Internet Marketing Survival by Praveen Kumar C

If your site targets users in a particular geographic location, you can use our geographic target tool to provide us with information that will help us determine how your site appears in our country-specific search results, and also improve our search results for geographic queries.

In short, if your site is tailored to a certain geographic location, you may want to use this feature. Google says, “If your site is targeting users within a particular geographic area, please provide us with the relevant information below, using only the fields that apply to your target audience.”

Clarify, it is not to tell Google. Hey, Google, my site is hosted in Canada. It is to say that I am trying to target users who are based in this specific location. So your site can be hosted anywhere, Google won’t care, Google will learn that you are trying to target a specific location by you setting this feature.

To set a geographic target:

1. Sign into Google Webmaster Tools with your Google Account.
2. Click the URL for the site you want.
3. Click Tools, and then click Set geographic target.
4. Select Associate a geographic location with this site.
5. Select the geographic information that applies to your site’s target audience, and click Save.

Here in this video Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa explains how it works and when to use it.

It was an excellent post by Google team on Google Webmaster Central blog

Its common to get hacked, but what to do after that? Here is the steps we should follow.

Getting your site off-line

• Take your site off-line temporarily, at least until you know you’ve fixed things.*
• If you can’t take it off-line, return a 503 status code to prevent it from being crawled.
• In the Webmaster Tools, use the URL removal tool to remove any hacked pages or URLs from search results that may have been added. This will prevent the hacked pages from being served to users.

Damage Assessment

• It’s a good idea to figure out exactly what the hacker was after.
  • Were they looking for sensitive information?
  • Did they want to gain control of your site for other purposes?
• Look for any modified or uploaded files on your web server.
• Check your server logs for any suspicious activity, such as failed login attempts, command history (especially as root), unknown user accounts, etc.
• Determine the scope of the problem—do you have other sites that may be affected?

Recovery

• The absolute best thing to do here is a complete reinstall of the OS from a trusted source. It’s the only way to be completely sure you’ve removed everything the hacker may have done.*
• After a fresh re-installation, use the latest backup you have to restore your site. Don’t forget to make sure the backup is clean and free of hacked content too.*
• Patch any software packages to the latest version. This includes things such as weblog platforms, content management systems, or any other type of third-party software installed.
• Change your passwords – https://www.google.com/accounts/PasswordHelp

Restoring your online presence

• Get your system back online.
• If you’re a Webmaster Tools user, sign in to your account
  • If your site was flagged as having malware, request a review to determine whether your site is clean
  • If you used the URL removal tool on URLs which you do want in the index, request that Webmaster Tools re-include your content by revoking the removal.
• Keep an eye on things, as the hacker may try to return.

I thought of writing this some times back, but time permitted me only by now. I just wanted to share my experience on how to prepare for Google adwords professional exam. Well, I was also searching for the same before I could appear for the Google advertising professional exam. But unfortunately, nothing helped me and I found only two or three blogs gave me some tips to learn for Google professional exam… This tempted me to make helpful article to all the peoples preparing and passing the Google advertising professional exam successfully. Fortunately, I am Google advertising professional now, passed out with 85.46% and got the Google certification as adwords qualified individual. I know very well that there are lots of Google advertising professionals in India and I tried to find out them to ask tips, but did not find any one on time. But now actually I am interested to know I am how manyeth among the qualified Google advertising professionals in India. Is there any site publishes that? Or at least Google India?

By the way here are some tips to appear and pass out Google advertising professional exam,

Who can prepare for Google advertising professional exam?

• Who ever into internet marketing profession.
• Peoples really passionate getting google’s recognition as qualified advertising professional.
• A person who manages self account can also test their skill set by appearing the Google exam.
• People who want to prove to the clients/company that they can manage the campaigns efficiently.

What do I need to get Google certification?

Yes, of course a Google adwords account, but managed from your MCC (My Client Center) Account. If you do not have MCC account or not aware of that, then try to create one or learn about it. You should be at least having basic skill in managing a successful campaign and interested to learn about the advance techniques of adwords. Now are you ok with all the above?

What is the requirement to appear for GAP exam?

• Manage at least one adword accounts for at least 90 Days in your MCC.
• Total spent should be $1000 or equivalent local currency on those 90 days.
• Prepare the advanced skill by hand on method and by learning from adwords learning center.

Appear for exam only after you meet the above criteria to not get disappointed.

How to prepare for the Google exam?

You may feel that you have good knowledge in adwords but when you learn through the learning center definitely you will come to know that you were not aware of many things. So I suggest every body to go through the learning center and then work out the learned stuffs in your account. You may have question that which is best to learn among the multimedia lesson or Text based lesson. All I can say is, which is best for you to learn basically? visual or only by reading. Well, reading was best for me and I choose text lesson. Any how both covers the same, so do not worry about it.

How will be the exam?

You will be given 90 mins and more than hundred questions. In my case, I got 117 questions. Questions will be with the mixture of easy to hard level. If you just have hand on experience on adwords with basic understanding, you will be able to answer only the easier question which is really not enough to pass out the exam. Be assured that you can reach good score near by to the 50%, but only your advanced understanding on adwords will help you to get at least 75% which is the minimum score to pass out.

What are all the precaution to take the exam?

Once you pay and take the exam, your clock starts from that time. So you cannot stop the time at any cause once it started. Be sure to sit at the right place where you do not have power cut, Internet down or any other factors disturb you. While taking the exam, questions will be displayed one by one and you will have to answer it on real time basis. All are choose it type questions, some times with radio button and some time with check boxes. Be careful some time you need to select two or three answers. If you are not sure about the answer of particular question you have an option to mark it as review. If you do that after the completion if you have time, you can check that answers later. I advice you to keep going by answering the questions you know very well and mark the remaining ones to review later. Once you submit the answers your result is displayed at once. Do not really worry if you are fail in that, this is not your graduation exam. You can always retake the exam once in every 15 days.

If still have any questions or any doubts just post your comments here so that I can update this article. If you find useful reaching my blog just BUY ME A CUP OF COFFEE. All the Best for your exams. Let me know your results.