Google sent 9M web spam messages in 2016,Just double than 2015

Google said they received less than half the 2015 number of user-generated spam reports in 2016.

Image Courtesy - Google

Google has sent out over 9 million messages related to web spam in 2016; that number was more than double the 4.3 million messages in the 2015 report. 

The other metric that stood out was that hacked sites continue to rise, this time by 32% from 2015 to 2016,but it was a 180 percent increase from 2014 to 2015 in the previous report.

Major web spam activity 2016 

• Website security continues to be a major source of concern.Last year we saw more hacked sites than ever 32% high compared to 2015.
• Over 9 million messages sent to webmasters to notify them of web spam issues on their sites.
• Structured data manual actions taken on more than 10,000 sites.
• Over 180,000 user-submitted spam reports from around the world, down from 400,000 
• Of those 180,000 spam reports, 52 percent of those reported sites considered to be spam.
• More than 170 Google online office hours and live events around the world to audiences totaling over 150,000 website owners, webmasters and digital marketers.
• More than 67,000 questions in the Google support forums.

Ref: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/

Free Do Follow Social Bookmarking Websites 2016

Here is the list of do follow high PR social bookmarking websites to bookmark your web page or blog.

Image Courtesy: bloggeriit.com

                    Website                                                               Global Alexa Rank

1. https://www.google.com/bookmarks/                                                                 1

2. https://www.pinterest.com/                                                                                30

3. http://www.reddit.com/                                                                                      32

4. https://www.tumblr.com/                                                                                   41

5. https://delicious.com/                                                                                        2554

6. http://slashdot.org/                                                                                            1819

7. http://www.newsvine.com/                                                                                6692

8. http://technorati.com/                                                                                        2055

9. http://digg.com/                                                                                                  1027

10. http://www.fark.com/                                                                                       3749

11. https://www.diigo.com/                                                                                    2664

12. http://www.folkd.com/                                                                                     2974

13. http://www.pearltrees.com/                                                                             6410

14. http://blinklist.com/                                                                                          17636

15. http://www.dzone.com/                                                                                     5357

16. http://www.metafilter.com/                                                                              3434

Do you need an SEO ?

Disclaimer : The Mentioned Content is purely taken from Webmaster tools Help (For Information which will help website owners while deciding to hire an SEO )

SEO is an acronym for "search engine optimization" or "search engine optimizer." Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site. Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, including:

• Review of your site content or structure
• Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
• Content development
• Management of online business development campaigns
• Keyword research
• SEO training
• Expertise in specific markets and geographies.

Keep in mind that the Google search results page includes organic search results and often paid advertisement (denoted as "Ads" or "Sponsored") as well. Advertising with Google won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results. Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results, and it costs nothing to appear in our organic search results. Free resources such as Webmaster Tools, the official Webmaster Central blog, and our discussion forum can provide you with a great deal of information about how to optimize your site for organic search.
Before beginning your search for an SEO, it's a great idea to become an educated consumer and get familiar with how search engines work. We recommend starting here:

• Google Webmaster Guidelines
• Google 101: How Google crawls, indexes and serves the web.

If you're thinking about hiring an SEO, the earlier the better. A great time to hire is when you're considering a site redesign, or planning to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can ensure that your site is designed to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, a good SEO can also help improve an existing site.
Some useful questions to ask an SEO include:

• Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
• Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
• Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
• What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
• What's your experience in my industry?
• What's your experience in my country/city?
• What's your experience developing international sites?
• What are your most important SEO techniques?
• How long have you been in business?
• How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

While SEOs can provide clients with valuable services, some unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to manipulate search engine results in unfair ways. Practices that violate our guidelines may result in a negative adjustment of your site's presence in Google, or even the removal of your site from our index. Here are some things to consider:
One common scam is the creation of "shadow" domains that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO who claims to be working on a client's behalf. However, if the relationship sours, the SEO may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor's domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by the SEO.
Another illicit practice is to place "doorway" pages loaded with keywords on the client's site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of keywords. More insidious, however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO's other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content.
If you feel that you were deceived by an SEO in some way, you may want to report it.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices. To file a complaint, visit: http://www.ftc.gov/ and click on "File a Complaint Online," call 1-877-FTC-HELP, or write to:

Federal Trade Commission
CRC-240
Washington, D.C. 20580

If your complaint is against a company in a country other than the United States, please file it at http://www.econsumer.gov/.

• Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue. Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:
  

  "Dear google.com,
  I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."

  Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for "burn fat at night" diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.
  
• No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
  
• Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do. Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or "throwaway" domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google's index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it's best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to "help" you. If an SEO has FTP access to your server, they should be willing to explain all the changes they are making to your site.
  
