Backup Anytime

Regular readers who read our posts from RSS, actual URL address or link may not be aware but Backupanytime.com are currently suffering great difficulty with Google positioning. For some considerable time we enjoyed number 1 position in Google for our favoured search terms. Indeed we were in positions 1 and 2 for many. Additionally, many similar appropriate search terms listed us on the first page in Google. More recently Google sitelinks were added to our website.

Last week we noticed that a new post on our blog was taking considerable time to become indexed. This drew our attention as we had become used to blog posts being indexed in Google within fifteen minutes. We took no action and put it down to crawl speeds. We do not need 15 minute indexing anyway.

Time passed and the situation worsened. Today, backupanytime.com is more or less off the Google radar. A search for site: www.backupanytime.com does show two results for us in positions one and two. None of the other pages shown are from our site. A search for “backupanytime.com” does show the very presentable sitelinks results. Other than a few other highly appropriate searches, we just are not in Google to the extent we were up to last week.

We are still trying to make sense of this. Remember, backupanytime is a small site. The static site only undergoes a couple of changes a week. The blog only receives an average of one new post per day. We have never bought a link. We have never joined a link referral program. We have never hosted illegal content. All of our content is original. We do not use email as a marketing tool. We have never sent spam. A check of our Google webmaster tools shows no difficulty bar a small number of long or short meta descriptions. We address these ongoingly and our web people tell us this is common among well managed sites and is not the issue.

Add to all of this that we have not received any complaint from any source and our site has not been hacked and you can see that this problem is not just a great concern but also very difficult to figure out. We posted a re-inclusion request with Google. We had never had to do this before and therefore did not know what was likely to happen. We got back a message explaining that the request would be looked at and this could take a number of weeks. Does this mean that Google thinks we have breached behaviour guidelines or is this a generic response to a re-inclusion request? We don’t know.

The reason I am focusing on Google here is that we are still represented favourably by the other major search engines. About half of our traffic comes from search engines. The remainder is split fairly evenly between direct search and referrals. Most of our search engine traffic comes from Google.

In the interim our traffic is down about 30%

Remember we are talking here about a small, well managed site which focuses on the niche market of online backup and has enjoyed success in search engines for online data backup over a long period of time. This isn’t complicated, has worked and there has been no significant change in approach in the recent past.

If this is to be resolved in the coming weeks then there is no long term difficulty. The problem with this best case scenario is that we will have learned no lessons.

The worst case scenario would be unthinkable only we absolutely have to consider and prepare for it.

Have you had an experience like this? Do  you know the cause or the solution?

All genuine responses appreciated.

Google increase gmail security. They dont just manage your email, they keep it safe.

Source : http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/

Who said the best things in life aren’t free. Most commercial email hosting accounts
dont come with the ease of use, feature list and security of gmail. And now Google are
making it even better.

Some common problems with webmail facilities are security issues caused by the user
choosing a common or known password and failure to log off correctly.

If you worry about these things (and you should if you havent used good password policy
 or are prone to click “x” rather than log out) you will be able to see the last log in
ip address and last session activity on your page footer. You will also be informed
if you are logged in elsewhere.

So what use is this info. Well not alone can you discover if you logged off incorrectly
or if someone else is using your account and not only can you change your password but
you can log out remotely from the other system. What if you left yourself logged in at
a number of locations? You can actually log out of all other accounts!

Another (not so new) feature of google which is not commonly known is that you can add
non gmail accounts to your gmail. In other words, if you love gmail but want to send
from your company email account you can simply add your company email account to google
and when you send a mail you can choose to send it from your company email address but
within gmail. In addition, you can divert your company email to your gmail account so you
only need use gmail and never miss anything from anywhere.

Also, gmail have an application for 3G phones which allows you to use gmail (not just
the mail but the interface) while on the move.

You can use all of these features without compromising your commercial email solution.
Remember however that if you use exchange at work rather than a pop account you will
be depending on you office infrastructure rather than Googles considerably larger
investment to manage your timely inbound diverts.

For a very small business a great solution is as follows:

Your own domain with pop emails. Those emails being diverted to your gmail account and
retaining a copy on your server. In addition set u your commercial email within google.
Now you can use the Google Gmail interface to send and recieve company email.

You may decide not to retain a copy of your mail on your own server but it may be
considered good practice to do so but you should not consider it to be an online backup
of your mail. Online backup is a very specific service offering encryption, compression
and indexed restore points. Backup your data. Keep it safe.

Microsoft - Yahoo deal, on, off, on.

Yes, Microsoft did say they were no longer interested in a complete Yahoo takeover.
They (Microsoft management) would however appear to be exercising their right to
change their collective minds.

So, given that stories about all all tech giants are subject to rumour mill distortion,
letsa have a look at what Microsoft actually said.

Microsoft have said they are interested in Yahoo but any deal hangs in the balance based
on Icahn managing to modify the directorship of YAHOO. The opportunity to do this comes
as soon as early August as the shareholder meeting takes place then.
Needed here is power of persuason an investor support. Given the stakes, every player
will work hard in the interveening period.
Remembering Microsofts offer of just over $30 per share, they have to be taken seriously.
In addition, Microsoft has a history of succesful takeovers. Microsoft can not hide their
keen following of the search business and their frustration at being a marginal player
in online search when compared to Google.
Looking at YAHOO ptions here is a dual study. Their are the concerns of the shareholders
which follow with value per share sold and return on shares retained. There are also the
concerns of the YAHOO board including the founder. The current board must realise that
a Microsoft takeover in the current climate would involve considerable modifications at
board level.

All of this begs the question. Are Microsoft so slick and experienced at takeovers that
they can run an agressive takeover in a media circus while claiming not to be too keen.
We must wait and see.