Nagpur-Mumbai Duronto Express derails; no casualties reported so far

The accident took place at 6:36 am.

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Latest #visuals from Maharashtra: Five coaches & engine of Nagpur Mumbai Duronto Express derailed near Titwala.

8:08 AM - Aug 29, 2017

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No passenger is reported to be injured in the incident so far, Sunil Udasi, Chief PRO of the Central Railway, said. Udasi said the derailment was caused due to a landslide.

"The cause (of derailment) is sudden landslide due to heavy rains. But graciously enough, the driver did an excellent job of applying emergency breaks," he said.

However, another railway official said the exact cause of the derailment was not yet clear.

"It is suspected that a portion of the tracks was washed away due to heavy rains in the Kasara Ghats section since there has been long spell of incessant and torrential rains since the past few days," the official said.

The train had a total of 18 coaches.

Helpline numbers have been set up at CSMT, Thane, Kalyan, Dadar and Nagpur stations to help passengers.

A PTI correspondent, Justin Rao, who was on-board the train said, "At least six coaches along with the engine slipped off the tracks".

Rao, who was travelling in the A-2 coach that derailed, said the accident happened when most of the passengers were sleeping.

"While we were sleeping, we felt a jerk and several passengers fell off their berths. When we got up, we found our train's bogies derailed."

"Few people were stuck in the washrooms and were rescued by some passengers by breaking glasses of windows," Rao said.

Rao said, "Though relief and rescue came a bit late, everything was fine once the Central Railway team arrived." A team of doctors as well as senior officers are at the spot.

Proper arrangements have been made to transport stranded passengers from the site to CSMT or other destinations by buses and taxis.

Traffic operations in the affected section have been stopped and few trains have been diverted and short-terminated, official said.

A statement issued by the Central Railway said, "12859 CSMT-Howrah Gitanjali Express has been diverted via Kalyan-Karjat-Pune-Daund-Manmad route."

"Sectional officials and railway workers have arrived at the spot and the entire team has swung into action to rescue stranded passengers and restore traffic in the affected section," Udasi said.

"Our rescue team along with the Accident Relief Train along with engineering staff has reached the spot," he said.

This is the fourth train derailment in the country in a a span of 10 days.

About 100 passengers were wounded when 10 coaches of the

Kaifiyat Express train derailed in UP's Auraiya district after crashing into a dumper which strayed on to the tracks. Fourteen coaches of the high-speed Utkal Express jumped the tracks on August 19, with one of them crashing into a house adjacent to the track near Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar district, claiming 23 lives and over 60 injured.

How to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking on Google

When I first started as a webmaster, there were numerous search engines around. Nowadays, though, we are, for the most part, left with only Google and Bing, with Google providing the majority of visitors to most websites, including thesitewizard.com. This article provides some tips on how you can improve the position of your site in the search engine results on Google.

Improving Your Site's Placement on Google's Search Engine Results

Google ranks a page according to a large number of factors. Exactly what these factors are is apparently a trade secret, although there are number of well-known things that contribute to the ranking of a page.

1. Links Pointing to Your Website

   One of the factors that contribute to a web page being considered "important" is the number of links pointing to that page. For example, if your page has 100 quality links leading to it, it will be ranked higher (in Google's estimation) than one that only has 20.
   But what are "quality" links"? These are links from other popular pages, that is, pages that have, themselves, many (quality) links pointing to them. (Yeah, I know. My definition is circular. And it's possible that the search engine has other factors that determine the quality of a link.)
   Anyway, in general, since Google ranks your pages according to the number of links pointing at your page, your site will do better if it has more links pointing to it.

2. Your Title Tag

   Google seems to give weight to the title of your page. By title, I mean the text that is sandwiched between the HTML <TITLE> tags in the <HEAD> section of your web page. If you use a Web editor that automatically inserts a title like "New Document", remember to change it to some meaningful text with your keywords inside to reap the benefit of this feature. Otherwise, your site will only feature in the search results when someone looks for "New Document".
   Note: by "keywords", I mean the words people will use when searching for your site. For example, if your site sells bicycles, then one keyword for it would be "bicycles", since that's the word you'd expect people to use when searching for bicycles.

