Ajay Kumar Singh

Google Search is broken

Ajay — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:22:17 +0000

Google search algorithm has gone berserk. With a number of major and hundreds of minor changes which Google is pushing down to it’s data centers the search results have beocme inconsistent.

The good news is that not a lot of websites are affected. The bad news is that the ones which are affected leave us fuming.

Baring few, just 2 to be precise, none of my 100 odd live websites are affected by any of these updates. I’m in SEO business since 2004 and since then none of my websites has ever been affected by any of Google’s search algorithm updates. I even don’t bother about these updates apart from just glancing through the SEO news headlines.

Google Analytics Report of the Website Affected by Google Search Algorithm Changes

However recently one of my websites has been driving me nuts. Something has broken in Google’s algorithm updates which has dropped this website 3 times in past 1 month. Yes that’s right 3 dumps in just one month as you can see in the Google Analytics report above.

The reason why my websites remain unaffected by any search algorithm changes is that I always follow Google Webmaster guidelines and have never been involved in any spam practices. And that is why I never cared about any algorithm updates.

However in this website’s case it is obvious that something has gone terribly wrong with Google algorithm changes.

All good till 6th May 2012 when it struck again and Google dropped this website from the ranking for main keyword. This time the ranking disappeared just for one day and next day website was back in top ranking.

Feeling lost and not finding any clue what has happened I submitted reconsideration request to Google.

After a week or so I received typical reply from Google

Reconsideration request for http://www.mywebsite.com/: No manual spam actions found
April 12, 2012

Dear Site Owner or Webmaster of http://www.mywebsite.com/,
We’ve received a request from a site owner to reconsider http://www.mywebsite.com/ for compliance with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
We’ve reviewed your site and found no manual actions by the web spam team that might affect your site’s ranking in Google. There’s no need to file a reconsideration request for your site because any ranking issues that you may be experiencing are not related to a manual action taken by the web spam team.
Of course, there may be other issues with your site that affect your site’s ranking. Google’s computers determine the order of our search results using a series of formulas known as algorithms. We make hundreds of changes to our search algorithms each year and we employ more than 200 different signals when ranking pages. As our algorithms change and as the web (including your site) changes, some fluctuation in ranking can occur as we make updates to present the best results to our users.
If you’ve experienced a change in ranking which you suspect may be more than a simple algorithm change, there are other things that you may want to investigate as possible causes, such as a major change to your site’s content, content management system or server architecture. For example, a site may not rank well if your server stops serving pages to Googlebot or if you’ve changed the URLs for a large portion of your site’s pages. This article has a list of other potential reasons why your site may not be doing well in search.
If you’re still unable to resolve your issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.
Yours sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team

Sigh of relief but by the time I received this reply the blog was back up in the ranking.

By this time I had realized that Google date centers are playing ping pong so I didn’t pay any attention and knew that it will be back to normal again in few days of time.

Then came the 3rd tornado and this time it lasted for a week. The 3rd impact was on 9th May 2012 (exactly 1 month after the first impact – just coincidence?).

Boy! Google search algorithm has became a game of Russian Roulette where your fate is decided by a wheel rather than your hard work.

High quality content and User friendly Website

The typical bounce rate for a resonable good and high volume website is around 40%-50%. For this website the bounce rate hovers around 39% which is very good by any standard.

A low bounce rate, and high stick rate, is indication that your website is liked by visitors. Low bounce rate is one of the indication that your website adhere with Google Webmaster Guidelines in terms of page layout and good quality content.

If website adheres with webmaster guidelines and has good, unique content and there are no instances of spamming then why it has to be dropped from the search ranking?

Website Analysis

This website is a blog which I started this year and by April it hit the top 5 ranking and started to dominate the top 3-5 ranks from this website for the main keyword for the home page and other category pages.

This was a new domain which I bought and started the blog from scratch. All the posts on this blog are unique and fresh. The contents are mix of news, videos and images.

I didn’t do any massive link building, no directory submissions, no article marketing and no other traditional link building techniques.

I did good social media promotion which was best suited for this blog and this is what helped this blog to achieve top ranking.

I also did usual on page optimization as I do for all of my websites and blogs.

I didn’t have even a single instance of any spam practice either in on page optimization or off page optimization.

This website has really good content, it uses a nice theme and overall any visitor will find it appealing to stick with it for long time and come back again. This is also echoed by the low bounce rate as you can see in the Google Analytics report above.