• You should never have to link to an SEO. Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of "free-for-all" links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines -- at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.
  
• Choose wisely. While you consider whether to go with an SEO, you may want to do some research on the industry. Google is one way to do that, of course. You might also seek out a few of the cautionary tales that have appeared in the press, including this article on one particularly aggressive SEO: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002002970_nwbizbriefs12.html. While Google doesn't comment on specific companies, we've encountered firms calling themselves SEOs who follow practices that are clearly beyond the pale of accepted business behavior. Be careful.
  
• Be sure to understand where the money goes. While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results. Some SEOs will promise to rank you highly in search engines, but place you in the advertising section rather than in the search results. A few SEOs will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they "control" other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This scam doesn't work with Google because our advertising is clearly labeled and separated from our search results, but be sure to ask any SEO you're considering which fees go toward permanent inclusion and which apply toward temporary advertising.
  
• What are the most common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter?
• What are some other things to look out for? There are a few warning signs that you may be dealing with a rogue SEO. It's far from a comprehensive list, so if you have any doubts, you should trust your instincts. By all means, feel free to walk away if the SEO:
  
  • owns shadow domains
  • puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
  • offers to sell keywords in the address bar
  • doesn't distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear on search results pages
  • guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
  • operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
  • gets traffic from "fake" search engines, spyware, or scumware
  • has had domains removed from Google's index or is not itself listed in Google
  
  

  Disclaimer : The Mentioned Content is purely taken from Webmaster tools Help (For Information which will help website owners while deciding to hire an SEO )

Google Algorithm Change History 2012 : SEO Tips

2012 Updates

30 - (Search quality Highlights - 2012

Google announced 30 changes over the previous month, including image search landing-page quality detection, more relevant site-links, more rich snippets, and related-query improvements. The line between an "algo update" and a "feature" got a bit more blurred. For more refer the original source below.
30 search quality highlights - with codenames! (Google)
Google Announces “Megasitelinks,” Image Search Improvements & Better Byline Dates (SEL)

Panda 3.2 - January 2012

Google confirmed Panda 3.2 data update, although suggested that the algorithm hadn't changed. Only data refresh has been done a week ago.

Confirmed: Google Panda 3.2 Update (SEW)

Google Panda 3.2 Update Confirmed (SEL)

Page layout algorithm - Ads Above The Fold - January 2012

Google updated their page layout algorithms to devalue sites with too much ad-space above the "fold". It was previously suspected that a similar factor was in play in Panda. The update had no official name, although it was referenced as "Top Heavy" by some SEOs.

Page layout algorithm improvement (Google)

Pages With Too Many Ads “Above The Fold” Now Penalized By Google’s “Page Layout” Algorithm (SEL)

Panda 3.3 - February 2012

Google rolled out another post-"flux" Panda update, which appeared to be relatively minor. This came just 3 days after the 1-year anniversary of Panda, an unprecedented lifespan for a named update.

Google Confirms Panda 3.3 Update (SEL)

Confirmed: Google Panda 3.3 (SER)

Search Quality Video - March 12, 2012

This wasn't an algorithm update, but Google published a rare peek into a search quality meeting. For anyone interested in the algorithm, the video provides a lot of context to both Google's process and their priorities. It's also a chance to see Amit Singhal in action.

Video! The search quality meeting, uncut (Google)

Panda 3.4 - March 23, 2012

Google announced another Panda update, this time via Twitter as the update was rolling out. Their public statements estimated that Panda 3.4 impacted about 1.6% of search results.

Google Says Panda 3.4 Is ‘Rolling Out Now’ (SEL)

Parked Domain Bug — April , 2012

After a number of webmasters reported ranking shuffles, Google confirmed that a data error had caused some domains to be mistakenly treated as parked domains (and thereby devalued). This was not an intentional algorithm change.

Dropped In Rankings? Google’s Mistake Over Parked Domains Might Be To Blame (SEL)

Updated: Google Update April 2012? Over SEO Penalty? (SER)

Panda 3.5 - April , 2012

In the middle of a busy week for the algorthim, Google quietly rolled out a Panda data update. A mix of changes made the impact difficult to measure, but this appears to have been a fairly routine update with minimal impact.

Google Mocks Me For Missing Panda 3.5 (SER)

Penguin Update - April , 2012

After weeks of speculation about an "Over-optimization penalty", Google finally rolled out the "Webspam Update", which was soon after dubbed "Penguin." Penguin adjusted a number of spam factors, including keyword stuffing, and impacted an estimated 3.1% of English queries.

