Condemned To Google HellÂ
Till September 2006, I would get more than 1000 visitors to my websites daily from Google. After they made changes in their algorithm, I get almost zero visitors, I suppose I am also “condemned to Google Hell” .
One of the reasons could be that I have a large number of websites (and even more now). Google monitors the number of websites you have. I had used Google webmaster tools for these websites. I fail to understand why Google thinks that owning a large number of websites is a sign of spam or poor quality , without even bothering to check the actual quality of the websites. Some people may have only one hobby, others may have multiple interests
In my last job, the kind of work I would do would vary daily – one day I may have to visit the Customs at the Air Cargo terminal to clear the mechanical equipment I had ordered (“Engineer required to provide technical clarifications”), the next day I may have to write and debug code in Visual C++ for communication between 2 microcontrollers. The projects I would do were also varied Railways, Refineries, Ports, Cement plants, Steel processing lines, Mines. The more versatile you were, the better it was, but Google penalises you for having multiple websites.
The quality of the results at Google has steadily deteriorated, “keyword rich content” is most important. The only reason why I feel it continues to be popular is that other search engines do not design their user interface properly, I now get better search results from other sources.
Yahoo and MSN search usually load very slowly and many times in Yahoo the links are broken. So till a better search engine which is user friendly is available, Google will continue to dominate search results.
So the Google PR update for April 2007 has started.
The PR for some websites has decreased, for some it has increased. That is the big advantage of having a large number of websites, any change does not affect you too much. You can afford to experiment. I only avoid using the Google Webmaster Tools, based on my experience it is a waste of time. You provide all data about your websites at a single place, which can conveniently accessed by anyone who wants to hack or attack your websites.
The older websites with lots of traffic have all gone to PR0, so I suppose the PR update is not complete. Others have also reported this problem.  Even otherwise I do not get much traffic from Google, so Google Search Engine Rankings do not matter.
April 26, 2007 – 11:58 am
Broadband to go free in 2 yrs and Indian hosting
Broadband will be free in 2 years, but I wonder what the quality of service will be. I have a MTNL Garuda internet connection and it does not work more than 50% of the time despite paying Rs 400 per month. Even trying to make it work is a waste of time.
They are also planning to increase web hosting in India but I wonder how many websites will opt for it. Most Indian internet companies work for only 5 days a week with extended holidays for Diwali and other bank holidays, so your website may be down for days before any action is taken. And they make you feel they are doing you a favour by restoring a website after it has been down for 3 days.Â
I usually load new software on my websites on Sundays, when the traffic is minimum. If I make a mistake, I can usually rectify it quickly and there is not much loss due to downtime. I have websites hosted with 14 different companies and the better hosting companies will reply within an hour even on Sunday and even on Christmas day (at 2 a.m local time, which is afternoon Indian Standard Time). The person who replies is usually competent, I usually learn something new from them. How many Indian companies can match these customer support or hosting standards?Â
April 22, 2007 – 10:05 am
Fee for ‘.org,’ ‘.info’ names to jump .
I have a fairly large number of .info and .org domains and I will have to renew them by September like the .com and the .net. Have to keep a big budget and compare prices.Â
Unlike .com domains, most .info domains take a long time to get established, but making information sites is simpler. In 2-3 months, I will get a clear picture.
Money spent on developing a website may be claimed for tax deduction . The domain registration fees have to be paid yearly, otherwise you lose the domain. I wonder how these expenses can be disallowed.
This article was from the print edition of Economic Times. I usually include links which I may need to refer to in future in this blog. Unfortunately after searching The Economic Times website, I could not find the article and could not link to it.
Either the print edition contains more articles than the main website or the search function is broken. Few Indian websites are user friendly, so internet usage remains low. Â
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