What Search engines think of your site's unavailable page?

Response Codes and website optimization:

Sometimes we find expected pages, that may or may not be advertised , but shown as links on part or even at the Index page of the site.
With sheer excitement and an urge to learn more or to buy something the user clicks and what does he find ( not so often for professional webmasters!)

Error 404
Page Not Found!

This happens due to improper link navigation or due to spelling ( sometimes spaces can be a killer for a website linking)

Now question comes what is the Error 404?
This is one of the HTTP status code (server's response code, which provides information about the status of the request) for the availability of the "said" page name (URL).
for example:
If there is a link "Guaranteed Top 10 Ranking" to your SEO page, the user wants to get to the top and ultimately clicks that. Then if the page is giving a 404 ( page not found) error, do you think you will get the client??
The answer is simply NO , unless you are too lucky or the visitor is very optimistic to contact you further.
Here comes the role of the webmaster to check the incoming and outgoing links via "broken link analysis". There are many FREE web based softwares who do that including Xenu and W3C Link Checker among others.

HTTP status codes
When a request is made to your server for a page on your site (for instance, when a user accesses your page in a browser or when Googlebot crawls the page), your server returns an HTTP status code in response to the request.

some popular codes are:
200 for "OK"
404 File not found
301 "Moved Permanently"
302 "Moved temporarily"


What is the dis-advantage of non-available web pages or in other words from SEO point of view, how to utilize the error code for better optimization of a website?

From an end user's point of view, the impression gets bad, he / she "may not" return to your site again or will have an assumption that the site is either incomplete or not being managed properly. Which will lead to brand awareness confusion. You need a professional company to manage your website if you want it done properly.

How it works?
Let's say that in the link to "Visit Google Apps" above, the link is broken because of a typing error when coding the page.

More info from Google Webmaster Central Blog

From the search engine crawler's view, a 404 status code is a link end or the search for deep crawl stops there itself , limiting your link indexing.

According to Google's Adwords guidelines, if you are a adwords publisher, the target / landing page should not be one with a 404 code.

From adsense publisher point of view, definately the potential income is at risk, if not detected those pages and optimized properly as per "real" theme.

How to use 301 / 302 redirect for outdated URLs or website address for maximum SEO advantage?

Well if you dont ever want the site / webpage URL to restore again in the sitemap or the website navigation, use 301 "Moved Permanently" option while if the change or URL forwarding is a temporary one, go for 302 "Moved temporarily" This lets the search engine bots to understand the navigation type and aim.

How to do a 301 / 302 redirect ?

This can be done from your website's control panel, under http headers option. Contact your webmaster for more details how to do it.

According to the observations, Google really cares for the sites having no broken links as it will help in easy navigation of the search bots as well as the visitors.

Forthcoming Internet Problems in 2010

Predict the future of Internet?
Many people say its bright...
Some say its a bit dull...
How about a warning that it will be a infrastructure crisis ?
Dont believe me....

Here is a news from chinadaily.com,

Booming demand for Internet services combined with insufficient infrastructure investment could leave the Web vulnerable to brown outs within three years, a study released Tuesday predicted.
Nemertes Research said Internet providers need to invest from $42 billion to $55 billion -- or 60% to 70% more than current plans call for -- to stave off interruptions to the digital economy that could happen if the Net bogs down. "The next Google, YouTube, or Amazon might not arise" if the situation isn't fixed, Nemertes said.
The problem, the group said, is that bandwidth usage is outpacing infrastructure build outs. While core fiber and switching/routing technology "will scale nicely," Internet access resources could soon be overwhelmed in three to five years, Nemertes said.

Read the complete story here

Airtel site redirecting to Vodafone

Is it a mis-direct , an intentional one or a technical problem?

When typed www.airtel.com in the browser, it redirects to http://www.vodafone.es/

According to the WHOIS data from http://bombayhosting.myorderbox.com/whois :
The domain Airtel.com has following details
Domain Name: AIRTEL.COM
Registrar: CORE INTERNET COUNCIL OF REGISTRARS
Creation Date: 15-dec-1998
Expiration Date: 14-dec-2008

Some Explanation:

Vodafone bought the then second largest mobile phone group in Spain called Airtel Móvil (www.airtel.com) in 1995.

Airtel Móvil is not linked to Airtel India, Bharti Group (www.airtelworld.com)

Google's Paid Space Efforts

Now GMail has a paid option to those who want to store more...
Ever wonder when other companies like rediff, yahoo and indiatimes are switching to unlimited space, why Google is acting in other way ?

