Remember those Gmail Labs features that Google launched back in June? They included features for Gmail like mouse gestures, the option to choose from additional star icons, and more. The great thing about all of these features are that each is opt-in so that only the additional features you want added, will be added to your Gmail account. Overall, Gmail Labs has received good reviews with people satisfied with what it offers, although there were requests for Google to create more features or allow users create their own.

Just yesterday Google released three more labs features, all having to do with labeling. They include:

• Custom Label Colors - currently Gmail allows you to choose between 24 different colors for your labels. If those aren’t enough or you would rather make your own, you can create your own with this feature. You’ll be able to choose your own background color and text color.
  
• Label Keyboard Shortcut - if you’d like quick access to your labels, simply press the letter “g” followed by the letter “l” if you enable the label keyboard shortcut. The “g” and “l” are short for “Go to label.”
• Drag and Drop Navigation Bar - perhaps you’d like your labels above the contacts in the left Gmail sidebar? Now you can do that with the Navbar drag and drop feature. It’s simple, yet could be exactly something you’ve been looking for.

• Are there any features you wish Google would release for Gmail that they haven’t already? To access these features, remember that you have to go up to the Settings tab, then click the section to the far right labeled “Labs.” Also keep in mind that not every country has this feature.

Website templates are very affordable and they save you a lot of effort and time when you want to create a new layout for your website. However, a lot of people make mistakes in the process of choosing and using a web template and end up with something that was unlike the image they had in mind. Here are some guidelines to help you avoid those mistakes.

The first obvious mistake you should be aware of is using a template that is very popular. If many people use the same template, your website will not appear unique at all and your credibility as a solid, different website will be tarnished. In other words, you will appear generic just like your next-door neighbours.

To whole point of using a web template is to save time and effort. You just change the title and appropriate details and you're done. The biggest mistake one makes is to customize the template beyond recognisation. While that may be good in the sense that you're creating a unique graphic, you're defying the very purpose of using a web template -- saving time and effort.

However, on the opposite side, if a template you purchase is suitable but some changes must be made to suit your site's theme, then you will have to take some time to make the changes. For example, you can find a very nice template that suits your hobby site except the original designer has put an image of stamps in the header. You can find images of garden plants and spades to replace the stamps for your gardening hobby site. However, do only make the necessary changes and don't redesign the whole template.

In some circumstances, some people simply make the wrong choice of templates. This is a very subjective issue but you have to be careful in selecting templates to suit your audience. Do not choose templates just because they are pretty, choose them because they serve your purpose.

Google and other search engines can penalise you for having duplicate content on your website. This may be intentional or unintentional on your part. If it is intentional then either you have your reasons or you can get rid of the problem. On the other hand if duplicate content is being generated on your website without your knowledge you can end up paying a big price without your fault.

Duplicate content can be generated due to some problem with the way your CMS generates pages, because of multiple versions of the same content, or when both http:// and http://www are pointing towards the same URL.

For Google, http://www.phoenixrealm.com and http://phoenixrealm.com represent two separate URLs whereas for you and me it could be the same thing. It is so because you can actually have two different websites on the above mentioned URLs (one www and another non-www) — it rarely happens though. When Google finds two URLs seemingly having the same/duplicate content, it indexes the one it considers the most apt. This way it can easily miss the page you actually want it to find.

The duplicate content problem can significantly harm your search engine rankings. Fortunately, canonical redirection can solve this problem of content duplication.

So what is Canonical redirection?

In canonical redirection, among multiple pages supposed to be having similar content you select a canonic page and then redirect all those pages to this one single page. Hence, if someone goes to http://phoenixrealm.com he or she should be automatically redirected to http://www.phoenixrealm.com. Similarly, http://www.phoenixrealm.com/index.php should be redirected to http://www.phoenixrealm.com as these two URLs too are considered separate by Google.

How can you achieve canonical redirection?

For most websites running on Apache the easiest solution is altering the .htaccess file. This file generally resides in the root folder of your website directory. Using your FTP program you can check if that file exists (if there is no need then perhaps you don’t have it there) and if does, then download it and alter it because you wouldn’t like to lose the commands already existing in that file. In case you don’t have it, you can easily create it using Notepad or any text editor. In the .htaccess file add the following lines:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain\.com

RewriteRule (.*) http://www.domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Replace “domain” with your own domain name. This tells the search engine crawlers that the first URL has been permanently moved to the second URL.

