one’s SEO services and in the earlier times, SEOs used a special search operator from Google to find these links.

Google officially requests all webmasters and SEOs to stop using the link command, that is at present dead and not working properly. Sources from Google have recently announced that the Link command is not functioning any longer. Google says that the link is completely dead for now and if one is interested to see the link to their sites, then there are plenty of third-party tools that can be used to get the appropriate results and Google has always suggested using the links to your site report in Search Console underneath which helps you in providing an accurate report.

With time, the link operator has become less and less useful for SEOs and webmasters. The webmasters are suggested to use the Google Search Console link report for a better link discovery because the link operator only shows a sample of a site’s links. In the past, there was only a little space for a very small percentage of backlinks because web search was the main part and there were not many servers for link colon queries and so, therefore, Google had to double or increase the amount of backlinks that we show over time for link colon, but all this is just a sub-sample.

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Everything one Needs to Know about the Latest Google Update

October 6, 2016 brainwork Leave a comment

Google launched its Penguin Update in April 2012 to better catch sites deemed to be spamming its search results. This is primarily designed to boost Google rankings. When a new Google update is released, the sites that have taken action to remove bad links or who make every effort to remove spam have some effect on their rankings. Penguin update is now running in real time as a part of Google’s core algorithm. This update is already in effect and is available in a number of languages.

A comprehensive Guide To On- Page SEO

If you want to make your online presence felt, then it is important for you to ensure that you are up to date on on-page SEO basics. This is helpful in providing high performance for your site and visibility for your targeted audience. Over the past few years, the rules of this type of Search Engine has drastically changed making sure that Google is able to deliver some of the best results. On-Page SEO is the method of optimizing individual web pages to ensure that your company attains a higher rank and is able to earn more relevant traffic in search engines. It refers to both the content and the HTML source code of a page that can be optimized. The longer the users stay on your site, the better it will be for your website, providing an enhanced experience to the users.

Implement Proper Tags: Another important aspect of your on-page SEO is the implementation of tags. Make sure that the tags are written and utilized optimally as this will be useful in improving traffic. These Meta tags are used as they provide search engines some information about your page. Including Meta tags on our site will increase your click rate.
Title Tags: Title tag is also another important element that proves out to be helpful in your rankings. This title tag outlines what the particular page is about. To improve search results, Google looks at the title tag and compares it to the rest of the content that is available on the page. Keep your title tags descriptive and short. Make sure proper keywords and pertinent information are included.
Use of Meta Description: Meta description is also a crucial aspect of increasing search results. In a way, the Meta description communicates what users will find on the particular page. The search engine sites read the Meta descriptions to determine the page’s topic. The length of Meta descriptions that will be visible on desktop and mobile devices will differ.
Proper headings: To achieve excellent results the headings should not be overlooked, as they hold more weight on the page than a standard paragraph. The audience should be kept in mind while writing the headings and particular tags.
Appropriate URL: Make sure to keep the URL short. The shorter the URL, the easier it is to share. Utilize the primary keywords in your URL, but make sure too much keyword stuffing is not there.
Quality Content: Make sure your web page contains a well-written content that is available without any spelling or grammatical errors.

The goal of every business is to bring in maximum traffic to your website and generate conversions. A perfectly fabricated page creates an outstanding user experience and strengthens your brand. This will increase the traffic on your site and improve your search engine rankings.

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Google Introduces Latest Penguin Update

January 25, 2016 brainwork Leave a comment

The much-awaited moment is just a few weeks away when Google will lift the veil on its latest Penguin update. A Google insider revealed that the company should roll it out by the end of the first quarter. It has been more than a year since Google came forth with an update to its link spam algorithm, Penguin 3.0, launched back in October 2014. Technically speaking, it was viewed as more of a “refresh” than an update. The major reason attributed to it is the fact that it did not affect US English search queries by any chalk.

Before digging any deeper into it, let’s illustrate the difference between an algorithm update and an algorithm refresh.

Difference between Update and Refresh

An update does not introduce any additional signals to the algorithm. Unlike it, a refresh demotes sites, featuring spam signals, which were absent when the previous update was in operation. Apart from this, a refresh serves to assist sites who have their spam issues fixed since the last update.

Advancements in Algorithm over the Years

Prior to the introduction of Penguin 3.0, the Penguin 2.1, hit the market on October 2013, made huge waves across the digital landscape. The algorithm update was considered as the follow-up of Penguin 2.0, introduced way back in May 2013. As per Google, Penguin 2.0 was equipped with new spam-fighting technology. Moreover, it was the last instance when the search giant confirmed introducing new signals to the algorithm.

While the rumours have already begun to make rounds regarding what Google lays in store for us this time, we are less likely to hit the nail on the head until the update finally rolls out.