3. Your Page Must Have the Words You Think People Will Search For

   Besides the title tag, if you want your website to feature in Google's results when someone searches for a set of words, say "Widget X", those words must actually occur on your page. Think about it from the point of view of a search engine. If you don't put the words "Widget X" somewhere on the page, how is the search engine supposed to know that the page deals with that topic? The search engine is not a human being who can draw inferences from the general tone and content of the page. Even if it can handle some synonyms, you're going to compete with other sites who have specifically placed those words on their site.
   I know this point seems self-evident (once you've come across it). However, from experience, many webmasters (me included) don't seem to realise ("realize" in US English) that when they are first starting out.

4. Keyword-laden Links

   According to a paper published by one of Google's founders, if the links pointing to your page has some words in them, those words will be regarded by Google as an additional indication of the content of your page. For example, a link with the text "Cheap Shoe Store" pointing at your page will cause Google to think that your page is relevant when someone searches for "cheap shoe store".
   However, my recommendation is that if you think a particular set of words is relevant to your site, don't rely on some random site on the Internet to link to you with those words. Put them directly on your page.

Other Google Tips

1. Use a Search Engine Site Map

   Although not strictly necessary, if you find that Google (or Bing, for that matter) is not able to discover some pages on your website, create a site map. I don't mean the type of user site map that you see on thesitewizard.com (which is primarily meant for human beings), but a site map that is specially designed for search engines. While such a site map does not guarantee that Google will index and list every page, it will at least help it discover those missing pages if your site design is such that it has impeded the search engine from finding them before.

2. Check Your Robots.txt File

   Like all respectable search engines, Google will read and obey a special text file on your website called the "robots.txt" file. You can control where search engines are allowed to go with this file. A corollary of this is that you can also inadvertantly block the search engine from going to certain parts of your site. It's generally a good idea to create a robots.txt file for your website, even if it's an empty file with zero bytes (which means that search engines are allowed to index everything on your site).

3. ALT text on Images

   If you have been placing images on your website without bothering to place ALT text, now is a good time to add them. An "ALT text" (or alternate text) is just a way of putting a brief description (using words) of what your picture shows. They are needed by the software used by the blind so that they know what's in the picture. Since all search engines, including Google, are essentially blind, relying on words, they also need the ALT text. The description you give in the ALT text is treated like the words occurring on your web page, although I don't know if they are regarded as being of equal importance.

4. Be Careful Whom You Hire

   Google's use of links to rank a website has at least 2 side effects on the Internet. Firstly, people seeking to rank higher have engaged companies to furnish them with zillions of links. Those companies presumably set up a whole bunch of sites for the sole purpose of linking to their clients. Secondly, as a response to this, the Google programmers have retaliated (and continue to do so) by discrediting links from such "link networks" as well as penalising the sites that pay them for the service.
   It's apparently possible to run afoul of this even if you have no intention of buying links. For example, if you are not careful, and have engaged a search engine optimisation ("SEO") company to improve your site's performance on Google, and they use a link network, your site may inadvertantly get caught in the crossfire of this ongoing war between the link networks and Google.

5. The META Keywords Tag is Ignored

   The Google search engine ignores the META keywords tag, and has always done so. If you have received spam from some wannabe search engine optimisation "specialist" telling you that you need to add this to your site, think twice about hiring him/her, since this recommendation already gives you a hint of the extent of his/her knowledge.

6. Dynamic Pages and Google

   Like all modern search engines (yeah, all 2 of them), Google is able to index dynamically generated pages, so long as a link to those pages exists somewhere. For example, a page like "http://example.com/showstuff.php?page=19" can be indexed by Google, so you don't really need to rewrite your URLs if you can't be bothered.
   If you have a dynamically generated page that you think should be indexed, just make sure you put a link to it somewhere on your site. This applies to all web pages that you want indexed anyway, so even if you don't understand what I mean by "dynamic page", it doesn't matter. Make sure that all the pages of your site can be found through at least one link on your site. If they are not linked to from somewhere, no one will be able to find it, neither Google nor your visitors (unless they are psychic).