May be due to :
- It has already a lot of data to handle for his setup of servers
- It has some earning plans
- Something secret

Checkout the news at computerworld ,

Just hours after Microsoft Corp. rolled out its Skydrive online storage service on Thursday, Google Inc. unveiled pricing for shared online storage available to both Gmail and Picasa, the search giant's Web-based e-mail and photo services, respectively. The new storage space, which Google took pains to stress is in addition to the free allowance for each service (1GB for Picasa, 2.8GB for Gmail), is priced starting at $20 a year for another 6GB. A few users, however, took advantage of a $1/year-for-6GB price that Google listed during last-minute testing. "We've updated the price, and we're letting those users keep the difference," said Google spokesman Chris Schreiber."We've updated the price, and we're letting those users keep the difference," said Google spokesman Chris Schreiber. Other plans provide an extra 25GB for $75 annually, 100GB for $250, and 250GB for $500

New Domain Name Extensions Coming by 2008

How many domain extensions do you know about ?
Most Popular are the Top level domains or TLDs . They are .com /.net/org etc. In all there are more than 200 TLDs,including the two letter extensions like .in used for country specific websites . Here .in stands for India.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers. These include domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .UK), as well as the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols. Computers use these identifiers to reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability.

According to the latest News from Reuters.com,

"
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the Internet's domain-name address system, said on Friday it was on track to allow an expanded number of domain names next year.

ICANN officials, wrapping up a week-long meeting in Puerto Rico, said their goal was to have in place by next year a permanent process to allow for new, generic top-level domain names, as well as to begin "internationalizing" domain names.

"With the progress we've made is San Juan, we're on track for the new applications and approvals policy to be ready for the start of 2008 and the introduction of new TLDs by mid-year," said Dr. Paul Twomey, president and chief executive of ICANN.

The California-based non-profit organization oversaw two previous extensions of Internet space: the addition of seven TLDS, including .info and .name in 2000, and the addition of another six starting in 2004.

It recently denied a petition to include .xxx as a TLD to be used for pornographic Web sites.

The group is also working to expand the number of characters that can be used to create Internet addresses, currently limited to the 26 Roman characters, 10 numerals and the hyphen. This would allow the use of Arabic, Chinese and a multitude of other characters to be used in domain names. "

Read the full Story at Reuters

Static and Dynamic Site : Explained

What is the difference between a Static and Dynamic website?

In general there are two types of web sites viz static and dynamic.
Static Website: A static web site mostly contains simply created and linked webpages . Good option for smaller size websites. Static web sites have very limited flexibility in contents and management perspective and also also relatively hard to maintain if number of pages increase. Examples are Home Pages or Sites of Small firms with less data. Individual page can be optimized to preserve the content and the theme.If you have a basic knowledge about webpage you can create a website using WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Editor Or HTML editor like Microsoft Frontpage or Dream Weaver.Less Hosting Space is required for a static site as compared with the dynamic and there is no Database needed.

Dynamic web site : as the name suggests, content is created on the fly. Mostly backend database is used to create webpages according to requirements. Best of Portal and Database driven websites having a lot of categories, products, services and webpages. A dynamic website no doubt will appear to cost more because of the customization and complexity, but comparatively its more cost effective solution considering the size and efforts in development. Administration is easy although individual pages cannot be taken care of as per on page optimization is concerned as the data is pulled from database. More Hosting Space is required for a static site as compared with the dynamic and there is no Database needed.Certain limitations such as query parsing and long URL's can be overcomed using Mod-rewrite function to get better chances of competition and visibility in Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.You/the developer are expected to have a lot of coding knowledge for creating a great dynamic site.

Free Broadband in India?

Are you an Indian?
Wait for the Good News !!
Communications & IT minister Dayanidhi Maran is now looking at making broadband free, thats what the leading daily Financial Express reports.
Despite losing landline customers gradually, this plan is expected to raise eyebrows of private players who have invested a lot in Broadband cables. The minister has also suggested that free landline phone could be offered to users with multiple mobile connections.

Free broadband could come about once state-owned telecom firms Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd get into web hosting. “Efforts are being made by BSNL and MTNL to start web hosting. At the moment, all traffic generated in India terminates outside and we should try to terminate these within the country,” Maran said.

Read the full Story Here