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Brace Yourself for Twitter’s Extended Character Count

January 8, 2016 brainwork Leave a comment

Twitter aims to roll out a new product, intended for the users to share tweets longer than 140-character, the limit previously enforced on Twitter. Although a cloud of indecision hangs over what the product would look like, sources have confirmed it will be primarily employed for publishing long-form content to the service. This is likely to change the face of Twitter as the 140-character limit has been associated with Twitter since it hit the market.

Long Awaited Notion

Individuals, who brought Twitter into use, thought things through from every conceivable angle. Further, expansion of character limit was fuelled by arguments among these individuals over the years. As a result, it prompted even people, who work in close association with Twitter, to chew upon the notion of increased character limit.

Necessary Proposition to Sustain Standing

Expansion of 140-character limit has been long overdue and it received an approving nod in recent months under interim CEO Jack Dorsey. This has been viewed as a decisive initiative along the lines of Twitter’s plans to dig up new ways to broaden its user base. While other prominent social networking avenues aspire and improvise to run Twitter off the digital terrain, this course of action will be an ideal counteract to it.

Follow-up of Recent Initiatives

Apart from the long-form product, execs have been tossing around ideas of integrating tinkering into Twitter by removing overheads of stuff such as links and user handles from 140-character count. However, some add-ons have been introduced in the recent past in this regard, Twitter cards, for instance. Although the 140-character limit still holds good for Twitter cards, they let the users, including advertisers, to harness potential abound of Twitter, by sharing lots of information. In April, Twitter introduced a “retweet with comment” option to widen the scope of comments on shared tweets.

Dorsey’s critical standpoint has paved the way for this potential change. Apart from this, it has always interested the multitude to witness Twitter evolving. As a result, this seemingly positive change may lure more numbers of users towards it. Furthermore, it is likely to set the trail for Twitter to mainstream audience, which gives a dim view to its 140-character count feature.

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Google Optimizes It’s Ranking Algorithm With Markup Changes

September 16, 2015 brainwork Leave a comment

Since time immemorial, structured data and markups have helped webmasters create search result snippets richer. Usually initiated with a goal to increase the click-through rate from organic search results on leading search engines, most users miss on higher SERP rankings due to lack of attention on quality markup language.

Google from time and time again uses modifications in the ranking algorithm to make a web page rank better. Of course, adding structured markups to your pages won’t directly lead to a better PR.

But, that all may soon change!

In a recent Google Hangout session with Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller, it came into spotlight that over the course of the next few months or years, structured markup is something that might go into the Search Engine rankings.

According to Mueller, Google currently doesn’t use this [markups] for ranking purpose. But over time, it may gradually start using it. Explaining concisely, he added: “If we can recognize someone looking for a car, we can tell them, we have these pages that are marked up with structured data of a car. This can be pretty useful in depicting results that really matter.”

Of course it makes sense to use structured data for depicting relevant results, but one shouldn’t assume that using structured data markup can make a site jump up in the rankings automatically. A structured data markup can only help a search engine distinguish between a site that is done technically well, and one that has great content.

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Become Reverend Marketer with SEO Tools

August 31, 2015 brainwork Leave a comment

SEO is a constantly evolving field and the advent of technology has further given much-needed thrust to it. As more and more business continue to tap into the capabilities abound of internet, we have been deluged with a wide array of tools, which are being employed in the SEO arena. Further, such tools have streamlined major operations of essence in the SEO and have changed the face of the way we accomplished SEO in the past.

SEM Rush

SEMrush is a powerful tool, which is utilized into gauging whether our website has adequate quotient of health or not. Further, during our operations to gain outreach and accomplish link-building activities, we employ SEMrush in order to check into the number of keywords ranked for by the website in Google. In addition, In case we come across sites boasting of high volume of inbound links but still there exists no keyword, ranked in SEMrush, then there are chances that those sites have been penalized. In addition, we can look into the aspect of organic traffic to measure out if any massive drop has struck the site. In the event of it, we understand that visit to the site will render our purpose ineffective. Additionally, we employ SEMrush into the domain of keyword research. We take the note of top sites, featuring against a primary keyword. In the subsequent course of action, we peruse the websites for the keywords, which they have been ranked for. Combination of keywords list with a number of sites in the industry would yield an exhaustive keywords list.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is touted to be more of a social tool than SEO tool. However, in the recent times, it has been the case that social media and SEO have become inalienably integrated into each other. This has prompted the need for BuzzSumo into the arena of SEO activities. BuzzSumo is chiefly utilized in the search for ideas regarding visual, social, and blog content. Once repository of keywords has been created, these keywords are looked for in BuzzSumo. The purpose behind it is to churn out the ways of entitling the content. Moreover, BuzzSumo comes across as a one-stop solution when we seek to employ brainstorming to acquire ideas for new info-graphics.

In the end, it is worth concluding that a large number of online marketing companies have integrated standardized SEO practices into their operations. Also, such tools are pivotal to effective SEO practices. Thus, in order to reap the most out of your association with the SEO Company make it a point to ensure that aforementioned tools are employed into operations of the company.