Another step to reward high-quality sites (Google)

The Penguin Update: Google’s Webspam Algorithm Gets Official Name (SEL)

Google Penguin Update Recovery Tips & Advice (SEL)

Two Weeks In, Google Talks Penguin Update, Ways To Recover & Negative SEO (SEL)

Panda 3.6 - April , 2012

Barely a week after Panda 3.5, Google rolled out yet another Panda data update. The implications of this update were unclear, and it seemed that the impact was relatively small.

Confirmed: Panda Update 3.6 Happened On April 27th (SEL)

Google : list of Quality Update till April -  May, 2012

Google published details of 52 updates in April, including changes that were tied to the "Penguin" update. Other highlights included a 15% larger "base" index, improved pagination handling, and a number of updates to sitelinks.

Search quality highlights: 52 changes for April (Google)

Google’s April Updates: Bigger & Tiered Index, Document Ranking, Sitelink Changes & More (SEL)

Knowledge Graph - May 16, 2012

In a major step toward semantic search, Google started rolling out "Knowledge Graph", a SERP-integrated display providing supplemental object about certain people, places, and things. Expect to see "knowledge panels" appear on more and more SERPs over time. Also, Danny Sullivan's favorite Trek is ST:Voyager?!

Introducing the Knowledge Graph: things, not strings (Google)

Google Launches Knowledge Graph To Provide Answers, Not Just Links (SEL)

Penguin 1.1 (#2) - May , 2012

Google rolled out its first targeted data update after the "Penguin" algorithm update. This confirmed that Penguin data was being processed outside of the main search index, much like Panda data.

Google Releases Penguin Update 1.1 (SEL)

Panda 3.7 (#15) — June , 2012

Google rolled out yet another Panda data update, claiming that less than 1% of queries were affect. Ranking fluctuation data suggested that the impact was substantially higher than previous Panda updates (3.5, 3.6).

Confirmed: Google Panda 3.7 Update (SER)

The Bigfoot Update (AKA Dr. Pete Goes Crazy) (SEOmoz)

Panda 3.8 (#16) — June , 2012

Google rolled out another Panda data refresh, but this appeared to be data only (no algorithm changes) and had a much smaller impact than Panda 3.7.

Official Google Panda Update Version 3.8 On June 25th (SEL)

Google Panda 3.8 Live: June 25th & Refresh Only (SER)

Link Warnings — July , 2012

In a repeat of March/April, Google sent out a large number of unnatural link warnings via Google Webmaster Tools. In a complete turn-around, they then announced that these new warnings may not actually represent a serious problem.

Insanity: Google Sends New Link Warnings, Then Says You Can Ignore Them (SEL)

Google Sends Out New Batch Of Unnatural Link Notifications (SER)

Panda 3.9 (#17) — July, 2012

A month after Panda 3.8, Google rolled out a new Panda update. Rankings fluctuated for 5-6 days, although no single day was high enough to stand out. Google claimed ~1% of queries were impacted.

Official: Google Panda 3.9 Refresh (SER)

DMCA Penalty ("Pirate") — August, 2012

Google announced that they would start penalizing sites with repeat copyright violations, probably via DMCA takedown requests. Timing was stated as "starting next week" (8/13?).
An update to our search algorithms (Google)
The Emanuel Update: Google Will Penalize Sites Repeatedly Accused Of Copyright Infringement (SEL)

Panda 3.9.1 (#18) — August , 2012

Google rolled out yet another Panda data update, but the impact seemed to be fairly small. Since the Panda 3.0 series ran out of numbers at 3.9, the new update was dubbed 3.9.1.
Confirmed: Google Panda 3.9.1 Update (SER)
Google Panda Refresh On August 19th: Version 3.9.1 (SEL)

Panda 3.9.2 (#19) — September , 2012

Google rolled out another Panda refresh, which appears to have been data-only. Ranking flux was moderate but not on par with a large-scale algorithm update.
Google Rolls Out Panda 3.9.2 Refresh (SER)
Panda Update 3.92 Rolling Out (Or Is It Panda 20 Time?) (SEL)

Exact-Match Domain (EMD) Update — September, 2012

Google announced a change in the way it was handling exact-match domains (EMDs). This led to large-scale devaluation, reducing the presence of EMDs in the MozCast data set by over 10%. Official word is that this change impacted 0.6% of queries (by volume).
Google's EMD Algo Update - Early Data (SEOmoz)
The EMD Update: Google Issues “Weather Report” Of Crack Down On Low Quality Exact Match Domains (SEL)