7. Disabling the Caching of Your Page Will Not Affect Your Page Rank

   In ancient history, it was claimed that Google would penalise pages that forbade it from caching their pages. As you know, the Google search engine caches the pages it indexes unless otherwise instructed. To avoid problems with people who dislike this, they allow sites to instruct Google not to cache those pages.
   Google have ("has" in US English) apparently publicly denied that disabling caching would affect the page's ranking in any way. I tend to believe their claim.

8. Don't Waste Your Time With The Google Toolbar's Page Rank

   In prehistoric times, you could add something known as the Google Toolbar to your web browser, and get something known as the "Page Rank" shown for any site you visit. In those days, the "Page Rank" would give you an idea of how important Google thought your site was.
   Nowadays, the Page Rank is only one of apparently zillions of factors used by Google in ranking a website. They also discourage people from focusing on the Page Rank, and as a result, do not actually update the rank displayed on the toolbar in a timely fashion. (That is, the rank shown is often many months out of date.) In fact, I'm not sure if the page rank is even shown on the toolbar anymore.
   In other words, it's not worth your time to install the toolbar.

Simple SEO Tricks To Improve Your website

7 Simple SEO Tricks To Improve Your website 2016 SEO

by Gaurav Kumar · 25 Comments Follow me on Twitter

in SEO

2016 is around the corner. The countdown has begun. But wait, are you prepared to welcome 2016? We all know that the New Year will bring to the fore a whole new set of changes in the way businesses market their products and services, marketers try to improve their ranking with search engine optimization (SEO), the way people surf the web and a lot more.

According to hubspot.com, in the U.S. alone, an average of 12 billion web searches are conducted each month. SEO will gain importance more than anything else as it helps you drive quality traffic, get visibility, boost your brand and lend your business the credibility it needs to succeed. After all, what is the point of creating so much content and graphics if it is not visible to the audience when they run search query.

In 2015 also, marketers realized the value of SEO, aligning their content for customers’ needs and mobile optimization for better results. After all, 50% of all mobile searches are conducted in the hope of finding local results, and 61% of those searches result in a purchase, according to searchenginewatch.com.

Searchengineland.com suggests SEO is the process of driving traffic from the ‘organic’, and ‘paid’ sources to win the rat race of ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs).  Though search engine rankings keep on changing from time to time (it’s normal), make sure that you have built your site in the right way and regularly posting quality content to drive a steady stream of traffic to your pages.  An article in Quicksprout.com states that the average content length for a web page that ranks in the top 10 results for any keyword on Google has at least 2,000 words.

Wondering what SEO trends which SEO trends will turn out to be the major hits of 2016? Don’t worry. Here, we bring to you an exclusive exposé on the hottest SEO trends and developments that are set to rock the world in the year ahead. Have a look!

In the coming times, content from social media such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn will gain more importance on the SERPs. Already, 76% marketers use Social Media to support and boost SEO, cites an article published at Impactbnd.com. In 2016, marketers will do everything possible to make their Facebook posts or tweets rank higher on the SERPs.1. Social Content Will Gain Prominence

Isn’t that amazing?! We predict that more social media content will be indexed on Google and other popular search engines such as Bing and Yahoo. This will in turn blur the lines between ‘web’ and ‘social media’ in terms of SEO strategies. So, be prepared to find, collect and use your valuable social content for optimizing your page for maximum visibility.  For brand names, social media profiles are amongst the top results in search listings. For instance, if you search “Designhill” on Google, the company’s Facebook page, Twitter profile and the LinkedIn page appear as the top listings. See for yourself!

Blog.kissmetrics.com states that links to content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube and other social networks help the search engine crawlers understand what websites are credible and should be ranked for what keyword phrases.