Alexa Ranking

As you can see this website has a global ranking of 132,892 and 10,904 ranking in India. You can’t get anything better than this for a free blog which was born out of hobby.

Alexa ranking further emphasizes the fact that website is indeed a good website and liked by everyone who visits this site.

The Impact

So far so good till Google search algorithm first went berserk on 9th April 2012.

My initial thought was that it is my fault as just few days back I’ve added few above the fold banners to monetize the blog. However I didn’t think that Google will pick up the excessive “above-the-fold” advertising and penalize the blog instantly. But to be on safe side I removed the above-the-fold images and submitted a reconsideration request to Google.

I didn’t have any reason to believe that there could be any other reason that above-the-fold penalty which affected this blog.

Conclusion

From the above analysis it is clear that something is broken in Google search algorithm and it keeps on popping up every now and then.

If this blog was by bread and butter than I would have been out of business now. Even though I’m SEO I never rely on Google search traffic to make money.

Imagine if it was your sole business website and you have been affected by broken Google search algorithm then you would go out of business by now.

Adobe Flash Player Installer Error: The installation encountered errors

Ajay — Sat, 12 May 2012 16:11:20 +0000

The installation encountered error:

Adobe Flash Player installation error

Flash Player could not be installed because an existing version may still be in use. Please close all applications using Flash Player and try again.
Please visit following link for troubleshooting tips
Troubleshoot Flash Player installation for Windows

The solution is obvious, as suggested in the error message, close all application and reinstall the installer.

Google Chrome Crash: Chrome ran out of Memory

Ajay — Sat, 12 May 2012 11:11:09 +0000

With every update Google Chrome keeps on improving with the browser stability. the number of crashes has come down.

Just now I encountered a new type of Chrome crash – Chrome ran out of memory.

Chrome Crash: Chrome Ran Out of Memory

The message is loud and clear, it seems Chrome ran out of memory.

Either Chrome ran out of memory or the process for the web page was terminated for some other reason. To continue, reload or go to another page.

In my case I accident clicked on the Windows restart popup window for installing updates which caused the process to be terminated and hence this crash message.

Just reload the browser and it will return to normal.

Nice crash message though ;)

How To Disable “Compact Now” Message In Thunderbird

Ajay — Fri, 11 May 2012 21:10:02 +0000

Lately the “Compact Now” message has started to pop up every time I delete a message or randomly. This is weird. It all started with the most recent update to 12.0.1.

Annoying "Compact Now" message in Thunderbird

First I thought it is just regular behaviour but when it started to pop up all the time then I had to find a solution to disable it.

Compacting folders is a good idea as it keeps size under control. So I wouldn’t recommend to complete disable this feature. I would rather recommend to increase the size beyond which Compact now message pops up.

From Tools menu click on Options and then click on Advanced tab. Select Network & Disk Space from Advanced tab.

Yow to change Compact Now settings in Thunderbird

Look for Compact folders when it will save over option. By default the size is 20 MB above which the compact now window will pop up.

You can change this value to be 100 MB or some other higher value.

If you don’t want this message to be displayed then just uncheck the option and you are done.

AOL Terms of Service Fraud Email

Ajay — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:09:28 +0000

AOL Email Fraud

Below is the Email my received and asked for my advice. I’ve never seen such kind of e-mail before. It looks little odd as it didn’t contain any link to click on.

However if you read this fraud Email you will see some clever trick.

The trick is the password. These thugs suggested a password. Many gullible users will fall for this and they will end up changing the password to be the same as mentioned in the e-mail.

Once you change password, these crooks will then login using this password and will have a free ride with your AOL account.

What about AOL Screen name? Well that is easy to guess and no brainer. These fraudsters will maintain a list of AOL user names and password, which they will send in such emails, and after once a while they ill try to login using them just in case someone fell for it.

When you receive such email just mark them spam and delete.