Penguin #3 — October 5, 2012

After suggesting the next Penguin update would be major, Google released a minor Penguin data update, impacting "0.3% of queries". Penguin update numbering was rebooted, similar to Panda - this was the 3rd Penguin release.
Google Penguin Update 3 Released, Impacts 0.3% Of English-Language Queries (SEL)
Google Released 3rd Penguin Update: Not Jarring Or Jolting (SER)

Page Layout #2 — October 9, 2012

Google announced an update to its original page layout algorithm change back in January, which targeted pages with too many ads above the fold. It's unclear whether this was an algorithm change or a Panda-style data refresh.
It’s “Top Heavy 2? As Google Rolls Out Update To Its Page Layout Algorithm (SEL)
Google Page Layout Algorithm Officially Updated (SER)

Panda #21 — November 5, 2012

Google rolled out their 21st Panda update, roughly 5-1/2 weeks after Panda #20. This update was reported to be smaller, officially impacting 1.1% of English queries.
Google Releases Panda Update 21, Impacts 1.1% Of US Queries In English (SEL)
Official: Google Panda Refresh On November 5th (Version 21) (SER)

Panda #22 — November 21, 2012

After some mixed signals, Google confirmed the 22nd Panda update, which appears to have been data-only. This came on the heels of a larger, but unnamed update around November 19th.
Official Google Panda #22 Update: November 21 (SER)
Confirmed: Google Panda Refresh #22 On November 21st; 0.8% Of Queries Impacted (SEL)

Knowledge Graph Expansion — December 4, 2012

Google added Knowledge Graph functionality to non-English queries, including Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, and Italian. This update was "more than just translation" and added enhanced KG capabilities.
Get smarter answers from the Knowledge Graph from Português to Japanese to Russian (Google)
Google’s Knowledge Graph Expands To More Languages, Including Italian, French, Japanese And Russian (TechCrunch)

Panda #23 — December 21, 2012

Right before the Christmas holiday, Google rolled out another Panda update. They officially called it a "refresh", impacting 1.3% of English queries. This was a slightly higher impact than Pandas #21 and #22.
Confirmed: A Panda Refresh, Version #23 (SER)

Check out : Google Algorithm Change History 2013

SEO CHEAT SHEET

Hi,

How to Evaluate your on page please find the Detailed Guide lines about that .

Google Webmaster Guidelines

Best practices to help Google find, crawl, and index your site

Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site. Even if you choose not to implement any of these suggestions, we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the "Quality Guidelines," which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index or otherwise impacted by an algorithmic or manual spam action. If a site has been affected by a spam action, it may no longer show up in results on Google.com or on any of Google's partner sites. 

•    Design and content guidelines

•    Technical guidelines

•    Quality guidelines
 

When your site is ready: 

•    Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/.

•    Submit a Sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your WebPages.

•    Submit a Sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your WebPages.

•    Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.

Design and content guidelines

•    Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

•    Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map has an extremely large number of links, you may want to break the site map into multiple pages.

•    Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number.

•    Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.

•    Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images. If you must use images for textual content, consider using the "ALT" attribute to include a few words of descriptive text.

•    Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.

•    Check for broken links and correct HTML.

•    If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.

•    Review our recommended best practices for images, video and rich snippets.

Technical guidelines

•    Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing your entire site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.

•    Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. These techniques are useful for tracking individual user behavior, but the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site, as bots may not be able to eliminate URLs that look different but actually point to the same page.

•    Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This feature allows your web server to tell Google whether your content has changed since we last crawled your site. Supporting this feature saves you bandwidth and overhead.

•    Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled. Make sure it's current for your site so that you don't accidentally block the Googlebot crawler. Visithttp://code.google.com/web/controlcrawlindex/docs/faq.html to learn how to instruct robots when they visit your site. You can test your robots.txt file to make sure you're using it correctly with the robots.txt analysis tool available in Google Webmaster Tools.

•    Make reasonable efforts to ensure that advertisements do not affect search engine rankings. For example, Google's AdSense ads and DoubleClick links are blocked from being crawled by a robots.txt file.

•    If your company buys a content management system, make sure that the system creates pages and links that search engines can crawl.

•    Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don't add much value for users coming from search engines.

•    Test your site to make sure that it appears correctly in different browsers.

•    Monitor your site's performance and optimize load times. Google's goal is to provide users with the most relevant results and a great user experience. Fast sites increase user satisfaction and improve the overall quality of the web (especially for those users with slow Internet connections), and we hope that as webmasters improve their sites, the overall speed of the web will improve.

Google strongly recommends that all webmasters regularly monitor site performance using Page Speed, YSlow,WebPagetest, or other tools. For more information, tools, and resources, see Let's Make The Web Faster. In addition, the Site Performance tool in Webmaster Tools shows the speed of your website as experienced by users around the world.