2. Videos Will Still Rule

We all know that videos are a great way of keeping audience engaged and entertained. But do you know that by using enough videos, you can improve the ranking of your page on the SERPs. A report by Marketing Land states that videos make for 62% of all Google searchesuniversally. Moreover, Google has started giving attention to blended results/searches. So, why not grab this opportunity to appear on the first page of search results by including an engaging video in your content? According to Quicksprout.com, videos get 50 times betterorganic page ranks in Google as against plain, static text results. Also, video searches garner41% higher click-through rate as compared to plain, static text content, according to Relesoo.com.

Many marketers chose to drive their modern marketing engine with the fuel of Video SEO in 2015. And we predict that more marketers and businesses will embrace the trend of videos in the coming year too. Take a glance at what a blended search result looks like for the search query “777 built in 4 minutes”.

Now, the only way to appear in the search engine pages like this is by uploading your videos on You Tube or through video SEO. It is important that Google is able to find your video content, successfully index it and display your video content when specific keywords are entered as search terms.

3. Mobile Optimization Will Become Crucial

Is your business website mobile-friendly? Your audience is no longer in one place. People use all sorts of devices such as tablets, smartphones, laptops, phone watches to browse web. Keeping this in mind, plenty of brands went mobile-friendly in 2015. And we anticipate that more brands will take up this trend in the upcoming year. Mobile optimization will become the norm, rather than exception. So, it’s high time you changed the way you conceptualize and create SEO strategies for mobile searches.

Neilpatel.com states that the total number of searches on mobile devices has seen a 43% increase year-over-year. Also, Google’s algorithm update this year ensured that mobile-friendly websites get a search ranking boost on mobile searches. As more and more people use mobile to surf the Internet, Google decided to make it easier to find relevant, mobile-optimized websites. So, it now uses mobile-friendliness as a factor in ranking search results. If you’re still not convinced, here are just 5 stats that will make you go mobile-friendly in 2016.

• 4 out of 5 consumers use smartphones to shop. (Source: Convinceandconvert.com)
• 70% of mobile searches lead to online action within an hour. (Source: Socialmediatoday.com)
• Over 1.2 billion people access the web from their mobile devices. (Source: Mobify.com)
• Global mobile traffic now accounts for 15% of all Internet traffic. (Source: Newtarget.com)
• 95% smartphone users have searched for local info. (Source: Adwords.blogspot.com )

Therefore, make sure that mobile optimization finds a prominent place in your SEO strategies for the upcoming year to stay ahead of your competitors. Make sure that everything on your site, from colors to fonts and from content to logo design, is mobile optimized.

4. Voice Search Function a Must

These days, people who are on the go use voice search simply because it is more convenient and safer, especially when someone is driving or multi-tasking. It is becoming a huge part of mobile usage as it has taken away the pain of typing keywords to run a search query. Almost all mobile devices have a voice search functions. The popularity of voice searches has been spurred by Microsoft, Google, and Apple launching their own versions of advanced voice-responsive assistants – Cortana, Google Now and Siri.

Even ‘Domino’s Pizza’ has a ‘voice-ordering feature. However, make sure that your content is easily searchable through voice searches by using long-tail keywords, which are more likely to be spoken than conventional keywords.  Google Study finds voice search mostly used toask for directions. For teens, doing a voice search while watching TV (59%) and while with friends (57%) are the highest use cases, according to marketingland.com. Whereas for adults, voice searching is done the most while watching TV (36%), followed by when with friends (24%) and while cooking (23%).

5. Content Aggregation will get Bigger & Better

According to Digitalcurrent.com, Knowledge Graph, wiki, local, maps, social media, news, images and videos make for 85% of Google search results. These stats indicates that now people look for sources that provide all relevant information for a particular subject or topic that at one place.

A blog published at imediaconnection.com explains that content aggregation is a practical way of finding, collating, amassing, consolidating, presenting, sharing, and displaying content around pre-specified set of criteria to appeal target audience. If you too are planning to do so, make sure that you collect and curate content from different, high-authority sources and display it at one place for your users to see to build your authority.

