Steps on Recovering From Google Updates

Search engine optimization (SEO) has proven its significance to effective branding and business growth through time. Fortunately, Google has been continuously developing tools and techniques to make everything possible for these businesses’ success and the consumers’ convenience. It releases search algorithm updates that consequently helps increase a website’s traffic, and of course, to provide better, relevant results to users.

However, while the constant evolution in Google’s search algorithm has provided an improved user experience to most, it also has negatively affected a few. With this said, it’s important to note what causes your website’s penalty and how you can recover rankings from Google updates.

What Causes Penalties?

If you’ve noticed that your traffic has suddenly decreased, then it’s best to see what caused it. Most likely, there are two causes that can get your website penalized: an algorithmic penalty and manual action from Google’s spam team.

  1. Algorithmic penalty. This is the easiest one to identify, as you only need to see if the date on when your traffic has suddenly dropped and the date on the current algorithm update has occurred, matches. To do this, you can refer to Google’s algorithm change history as posted in Moz.

Definitely, this has become a disadvantage to some especially if they do not keep in touch with Google or other search engine’s algorithm updates, though the truth is, Google’s tight-lipped with regards to its updates to avoid manipulation on rankings. Now, there’s a few resources you could use to avoid getting this kind of penalty and so as to be updated with the constant updates:

  • Follow Matt Cuts on Twitter for current changes on SEO.
  • Subscribe to Google Webmaster’s channel on Youtube to keep updated with the best practices on SEO.
  • Basically, there are some updates that are not officially recognized by Google, however, are still significant to SEO which you can find at MozCast or Algoroo.
  1. Manual action from the spam team. If it wasn’t an algorithmic penalty, then the second most possible cause is a notification on your Google Webmaster Tools account. This may be a warning message due to unnatural links that should be abruptly addressed to recover your website’s ranking on SERP. Otherwise, you can dig deeper to see the cause of the penalty.

Steps to Recover Your Rankings

Way back in March, Google has released a major algorithmic update called Fred. Fred was believed to target websites with low quality content and bad backlinks, thus, if you’re affected with this update then it’s best to do these steps to recover your ranking.

  • Check your Analytics and see if you’ve lost traffic or in particular keywords you’re ranking for between dates March 25th and 20th.
  • If yes, see if you can categorize your content into low quality and old and high quality and updated
  • Correlate your lost keywords with those in low quality and old content based on its previous rankings and traffic volume.
  • Once determined, it’s best to immediately add length and revise those affected content with the most traffic before the Google Fred update to improve its quality.se
  • To check bad backlinks, use a backlink spam checker or tool. Instances that Google may take into account in determining your backlinks value are anchor text similarities and dofollow backlinks that contains no value to users (which mostly comes from blog comments). Should you find any, make sure to remove each of them.

Additionally, make sure that your good backlinks appear in reasonable ratios and are natural so Google will not take these as unnatural backlinks.

Key Takeaway

With all the given points above, it’s recommended to keep in touch with the current search algorithm updates. Also, it’s safe to say that the best way to avoid getting penalized by Google is to create remarkable content and natural backlinks.

Installing and running Firebase hosting and database from windows

Google has lunched the service Firebase which includes hosting, Database, Storage, Cloud messaging and many others. you can check all the information on https://firebase.google.com/

To install and use those service on windows you must follow the below steps steps, we will also show how to install and deploy Firebase hosting on windows.

1- Install node.js, if you haven’t before download it from this link https://nodejs.org

node.js installer

2- open the node.js command prompt, go to your start menu. find the node.js and from inside it open node.js commad prompt. It’s very important to open this command prompt and not the normal cmd.

node.js command prompt

3- run the following command “npm install -g firebase-tools”, in the documentation on google website there is a $ sign before this command, don’t use it as this is for unix and/or linux. If the installation is successful you will see something like this.

firebase install success

Congratulation Firebase is installed, now you have to connect to your google account and initialize a project.