In case you don’t want to use your .htaccess file you can always use some PHP commands to orchestrate the same sort of redirection. Here’s how you do it:

<?php

if (substr($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'],0,3) != ‘www’) {

header(’HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently’);

header(’Location: http://www.’.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']

.$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);

}

?>

Making money online is the hot trend nowadays. In coming days I am sure you will see many working professional quit their day job and seat at home in their pajamas writing some blog posts to make their living.

There are tremendous opportunities to make money online. Currently Google Adsense is the best option for most of the publishers. Some basic optimization tips can double your Adsense revenue. Two sites having same traffic can have huge adsense revenue difference depending on the ad optimization.

Follow these simple Adsense optimization tips. Experiment for at least two weeks to see the results. Believe me I am not exaggerating because I am experimenting with Adsense on my different sites since long time and these are nothing but some practical and ethical tips to increase your Adsense revenue.

This is hard core material about increasing the Adsense revenue and not possible for anyone to double the income just overnight. I am not promoting or supporting any tricks to fool Adsense code.

Before beginning the tips story let’s have some Google policy recap:
According to Adsense policy don’t do these things:
1) Do not click on your own Adsense ads by any way.
2) Do not increase Adsense ad impressions with some automating tools.
3) Don’t ask others to click on your ads.
4) Don’t alter the Adsense code other than fonts and colors.
5) Don’t put Adsnese code on adult or prohibited content.

Now you know the things that are against the Google Adsense policy.

Here are some simple and “any one can follow” tips to optimize Adsense ads:

1) Blend your ads effectively with your site theme. Match your Adsense colors with your site colors.

2) Do not use borders to your text ads. Ads without border and matching background with site background color always perform well over other ad units.

3) Have some Ad color themes that perform best with your site. At least 2-3 well performing ad color formats should be ok. Rotate your ad units with these color themes. This is just to avoid Ad blindness.

4) Use link units in your site. Link units near site navigation links can perform well. Other advantages of link units are - you don’t need too much Ad space on your site and link units are not annoying to users.

5) Use Google site-specific search box with Adsense. This is the best option other than content targeted ads. You have option to select ad location on your site search result page. Put Adsense ads at the top and bottom of search result page. The best location of Google search box is - top right corner of your site.

6) Place 250×250 size Ad unit at the top of every page or post. If you are using Wordpress hosting then 250×250 text or image ad option should perform best for every site. Don’t forget to align this ad unit at right or left side of the post content as shown in the image below.
Use the <DIV Style> tag to align this ad unit.

7) Prefer Text ads instead of image ads. This will increase probability of more user interested ads. I will to suggest keep the text and image ad formats for your site. Use text and image ad format for following type of ad formats:
250×250 Square
160×600 wide skyscraper
336×280 large rectangle
300×250 medium rectangle
These are best performing ad units and will also increase your ad inventory.

8 ) Use section targeting to target ads relevant to your site or page content. Section targeting code is nothing but code tag provided by Google to direct their crawler to show relevant ads to page content. Use section targeting code on each page.
Here is the sample section targeting code:

– google_ad_section_start –
Content you want to target.
– google_ad_section_end –

If you want irrelevant content to be ignored, then use following tag:
– google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) –

More details on section targeting can be found here.
Section targeting will increase ad relevancy and thus CTR.

9) Ad placement is important. Place the Adsense ads above the main fold, means user should see your top performing ad units without scrolling down on your site. This will increase Ad CTR.

10) High performing ad slots: Top of left sidebar and top of individual post. Try these ad slots on your site. Use link unit (obviously with blended color) at the top corner of left sidebar and 250×250 or 336×280 Text and image rectangle ad unit in your post content (Align at left or right side of post content).

11) Block low paying and irrelevant ads showing on your site. Use competitive ad filter Adsense feature for this. Do well study before blocking any ad unit. Some times one ad unit can give you $0.01 in one country and same ad unit might give you $1 in other country. So be careful while blocking the ads.

12) Use Google Adsense ad preview tool can help you to view all ads showing on your site and also helpful for blocking irrelevant ads.

13) Keep more white space around your ads. Do not burry your ads somewhere “out of focus” location. Site content should have enough breathing space so as your ad units.

14) Study your keywords. Target ads to these keywords. If you are not using section targeting Adsense feature then don’t forget to add your page-targeted keywords in the beginning of your post. Google Adsense crawler generally searches for first one or two paragraphs to target ads to that page.

15) You can increase number of ads to be displayed on your site’s main page and individual pages. But please not too many ads.