From: tos
To: aolusername
Sent: Thu, May 10, 2012 5:19 pm
Subject: Terms of Service.
Dear Member,
We want to inform you that your account was used to violate our Terms of
Service. Here are the specific details of the violation:
Screen Name: aolusername
Date: 2012-05-10 17:49:56.0
Wed, 9 May 2012 23:02:13 -0400 (EDT)
Violator: aolusername
Subject: Name
http://www.urlgoeshere.com
Please understand that we are sending you this email to inform you of what has
occurred on your account. We are aware that this may have been done without
your knowledge or authorization. If this is the case, we recommend that you
immediately run anti-virus software on all of your computers and reset all of
your passwords using the following guidelines:
All of your new passwords should meet the following criteria
1. Minimum of 8 characters in length
2. Not be one of the last 10 passwords you used
3. Contain characters from ALL of the following categories
a. At least one upper case character (A – Z)
b. At least one number (0 – 9)
c. At least one special characters (()#~!$%^&*-+=|{}[]:;”‘<>,.?/@)
Strong password example -> Pr0dfgfdg3453Ence@123
Please be advised that continued violations of our Terms of Service may result
in closure of your AOL account(s).
You can review our current Terms of Service at the following site:
http://legal.aol.com/terms-of-service/full-terms
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. Please note this screen name
cannot accept replies. If you have any comments or questions please forward a
copy of this email to: TOSGeneral@aol.com
Regards,
AOL Community

Solving the mystery of text message which costed me £5 to receive

Ajay — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:37:32 +0000

I checked my Vodafone bill today and found that I’ve been charged £5 for receiving a premium rate text message, see below.

Date & time	Number or description	More details	Normal cost	You pay
Wed 28 Mar 22:24	Text Info Service	1 text	4.166	4.166
Total of 1 text received			£4.17	£4.17

I never had received such message in the past so I wasn’t aware of what is going on.

I did a quick search to find out that it is premium rate text message which I received for something for which I wasn’t aware of.

The next question was why did I receive this text message when I haven’t subscribed to receive one?

So I browsed through the message to find out this message.

You have been charged £5 for the game. Unlock code: 829265. For Support: 0203 283 8828 http://inapp.txtnation.com

£5 for receiving unlock code for Pokcet God BlackBerry game

Seems that they sent an unlock code for a game, I’m not sure which game.

Next in the investigation was to find out who txtNation are. I found out from their website – http://www.txtnation.com/ that they are the service provider for mobile billing, sms etc.

While I was on their website a support chat window popped up, so decided to check out if I can find out more details. But it was useless, they asked for my number so that they can call me back, which they never did.

Next, I called txtnation on 0203 283 8828 to find out more details and they provided the details of the next in the chain who sent this text message.

And it was http://flexion.se who provide billing solution to their client.

txtNation also provided me their e-mail address txtnationsupport@flexion.se. I sent e-mail to Flexion to find out for which App details.

To my surprised I received immediate reply from them.

And it turned out that the app was “Pocket God” - http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/reviews/96061/?lang=en.

Now the last mystery is why this app has used a premium rate text messaging service to send unlock code?

Pocket God app costs $1.99 and they screwed £5 for sending unlock code? This seems to be unethical isn’t it?

Next in the investigation was to find out the App developer who happened to be “Advanced Mobile Application Ltd” - http://www.amamobile.com. they develop Games for mobile phones and screw around £5 for sending unlock codes from unsuspecting customers?

So why to stop buck here, I decided to contact them to find out if this is normal practice for them to send unlock code for an app via premium text message?

I’ve sent an e-mail to their customer services on customersupport@ama.us and waiting for their reply.

In this whole chain of premium text message one surprising thing is that all of the companies are based in London.

How to stop receiving premium rate messages

If you have subscribed to receive such messages then you can send STOP text message to the sender (85080 in this case) to stop receiving such messages in future.

The best option is to call Vodafone customer services on 191 from your mobile phone, select option 1->5 and speak to a representative. Ask them to block sending/receiving all premium rate text services.

There is a problem though. I think they will also block the premium number phone calls as well. I’m not sure on this though, I’ll have to check it later.

Blocking this services will also block some of the useful services which you might be interested in, so it is your call to find out best option for yourself.

I don’t use any of such services so I decided to block all premium rate messages both incoming and outgoing.

F5 doesn’t work on my WordPress Blog

Ajay — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:30:06 +0000

Marie contacted me via contact form asking to solve her problem.

Hello,
Im am a french woman, wildlife photographer http://www.planetstillalive.com/
I love India http://www.planetstillalive.com/asia/india
But I have a probleme with my webmaster, the website is made with WordPress and Flash, the hosting is OVH.
Actually, F5 or Ctrl F5 work with windows 7 and IE 9 but did not work with Vista IE 8 or IE9.
Is it a pb of my PC or a pb in the soft ?????
Recently the web master change some plugin……(before there was no pb).
Thanks a lot for your reply.
Best Regards from Paris
Marie-France GRENOUILLET

First of all Marie I checked your website and your photos are stunning. I’m more into landscape and people photography though. I liked your Tajmahal photos.