A great example of content curation is using the humble newsletter, Next Draft by Dave Pell, who has amassed over 160,000 subscribers to his daily email which shares the most interesting stories in business, culture, and tech, an article in Jeff Bullas explained. Another example is Inbound.org which was built by Moz and Hubspot to increase their reach even further.

6. The Craze of Mobile Apps Will Grow

According to Tech Crunch, mobile apps account for 52% of all time spent on online digital media. Another report available on the Internet reveals that users spend 89% mobile timeusing apps. This is the reason for more and more businesses planning to explore the advantage of mobile apps.

As discussed above, use of mobile for web search is on an all-time rise and apps just make the work easier. Just few more years and mobile apps are sure to overpower desktop and mobile websites. An article in searchenginejournal.com states that 85% of people prefer native mobile apps to websites. Feature your brand prominently in the app name and make sure you have proper links to apps for better search rankings Also, you must ensure that app optimization tops your list of SEO optimization. There are several brands that are benefiting from prominent mobile app visibility in Google’s organic search results. Have a look at what happens when you search eBay in Google. The app page URL presents a powerful opportunity to “occupy” the first page of Google SERPs.

                                                          

7. Local SEO to Become Even More Important

This trend is only going stronger over the years. According to Entrepreneur.com, local SEO is likely to gain solid grounds in the coming days. As a marketer, you have to let Google know where you are located and what you are offering so that your chances of showing up on pages, especially in front of the relevant audience, increase. It is must to have your local pages which will include the name of your business, address etc. with Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Since Google came out with its “Pigeon” update, local SEO has gained significant prominence forcing businesses and marketers to focus on a local tangent.  So, ensure of having location specific keywords and personalize content basis your target audiences’ location to stay ahead in the game in 2016. Check out some stats to know the benefits of ranking in local search results.

• Local searches lead 50% of mobile visitors to visit stores within a day. (Source: Searchengineland.com)
• More than 60% consumers have used local information in ads. (Source: Business2community.com)
• 50% mobile searches are conducted in hopes of finding local results. (Source: Business2community.com)

Your listing in the local pages can increase consumer engagement with your business and your ranking. For instance, check out this example of three hospitals. The one that has the highest number of reviews ranks the highest. (Image source: Search Engine Journal)

                                                            

To conclude, you must brace yourself in expanding your presence on social media, instilling videos of your business in your content so that you get Page 1 ranking in Google. A good ranking ultimately helps you build strong influence and enhance your brand name amongst your audience.  So, don’t miss out on any latest update by Google and trends in search rankings to shine out in the crowd. The better SEO strategies you have, the more benefits you will have.

So, concentrate on creating fresh and quality content that you can and promote it across all social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. By just doing this, you will find that your search rankings have improved tremendously. The next step would be to sustain the rank by posting fresh and unique content and videos regularly.

Though trends keep on changing, we expect that these 7 SEO trends are most likely to dominate the scene in 2016. While some of them will become extinct like the dinosaur, some will evolve and outlast the rest. Nevertheless, we’re sure by embracing these trends, you’ll be able to spearhead the market in the New Year.

How to Remove Adware from your Computer

How to Remove Adware from your Computer

Advertising software (Adware), as its name suggests, is designed for the purpose of delivering unsolicited advertising materials to the user in an aggressive, annoying, and intrusive manner. Similarly categorized as malicious software (Malware) like viruses, spyware, and worms, it is distinguished by its concentration on the delivery of targeted advertising contents which may be relevant to the user but not expressly requested by the user. It is entirely possible that it may cause breakdown in the infected machine and may be installed together with other Potentially Unwanted Applications (PUA). Due to the distinct differences among these malicious programs, there is a possibility that despite the presence of an anti-virus program, it may not be capable of detecting and removing adware components installed in the machine.

Materials Needed:

- Anti-adware program
- Internet connection

Step 1

The most telling sign of an adware infection is the proliferation of pop-up windows and similar container formats hosting advertising contents. To remove these unnecessary computer files, it is important to initially disconnect from the Internet (if applicable) either by turning off the modem or unplugging the connection to the device from the back panel of the machine. This is done to stop the sending of more ads to the infected machine.