16) Placing images above or next to the ad units will increase ad visibility and more chances of click on such ads increasing your CTR.

17) Besides the top performers I mentioned in tip no 10, you can use following “heatmap” provided by Google to analyze other top performing ad placement slots. See the Image below. Ad slots with dark color are hot spots than the faint ones.

18) Track all ad performance using Channels. Channels are nothing but individual ad units, which you can track for performance. Study the Adsense revenue report in detail.  Don’t keep on changing ad formats, colors and placements every one or two days. Track the ad unit placement at least for 2 weeks to judge the ad slot performance.

19) Optimize your site for search engines. SEO is the key point for high traffic websites. Moreover traffic from search engines can convert well in case of Adsense ads. Users coming from search engines are clicking more on your Adsense ads than regular readers.

20) Ads placed in-between the content perform well. But keep in mind this can be annoying to your site readers. So avoid too much of blended ads in content.
If you have small posts then put ads at the top of the page content. If you have big post then ad units placed at the bottom or middle of the post can perform well. Do not use skyscraper ads in post content.

21) Test, Test and Test to work it best!!!

So integrating Adsense ads into your site content is the key point for high revenue from Google Adsense.

I am sure if you read every tip carefully and follow these tips you are not long away from doubling your Adsense revenue.

It’s time for another edition of Good Idea/Bad Idea!

Good idea: Making more money.
Bad idea: Making more by admitting that you suck and your competition is so good at this that you’ll let them make the money for you.

Actually, other than the “admitting you suck and your competition is so good,” that doesn’t sound like an entirely bad idea, does it? I mean, using the competition to increase your profits could potentially be a good thing.

Potentially. For the most part, however, Yahoo’s decision on a non-exclusive search advertising deal has met with pretty much universal scorn. A sampling of headlines:

• TechCrunch: Massive Destruction Of Shareholder Value, Employee Morale and Internet Balance Of Power
• Mathew Ingram: Yahoo opens Google AdSense account
• CNET: Is resurrection possible in technology?
• Texas Startup BlogHate is stronger than greed!
• AllThingsD: Yahoogle?: Microsoft Will “Let Loose the Dogs of War” (Don’t worry, Kara Swisher didn’t misquote Shakespeare; that was a statement from a Microsoft employee to her. For future reference, it’s “let slip the dogs of war.”)
• GigaOM: Oow, Eew, Ouch…Yahoo!
• Not overly enthused, eh, blogosphere?

The universal sentiment is probably best expressed in TC’s headline: rather than preserving value to shareholders, as Yahoo has long claimed to try to do, this only reemphasizes how short they’ve fallen to Google.

But at least one prominent tech blogger doesn’t think it’s a bad thing: Henry Blodget. With the headline “All Right, Yahoo Bashers, Put a Sock In It: This Is a Good Deal,” he pretty much lays out his own argument. But because I like you, I’ll tell you the rest of it (abridging liberally, emphasis added)

In this deal, Yahoo gets:

• $250-$450 of additional free cash flow in Year 1.
• More cash flow in years 2-4, as the deal ramps and Yahoo’s search-query share remains meaningful
• The ability to maintain or phase out Panama as it sees fit.
• The ability to strike a death-blow to the one other player in the search market with any kind of meaningful share—Microsoft.
• The freedom to focus on display advertising and AMP, Yahoo’s new display serving platform.

When you look at it that way, it really doesn’t sound quite as awful. But, Blodget acknowledges, the deal “won’t save Yahoo.” Yahoo’s days in the search business are numbered, “But . . . Yahoo can now focus almost all of its efforts on revitalizing its properties and display business, which is where its future lies.”

So what do you think: Good idea or bad idea?

A patent granted to Google today explores Web spam and the manipulation of documents and links on the Web. It describes how the rankings of pages may be influenced if they are identified as “manipulative.”

The identification of manipulative documents, how they might be grouped together, and how they could be treated by the search engine is described in some detail. That treatment might include removal of pages from the search index, reductions in rankings for pages, and possibly a change in how quality scores (PageRank) are calculated for links from manipulative pages.

The patent was filed almost 4 years ago, on December 10, 2003, and wasn’t granted until today.

A good number of papers and patent applications have been published since then on Web spam, and have explored more detailed approaches, but this patent is interesting in that captures some aspects of how Google may have been detecting and fighting Web spam over the past few years (and may still be).

