From the monthly archives:

January 2009

Google Finally Enables Offline Access for Gmail

by Mahesh Kukreja on January 29, 2009

Google’s long-awaited offline access for Gmail is here, bringing a sigh of relief to users of Google’s messaging and collaboration software. Google Apps Standard Edition users will be able to access it immediately with a few steps, while consumers will see a more gradual rollout. The move should put Google on a more level playing field in cloud computing versus Microsoft, Yahoo Zimbra, Zoho and others with e-mail clients that already provide offline access.

Google on Jan. 27 reached a milestone in its competition against Microsoft with the introduction of offline access for Gmail, a long-awaited feature the company is rolling out to consumers and Google Apps users in the United States and United Kingdom.

In Web application parlance, offline access is when users can access application data even when they’re not connected to the Web. Google will soon follow Gmail offline access with offline access to Google Calendar. This will initially be available to Google Apps users only.

Created in Google’s Gmail Labs, offline access will enable Gmail to load in a Web browser without a Web connection. Users will be able to read, archive or write messages. Users can hit send on composed messages, which will remain in the Gmail outbox.

When the user’s computer reconnects online, Gmail will push the messages from its queue toward their recipients, Rajen Sheth, senior product manager for Google Apps, told eWEEK before the launch Jan. 27. Google provides a video demo of offline Gmail access here.

Built with the Google Gears browser technology used to let Google Reader, Google Docs and Zoho Mail render data offline, offline access for Gmail is immediately available for Google Apps Standard Edition users and consumers beginning the evening of Jan. 27. Users must download Google Gears to access it.

“We wanted to, with Gears, make it a seamless experience so that users don’t have to download a specialized client or go through a different experience than what they’re used to with the Web browser,” Sheth explained.

Offline access for Gmail consumer and business users is a major step for Google, which is trying to compete with Microsoft, Yahoo’s Zimbra and other e-mail providers by making Gmail as robust as possible for its tens of millions of users.

This is particularly important for users who are trying to access their application data in areas with spotty Internet connections, or with no Web connections at all. Air travel, for example, tends to be the biggest stumbling block for applications that don’t let their users access data offline.

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5 Linking Mistakes You Should Avoid

by Mahesh Kukreja on January 25, 2009

Follow the following steps to avoid Link Building mistakes

1. Avoid unnatural links. I remember, in 2006, people were fine with any kind of links as Google didn’t used to give very high weight age to neighborhood and was only concerned about PR but in 2008, things are a lot different. Now a bad neighborhood can seriously damage your search engine rankings so be careful to what you are linking and from where your links are coming from.

2. Reciprocals don’t work anymore. In most cases, blatant reciprocal from links.php pages or running linkman and similar reciprocal scripts wont work, so don’t waste your time on them. You may get link partners (mostly pharma links) but you will be better of without them.

3. Never spam, as it doesn’t work. In the wonder years of 2005 (and before) people used to spam guestbooks heavily and it also used to work. But now, its sure shot method of getting kicked out from Google index.

4. Don’t use blackhat techniques, There are people who make tons of money by spamming and doing black hat, but they know what they are doing and are pro players. You being a rookie, can do serious harm to your good sites. Saying that, there is nothing wrong in testing the grey area of search engine rankings, just make sure you don’t do this on your good sites.

5. Be careful in buying posts and links. Are you even getting what you are paying for? Do not blindly buy any link seeing its PR. Ask yourself, is the cost of that link justifiable? Also, do not buy 1 month or 2 month links but if you really want to buy links, look for at-least 6 months to 1 year links. Do make sure that you only get link from related website and sites which can also give you some traffic. Avoid getting site-wide and footer links, but look for natural links.

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5 SEO Mistakes you should Avoid

by Mahesh Kukreja on January 25, 2009

Here are 5 SEO mistakes that you should avoid for better search results.

1. DO NOT change the title of pages which are already doing well in SERPs. The moment you change the title, your page will surely go down in SERPs and will may or may not come again (in few weeks time) depending the extent of change you have done to it.

2. Meta Tags spamming. Don’t waste time in meta keyword stuffing. Its useless. Just keep very few keywords in it, if you want to.

3. Have same title and description for all the pages. Title is probably “the” most important element of your page. Sometimes, by mistakes (from newbies), either the title of all the pages becomes same or the description becomes similar. I have seen this a lot, in forums specially. So you better fix it.

4. Too many links on a page, and worst, too many useless links on a page. Make sure you nofollow your registration pages, login pages as well as footer and other useless links to avoid PR leak. Also try to avoid those site-wide menu links which don’t add much value in terms of usability.

5. Excessive use of ajax, javascript and flash. Avoid using them too much, at-least not on content rich pages. Its alright to use them but make sure, they don’t “get” your important content.

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Quick Ways to Boost Your Affiliate Commissions

by Mahesh Kukreja on January 24, 2009

If you are an Affiliate Marketer, you may be looking for ways to boost your commissions. Here are some quick tips to increase your revenue!

1. FIND THE BEST PROGRAMS AND PRODUCTS TO PROMOTE

You want the programs that will generate greater profits in a shorter time frame. Choose the ones that have a generous commission structure. Have products that fit in with your target audience and that has a solid track record of paying their affiliate easily and on time. Write free reports or short e-books to distribute from your site so you can stand out from the likely competition promoting the same program.

2. COLLECT & SAVE E-MAIL ADDRESSES OF DOWNLOADERS

It is a known fact that people do not make a purchase on the first solicitation. You may want to send out your message more than six times to make a sale. Get the contact information off a prospect before sending them to the vendor’s website. Information is crucial as you could lose the customer forever. Publish an online newsletter or Ezine so you can build up a subscriber list and base sales on trust and with people that know who you are.

3. ASK FOR HIGHER THAN NORMAL COMMISSION

If you are a proven success at promoting a particular product then you should try to negotiate a higher commission with the merchant. You are a zero risk investment for them but if you are a valuable asset then don’t be shy about requesting for an additional payment. Write strong Pay Per Click ads as this is the most effective means of advertising online. By managing this well you can seriously increase your sales and you can negotiate much higher commissions as a result. Simply find which ads wok best and go from there.

Hope this information is helpful for you.

-Mahesh.

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