Now coming back to your problem with F5 and CTRL+F5, I don’t see any problem in any of browsers which I use on Windows XP and Windows 7.

The browsers I tested are Firefox, IE8, Chrome, Opera Safari etc.

I also checked the plugins which are installed on the WordPress but I couldn’t find any reason why they would stop refresh feature in browser.

Unfortunately I don’ t have Vista +IE8 or IE9 so I couldn’t test.

To find out if you have problem with your F5 key, visit any other website and hit the F5 key and see what happens. If the website refreshes then there is no problem with keyboard.

If it still doesn’t work then the last step would be look into your code to find out if there is any piece of code which disables refresh functionality on the Blog.

The best option is to speak to the webmaster and find out if he has added any code to disable refresh feature?

There was an error fetching the like box for the specified page

Ajay — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:19:15 +0000

Screw Facebook, they have changed the code for Facebook Like Box and the old code has stopped working.

If you had used the old code then you now see following error:

Facebook Like Box Error - There was an error fetching the like box for the specified page

There was an error fetching the like box for the specified page, Facebook, Facebook Like Box

I saw this error today and first I thought it is temporary problem.

I searched for the error on Google but couldn’t find anyone else ranting about it. so I thought for a while and decided to check Facebook Facebook Like Box Plugin page.

I generated code and immediately recognized that the code has been changed.

Now you have 2 piece of code to add to show Facebook Like Box on your website/blog.

The first piece of code will go in the common header and 2nd piece of code will be added wherever you wish to show Facebook Like Box.

How to add Facebook Like Box code in your blog/Website

Visit Facebook Like Box Plugin page

Facebook Like Box Plugin Code

Enter the URL of your Facebook page.

Select the settings as needed.

Click on Get Code.

You can select any oen of 3 types of codes available. I prefer HTML5 as it is the future of HTML and also an open standard.

This will give you 2 pieces of code.

Facebook Like Box Plugin code

Insert the first code before the closingin header.php (WordPress theme) or any other common header file.

The 2nd code will be inserted wherever you wish to show the Facebook Like Box widget.

I show it in the Sidebar in WordPress.

Facebook Like Box is live again

So how do you feel now after getting back the Facebook like box back? Good? Mission accomplished?

Not for me.

If it was just changing code on one blog I would have not wasted my time in ranting on this topic.

I’ve over 300 blogs which I personally manage. And all of them are active blogs. Guess what, I’ll have to change code on all of these 300+ blogs and that’s why I’ve to rant.

Facebook should have allowed to support the old code instead of disabling it all of sudden without notice or warning. They should have given some time to migrate to new code.

What a pity!

And screw Facebook one more time.

Pyar Hua Ikrar Hua Hai

Ajay — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:37:23 +0000

Feeling nostalgic and love struck same time. Try this song which is one of my favourite. You can’t stop singing by yourself whenever you hear this song. Keep a hanky by side, might come handy ;)

Pyar Hua Ikrar Hua Hai Video

It is one of those old songs which goes deeper and touches your heart and soul and not to mention it makes your eyes numb as well.

Shree 420 is one of my most favourite Bollywood movies of of all time. All of it’s songs are my favourite too. And this is the movie which made Bollywood winning heart and soul of world including former USSR, China, Japan, Romania, former Yugoslavia, other eastern blocks and rest of “Indian culture loving” countries.

Shree 420 was the Raj Kapoor, Raj Kapoor was Shree 420, he was the movie. He produced this movie directed and he was the actor as well.

What is remarkable about this song is that Raj Kapoor and Nargis don’t have to run around and shake their bums and whole body to express their love feelings. They said with their expressions which was the trademark of top actors in those days. Nargis was the master of expression, she could move the world with her facial expression.

Raj Kapoor and Nargis in Shree 420

Raj Kapoor’s Charlie Chalin style and his naivety of the character playing is a pleasure to watch. He almost repeated the same style in all of his movies.

Shakar Jaikishan’s music, Shailendra’s lyrics and Manna Dey & Lata Ji’s voice has done wonder to this song.