Step 2

Close all open browser windows including email clients.

Step 3

Delete all Temporary Files by clicking on the 'Start' button and selecting the 'Accessories' option.

Step 4

From the 'Accessories' Menu, choose the 'System Tools' and click on the 'Disk Clean Up' category. This will scan the hard drive and allow the user to view files which may be removed from the machine. Make sure that the Temporary Internet Files, Offline WebPages, Recycle Bin, and Downloaded Program Files are checked. Click on the 'OK' button to confirm changes.

Step 5

Also delete Temporary Internet Files by opening the Control Panel and clicking on the Internet Options category.

Step 6

Once the Internet Properties window appears; click on the 'General Task' tab. In the Temporary Internet Files, select the 'Delete Cookies' and the 'Delete Files' options. By clicking on the 'Apply' button, the changes will be implemented.

Step 7

Proceed by opening the 'Add/Remove Programs' category in the Control Panel. Normally, some adware components have a corresponding uninstall module that allows the user to remove the unwanted program. A reboot may be necessary after the uninstall process.

Step 8

Get an efficient anti-adware utility from a reputable developer. After completing its installation process, initiate a complete scan not only of the entire hard drive but also of the system memory. If possible, initiate the scanning and removal process under Safe Mode to make sure that only bare essentials are running in the machine.

Step 9

Clean, delete, or quarantine any possible threats that may be detected after completion of the scanning process.

Step 10

As an additional measure, websites providing online scanning algorithms may be visited in order to make sure that the system is already free from any adware component.

Step 11

Once the machine has been certified clean of any adware components, go to the Control Panel and select the 'Internet Options' category.

Step 12

In the 'Internet Properties' window, click on the 'Advanced' tab and click the 'Restore' button to remove residual damages. Also, inspect if the homepage and Trusted Sites Zone do not have any unwanted entries. Click on the 'OK' button to save the changes.

Step 13

Visit a reputable website and download a legitimate HOSTS file to make sure that any Internet activity will not be hijacked. This file will overwrite the existing copy in the local hard drive.

Step 14

Reboot the machine. After everything has loaded accordingly, check for updates to your protection software to make sure that the computer system is continuously protected from all existing adware components.

How to index your website to google fast

How to Get Google to Index Your New Website & Blog Quickly

Whenever you create a new website or blog for your business, the first thing you probably want to happen is have people find it. And, of course, one of the ways you hope they will find it is through search. But typically, you have to wait around for the Googlebot to crawl your website and add it (or your newest content) to the Google index.

So the question is: how do you ensure this happens as quickly as possible? Here are the basics of how website content is crawled and indexed, plus some great ways to get the Googlebot to your website or blog to index your content sooner rather than later.

What is Googlebot, Crawling, and Indexing?

Before we get started on some good tips to attract the Googlebot to your site, let’s start with what the Googlebot is, plus the difference between indexing and crawling.

• The Googlebot is simply the search bot software that Google sends out to collect information about documents on the web to add to Google’s searchable index.
• Crawling is the process where the Googlebot goes around from website to website, finding new and updated information to report back to Google. The Googlebot finds what to crawl using links.
• Indexing is the processing of the information gathered by the Googlebot from its crawling activities. Once documents are processed, they are added to Google’s searchable index if they are determined to be quality content. During indexing, the Googlebot processes the words on a page and where those words are located. Information such as title tags and ALT attributes are also analyzed during indexing.

So how does the Googlebot find new content on the web such as new websites, blogs, pages, etc.? It starts with web pages captured during previous crawl processes and adds in sitemap data provided by webmasters. As it browses web pages previously crawled, it will detect links upon those pages to add to the list of pages to be crawled. If you want more details, you can read about them inWebmaster Tools Help.

Hence, new content on the web is discovered through sitemaps and links. Now we’ll take a look at how to get sitemaps on your website and links to it that will help the Googlebot discover new websites, blogs, and content.