Anyone who has an online business may be quick to jump into several SEOкомпютри techniques, thinking that these will be a quick opportunity for internet success. If you think however that SEO can be accomplished in a jiffy, you’re bound to be disappointed. There are important factors you must know about search engine optimization. This includes the things to avoid, the things needed to generate a higher page rank, and finally the elements present in most excellent SEO services.

Overloading your site with keywords is not always a smart thing to do. Sure, you want to communicate your offering or your service as much as you can, and to drive the targeted traffic back to your site. Who would not want that? However, too many keywords may end up overwhelming your market. Oftentimes, it is not always about keywords but the strategic placement of the keywords as well.

Filling your site with second-rate, plagiarized content is another way to sabotage the performance of your efforts. People are quick to recognize clichés and formulaic phrases, and if they don’t get anything fresh and useful from the website content, they will have to look for them from the next site, or the competition.

Link farming is another SEO technique that always ends up being abused. This involves a group of websites utilizing hyperlinks on their pages, all pointing back to every other site page within the group, with the goal of engendering more traffic and increased rankings in Search Engines. While these may work in the beginning, the long-term consequences of this strategy will be anything but beneficial for the websites.

Don’t fret, however because there are many ways with which you can increase your ranking consistently and effectively. If you have an easily navigable site that’s filled with high quality content, you are certain to attract a loyal following from your targeted visitors.

A website that is too complicated for the average internet user will limit its reach and will be able to provide for a specific niche only. As much as possible, maintain a website that has navigation-friendly features and one that people can easily maneuver. In the same manner, if the site contains relevant and well-researched content, visitors are bound to stick around a bit longer.

You can also submit high quality articles to article submission sites, so as to generate increased traffic. Well-written articles have higher chances of being accepted in these submission sites. Once you are able to provide excellent information to the readers through the articles, they will be more inclined to click on the link to your website provided at the bottom of each article.

If you want to achieve higher rankings of your web pages, you can avail of the services of excellent SEO service providers. It is always encouraged to go for one that guarantees high rankings for your site and one that has a comprehensive list of available services. Not all SEO services command high prices, so make sure that you are getting what you actually paid for.

Finally, a good SEO services company provides round-the-clock support to their clients. This is one of the important factors you must know about search engine optimization. Not all Search Engine Optimization companies are created equal, so look for one that provides you with what need.

While there were some reports floating around that parts of Android might not be as open source as original thought, Google has come out and made it clear: the core Android platform will be 100% open source.

ZDNet confirmed with various Google employees that everything will be open r. Besides a couple exceptions, everything will use the Apache software license (ASLv2). There are two exceptions, which according to ZDNet are:

1. Software that is already covered by by a free/open source license will continue to use that license. Most notably, this includes Google’s enhancements to the Linux kernel. Linux uses the GNU Public License (GPL v2) so enhancements to the kernel will use the same license.
2. Any software that touches Eclipse, for example the Eclipse Android Development Tools plug-in (ADT) will be licensed under the Eclipse Public License (EPL), because that’s what Eclipse uses.

The core Android system will be open source, but there’s no guarantee that carrier,s OEMs and application developers will keep their applications open source. Google is encouraging it, but does not mandate it, which means that some application developers may choose to keep their source code closed or have limited access.

Google Merchant Search has quietly launched as a test program to compare products and services in shopping comparison engine fashion. Google Merchant Search is a test feature, apparently in the UK, and is not available for every search. You may see it when conducting some searches but not others.

Lead gen providers like Bankrate.com in financial services, one of Google's largest customer segments, can't be too pleased with Google offering a free service that competes indirectly with theirs.

Our friends over at SearchEngineLand had the story first with "Outing Google Merchant Search" as if GMS were in the closet.

Here's the view from Google and their FAQ for Google Merchant Search.

What is Google Merchant Search?

Google Merchant Search is an easy new way for you to find products or services from providers who match your needs.

What products or services are supported through Google Merchant Search?

The service is currently only available for secured loans from financial services providers.

How do you choose which providers to show me?

Our search results are based on the criteria you provided in your request; we compare your request with our list of participating providers, and show those that are most relevant for you. Participating providers pay Google when someone requests a quote through this system.

How does Google connect me to the provider?

You submit your contact details and request a time to speak to the provider. A Google operator will call you at the appointed time, then connect you with the provider. Because we do not share your contact information with the provider, they won't be able to contact you again about your request unless you decide to give then your contact details.

How much does it cost to use Google Merchant?

This service is free for the user (the person searching for services). Please note that when calling the free phone number from a mobile phone, operator or carrier charges may apply.