4 – Connect to your google account using the following command “firebase login”, a pop up will open in a browser asking you to authenticate. If everything is successful you will get “+  Success! Logged in as xxxxx@xxxx.com”.

5- Initialize Firebase project, in this phase make sure you are already in the correct folder, because the installation will use the folder you are currently in as your home directory. As an example i created c:\firebase, so my command will be like this C:\firebase>firebase init

If this phase is successful you will get a big yellow firebase and the steps after that will select a project or create a new one and install for you a database and a public hosting folder.

To Develop and deploy web applications to firebase go to the public folder created, there is inside it index.html, update that file as you wish. now to deploy that file all you have to do is run the following command

firebase deploy

This command will upload all the content of the public folder to the link provided. in my case it is https://project-3617037528540627832.firebaseapp.com

you can also map any domain or custom domain to this project

if yo have any question drop me a comment below

Art Murals On Google’s Data Center Walls

Google, one of the largest and richest companies on the planet, thanks to its internet and technology business, has decided that the outsides of its data centers are boring. So the company has decided to hire artists to put murals on the walls of these centers to not only make them aesthetically pleasing but to create curiosity about the work that is going on inside. Thus far, two data centers, in Oklahoma and Belgium, display murals. Two more, in Dublin, Ireland and Council Bluffs, Iowa, are slated for the artistic upgrade. Google plans for 11 other data centers across the world to be decorated with murals.

Jenny Odell and her Google Map Inspired Mural

In Mayes County, Oklahoma, an artist named Jenny Odell decided to take her inspiration from Google Maps. She resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and thus grew up around technology centered on Silicon Valley. Images in her mural include swimming pools, salt ponds, circular farms, and wastewater treatment plants. Odell is interested in bridging the digital world and the visual, thereby creating curiosity in people who view her art and making them gain a new perspective of the physical world.

Oli-B’s Mural Inspired by the Inside and Surroundings of the Data Center

Oli-B created the mural that now graces the outside walls of the Google data center in St. Ghislain, Belgium. Oli-B’s approach is to combine images from inside the data center–objects, animals, and people–with those from the surrounding town. The mural’s images are incorporated in clouds, a metaphor for “the cloud,” in which an entire universe has been created digitally. Oli-B works in a variety of media, including acrylic, spray paint, digital, and screen printing. He uses a variety of surfaces, including paper, canvas, wood, walls and even stickers. He started as a graffiti artist in his teenage years before turning respectable, though he has not quite broken away from his street artist roots. Oli-B’s work tends to be in bright, appealing colors that catch the eye, His work can be seen on various walls, posters, and even articles of clothing in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe.

The Purpose of Corporate Art

In the modern age, as it was during the Renaissance, corporations and rich benefactors are increasingly becoming patrons of the arts. Office buildings, hotels, and other structures are enhanced when they are decorated with paintings, sculptures, murals, and other appealing objects. Whether one is a merchant prince in 15th century Florence or a dot.com entrepreneur in 21st century Silicon Valley, patronizing the arts brings prestige.

Google believes that the murals being created on the walls of its data centers will serve as attention-getting devices, drawing the eye to what would otherwise be drab, boring structures. The company believes that what goes on inside these data centers is of great interest and significance. The idea is that the buildings themselves should reflect that fact.

In any case, we can look forward with interest to what the data centers in Dublin and Council Bluffs will look like once the artists hired to create murals get through with them.

Featured images: License: Image author owned

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Google Now 50 Command Examples

google now

google nowGoogle Now, The right information at just the right time. From knowing the weather before you start your day, to planning the best route to avoid traffic, or even checking your favorite team’s score while they’re playing, Google Now brings you the information you want, when you need it. Google now assists you in almost every part of your life, specially with the voice command search.

David from Phonebuff compiles a list of 50 commands that can be asked to Google now with their explanation Continue reading “Google Now 50 Command Examples”