Music: Shakar Jaikishan
Lyrics: Shailendra
Movie: Shree 420 (1955)
In Song: Raj Kapoor and Nargis
Director & Producer: Raj Kapoor
Singers: Manna Dey and Lata Mangeshkar

Pyar Hua Ikrar Hua Hai Lyrics

Male
Pyar hua, ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyoon darrta hai dil

Pyar hua, ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyoon darrta hai dil

Female

Kehta hai dil rasta mushkil
Maaloom nahin hai kahan manzil

Male
Pyar hua, ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyoon darrta hai dil

Female
Kehta hai dil rasta mushkil
Maaloom nahin hai kahan manzil

Male
Pyar hua, ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyoon darrta hai dil

Female
Aa, aa aa aa, aa aa aa, aa aa aa

Male
Kaho ki apni preet ka geet na badlega kabhi

Female
Tum bhi kaho is raah ka meet na badlega kabhi
Pyar jo toota, saath jo chhoota

Male & Female
Chaand na chamkega kabhi

Male
Aa ha ha, aa ha ha
Aa aa aa, aa aa aa

Female
Aa ha ha, aa ha ha
Aa aa aa, aa aa aa

Male
Pyar hua, ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyoon darrta hai dil

Female
Kehta hai dil rasta mushkil
Maaloom nahin hai kahan manzil

Male
Pyar hua, ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyoon darrta hai dil

Female
Aa, aa aa aa, aa aa aa, aa aa aa
Raatein dason dishaaon se kahengi apni kahaaniyaan

Male
Geet hamaare Pyar ke dohraayegi jawaaniyaan

Female
Main na rahoongi, tum na rahoge
Phir bhi rahengi nishaaniyaan

Male & Female
Pyar hua, ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyoon darrta hai dil

Kehta hai dil rasta mushkil
Maaloom nahin hai kahan manzil

Male
Pyar hua, ikraar hua hai
Pyar se phir kyoon darrta hai dil

Female
Aa, aa aa aa, aa aa aa, aa aa aa

And don’t forget to rate Shree 420 on IMDb as 10/10.

I can’t believe that there are people out there who actually gave this movie a rating less than 10.

No related posts.

How to update iPad 2 to iOS 5

Ajay — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 01:53:26 +0000

Updating iPad 2 to iOS 5 is a simple process, however you have to be careful with it or else you might wipe out all of your Apps and purchased items.

When you update iPAd 2 to iOS 5 it reverts back the iPad 2 to factory settings and that is why you must make sure that you know what you are doing.

Requirements

Before you start updating iPAd 2 to iOS 5 you must follow these insturctions

1) Recharge iPad

This is important as you don’t want your iPad to be dead while update is in progress.. Connected iPad to PC thru USB cable doesn’t charge it while you are using iTunes.

2) Update iTunes

Update iTunes to the latest version. You can download latest iTunes from this link

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

3) Sync/Back up iPad 2 to your PC

Connect iPad 2 to PC, start iTunes and sync iPad.

After sync is done Back it up as well, just in case Sync didn’t backed up everything.

Backup iPad 2

3) Use Ethernet and not WiFi

Connect your PC to the Modem/Router via Ethernet cable. Don’t use Wifi. Connection over Ethernet cable is more stable than Wifi connection.

Updating iPad 2 to iOS 5

iOS 5 update on iPad takes about an hour or so.

Make sure that you have got an hour of time. you might not need to keep staring at the PC monitor or at the iPad but it is worth while to pay all attention to the update progress.

If something goes wrong make sure to grab screen shot of the error.

Step 1

On your PC close all other application and just keep iTunes running.

Step 2

In iTunes click on the Update Software link and follow the instructions.

iOS 5 Update on iPad 2

Accept the agreement

Accept the Agreement

Step 3 – Software Download

First iTunes will download iOS 5 on to your PC. It will take a while to download the software.

Downloading iOS 5

Step 4 – Installing the iOS 5

Once iOS 5 is downloaded, iTunes will start installing it on the iPad 2. You will see the progress on the iPad 2.

Step 5 – Rebooting iOS5

Once the iOS 5 is installed on iPad 2, it will reboot. And you will see factory restored iPad 2.

Step 6 – Configure iPad

Remembered the first time you configured the iPad after you bought it? You will have to follow the same steps again.

When you are prompted to backup iPad to iCloud, do so. Backing up to iCloud is good practice. Your data will be backed up to iCloud over WiFi only. So you don’t need to worry about the network data usage.

Step 7 – Restore Apps

Once you have configured the iPad 2, you can restore Apps and other items from iTunes.

Errors

Following are 2 errors which I come across while updating iPad 2 to iOS 5. I’ve provided the solution for both of them.

There are purchased items on the iPad

iTunes could not connect to the iPad because the pairing record is missing

Useful links

iOS 5 Manual

Missing Items

If some of the items are missed during the back up process then you can restore them manually from the iTunes.