The PR update is going on, and it seems the earlier formula for getting PR is no longer valid. The author has correctly pointed out that if everyone is doing something, people feel it is correct, but that is not necessarily true.

Some of my websites have lost PR , some have gained PR . I have many websites and I don’t buy text links, so I think the criteria for assigning PR has changed. Till the market for links/traffic stabilises, I don’t think I will buy any more GTLD domains and concentrate on adding content.

Getting good content for a website takes a lot of time and effort, but atleast when I need some information in future, I know where I can find it online.

Facts don’t lie, and though India incorrectly portrayed as a “IT superpower” by the mainstream media in India, it is the only country in the world with a shrinking internet user base. The speed of the internet connection on mobiles is close to zero based on my personal experience, it only causes RSI. One of the reasons is the lack of useful country specific applications, social networking online and gaming is a waste of time, what is the use of “friends” who probably have given a fake name and profile?

The other reason for the negative growth is the extremely poor quality service provided by most ISPs in India. There are some things in life that money cannot buy and one of these is getting a reliable high speed internet connection with customer service in India. Reviews on broadband and general ISPs. If I pay for any service or product, I expect them to deliver what they promise, not waste my time and increase my BP trying to get customer service.

The current search engines rank “keyword rich” articles well and old websites well. For example if you search for any India related term , the first 10 search results will be the archived news of sites of major newspapers in India and rediff, which have been online for a long time. Almost all the newspapers get their news from the same press agencies, PTI / Reuters /AP or the same press release by a company’s PR agency. The search results will have the same text, only a different site design . So if you want to compile or compare information from different sources, search engines are not very useful.

If you own a lot of domains, developing websites is the best option.  Search engines like Google are useful for certain kinds of  information, they are not useful for finding reliable information.  For example, for the term “work at home” , the 3rd website has a lot more credibility than the first 2. For  “work at home India” , most of websites returned by Google are scams. People find the better work at home websites only from references. So there is a definite need for more reliable search results .

Puffed-up projections by consultants, followed by a steep cost escalation for manpower, infrastructure in last 2 years due to searing salaries, real estate prices
High rates of attrition coupled with low levels of staff productivity
Operational problems, lack of scale and poor morale are further hounding BPOs
Most MNCs are predicted to go slow on expansion plans and eventually exit
Source: Forrester Research, Zinnov
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“More than 60% of companies’ (read mncs) captive (software and outsourcing) centers fail to meet expectations in India.”
A Forrester Research report
“…Over 75 per cent of the global IT initiatives worldwide are not as successful as they were initially envisioned.”
A Zinnov research report

The fact  is that Indian companies (especially IT related ) provide very poor customer service  and are very short sighted.  They rarely understand the customer’s problems.  They are only interested in saving a few dollars, they do not realise that an unhappy customer will not bother to complain, just spend thousands of dollars somewhere else.

Poor customer service is also the reason why most of  the large Indian companies deal with commodities, where prices fluctuate. Some of  the largest companies in India have non-Indian origins and little competition because their competitors do not offer comparable customer service.

On my last job, I was told by many customers, – “Your product technology is outdated, your prices are higher than competitors but while finalising orders we insist on placing the order on your company because of your customer service” . Many times the customer would make changes or mistakes, but we were told to accomodate the changes, treat the customer sympathetically. Orders would be taken at a loss initially, considering future projects from the customer.  These were high value projects – usually lakhs , sometimes crores of  rupees.