Yahoo changes the Home page

Did you check the new Yahoo Home page?
The slider has gone wider and the news section are more clearer. Earlier I had to dig in to search for sign in and check mail option, they are now placed well in the right corner.
The changes that I could find, i've marked in red.
Can you trace other changes on Yahoo homepage?
Yahoo has promised for more big and small changes. Let's wait up for the changes to come.

Poor grammar and spelling mistakes in content can harm ranking in Bing

While Google introduced "Panda" and "Penguin" for poor quality content, they never defined what kind of content is "poor quality".
Bing has taken the step regarding this and has detailed out what kind of content will be "poor content" for Bing and how can such content harm the ranking of the website. Bing has laid down a list of common mistakes that frequently happens, some common phrases that are used at wrong places, punctuation mistakes, sentence structure and many other such things.
Bing, clearly stated that when poor content is not meant for reading for humans then it is not meant to rank either.
I am a person with bad grammar and have to take these Bing English classes.
Many SEO people are appreciating the step taken by Bing as it clarifies what is a bad content unlike Google which is still not clear on what basis of bad content can your website be penalize.

Happy New Year

Thank you 2013 for giving wonderful days. Wishing 2014 to give more memorable moments, welcome to the new year 2014.

Happy New Year 

Facebook's "Sympathize" button on the way

Facebook fans have been eagerly waiting for "dislike" button but Facebook persons have sidelined it and have decided to launch "sympathize" button.

A sad post on Facebook is liked by many people, creating a confusion what was to "like" in that sad post like death, breakup or bad day or anything sorrowful.

The picture above is from HuffPost, where an artist has predicted how the "sympathize" button could look like.

At Facebook Hackathon, the engineers of Facebook decided to introduce this sympathize button. The button would read these many people "sympathize with the post" rather then these many people "like this (sad post)".

The button would not be visible in a normal post; it would be visible when the person who posted a status uses negative mood emoticon (of Facebook) like, sad, crying, doomed etc. The like button would change to sympathize button.

Facebook members attend these hackathon to introduce/discuss such unique ideas on human behavior with Facebook. Friend suggester, facebook chat etc are results of these Hackthon.

Let's wait when this "sympathize" button goes live and is used on the timeline.

Original Source: huffingtonpost.com

Go to different places with Place Pins on Pinterest

I am fan of Pinterest and I just love this website a lot. The DIY and How to are my favorite sections. Pinterest is a simple concept social media site. It has introduce one more beautiful thing "place pin". As soon as you'll login, it'll show you a screen something like:

I've created a board and pinned some places in it. The fun part is that the destinations are pinned on a map. To add places, add city, the place you want to visit in that city, upload a photo or pin from the suggestions, provide a description and you are done with the pinning.
Visit board https://www.pinterest.com/swati28/places-i-would-love-to-go/ . I've pinned 4 places for trial purpose.
This update will be helpful for trip-planning websites. The owners of pinterest are launching Android and iOS app too, to make it easier for users to add places to their boards. The map provided along with pinned places would help in guiding to reach that place. You can add restaurants, bus stands, airports and many things to the board, or follow someone else's to guide yourself to that place.
Tripadvisor is providing database to Pinterest; Foursquare, Stamen, MapBox are providing maps to make the pin-board interesting.
USERS: Go ahead, pin and plan your destination.
TRAVELLING WEBSITE OWNERS: optimize the board perfectly to not to miss this "Place Pin"

Bing webmaster introduces "connected pages" in Dashboard

This is interesting, Bing webmaster has added a new and exciting feature called as "connected pages". This tool allows you to connect following pages that are linked to website:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Google Plus
• Windows App
• Android App
• iOS App
• Pinterest
• Windowsphone
• Youtube
• Instagram
• Myspace

The "connected pages" tool is accessible in Dashboard--->Configure My Site--->Connected Pages.
The pages that are to be connected should have link of the website in them, else those will not be verified.
The data will be shown after 72 hours. This tool will help in letting know what social media platform is working best for the website. It would become easier to make strategies accordingly. I've added mine and waiting to see the results in webmaster tools.
Will share the stats here too.

Free rank checking tool

If your website is targeted in various countries, you need to know the ranks of various keywords. There are many tools that can ease this work. I've been working with few such tools and will share here.
I would appreciate if reader's could add more tools to this list.

1. Rank checker by SEO Book : This was the tools that I used. It can check ranks for Google.com domain for free version and more international domain for paid version. You can check ranks of single to multiple keywords. Whole process is defined in the videos. This is an add-on (i use it on firefox) and it is quite good with the accuracy of ranks. 
2. Rank tracker: This is a power-pack tool which can not only be use for checking ranks but also for checking back-links of website. The free version is accurate but if you are using it with country specific IP then accuracy increases more. Free version wouldn't allow to save reports-not a problem, take the snapshots. The paid version is amazing and works perfect. One more thing that you may require is captcha filling tool, or better is to fill captcha on your own.
3. Hows this look in: I encountered this tool recently and found it good for manual checking of keywords. This is limited to 8 countries (US, UK, Russia, Netherlands and others). The team is working to add more TLDs. You have to register before using this tool.
   The fields that you need to fill are URL-fill in google.com or .co.uk as per your convenience, Location- The TLD set in URL and Browser form the drop down menu. After these fields are filled you'll be provided with virtual Google of that area to check the ranks manually. 
4. Google adword preview tool  This is a very good tool with one limitation, that you have to check ranks manually. Set domain, language, location and device and check the ranks.

Points to note

• Tools #1 and #2 are good for checking ranks of too many keywords.
• Tool #3 and #4 are good for checking ranks manually.
• Tool #1 and #2 may give wrong ranks if using free. 
• Tool #3 and #4 are accurate with ranks but are tedious tools if the number of keywords are high.