How to Get Your New Website or Blog Discovered

So how can you get your new website discovered by the Googlebot? Here are some great ways. The best part is that some of the following will help you get referral traffic to your new website too!

• Create a Sitemap – A sitemap is an XML document on your website’s server that basically lists each page on your website. It tells search engines when new pages have been added and how often to check back for changes on specific pages. For example, you might want a search engine to come back and check your homepage daily for new products, news items, and other new content. If your website is built on WordPress, you can install the Google XML Sitemaps plugin and have it automatically create and update your sitemap for you as well as submit it to search engines. You can also use tools such as the XML Sitemaps Generator.
• Submit Sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools – The first place you should take your sitemap for a new website is Google Webmaster Tools. If you don’t already have one, simply create a free Google Account, then sign up for Webmaster Tools. Add your new site to Webmaster Tools, then go to Optimization > Sitemaps and add the link to your website’s sitemap to Webmaster Tools to notify Google about it and the pages you have already published. For extra credit, create an account with Bing and submit your sitemap to them via their Webmaster Tools.
• Install Google Analytics – You’ll want to do this for tracking purposes regardless, but it certainly might give Google the heads up that a new website is on the horizon.
• Submit Website URL to Search Engines – Some people suggest that you don’t do this simply because there are many other ways to get a search engine’s crawler to your website. But it only takes a moment, and it certainly doesn’t hurt things. So submit your website URL to Google by signing into your Google Account and going to the Submit URL option in Webmaster Tools. For extra credit, submit your site to Bing. You can use the anonymous tool to submit URL’s below the Webmaster Tools Sign In – this will also submit it to Yahoo.
• Create or Update Social Profiles – As mentioned previously, crawlers get to your site via links. One way to get some quick links is by creating social networking profiles for your new website or adding a link to your new website to pre-existing profiles. This includes Twitter profiles, Facebook pages, Google+ profiles or pages, LinkedIn profiles or company pages, Pinterest profiles, and YouTube channels.
• Share Your New Website Link – Once you have added your new website link to a new or pre-existing social profile, share it in a status update on those networks. While these links are nofollow, they will still alert search engines that are tracking social signals. For Pinterest, pin an image from the website and for YouTube, create a video introducing your new website and include a link to it in the video’s description.
• Bookmark It – Use quality social bookmarking sites like Delicious andStumbleUpon.
• Create Offsite Content – Again, to help in the link building process, get some more links to your new website by creating offsite content such as submitting guest posts to blogs in your niche, articles to quality article directories, and press releases to services that offer SEO optimization and distribution. Please note this is about quality content from quality sites – you don’t want spammy content from spammy sites because that just tells Google that your website is spammy.

How to Get Your New Blog Discovered

So what if your new website is a blog? Then in additional to all of the above options, you can also do the following to help get it found by Google.

• Setup Your RSS with Feedburner – Feedburner is Google’s own RSS management tool. Sign up or in to your Google account and submit your feed with Feedburner by copying your blog’s URL or RSS feed URL into the “Burn a feed” field. In addition to your sitemap, this will also notify Google of your new blog and each time that your blog is updated with a new post.
• Submit to Blog Directories – TopRank has a huge list of sites you can submit your RSS feed and blog to. This will help you build even more incoming links. If you aren’t ready to do them all, at least start with Technorati as it is one of the top blog directories. Once you have a good amount of content, also try Alltop.

10 Quick Ways to Speed Up a Slow Windows PC

10 Quick Ways to Speed Up a Slow Windows PC

Windows PCs don’t have to slow down over time. Whether your PC has gradually become slower or it suddenly ground to a halt a few minutes ago, there could be quite a few reasons for that slowness.

As with all PC issues, don’t be afraid to give your computer a reboot if something’s not working properly. This can fix quite a few problems and is faster than attempting to manually troubleshoot and fix the problem yourself.

Find Resource-Hungry Programs

Your PC is running slow because something is using up those resources. If it’s suddenly running slower, a runaway process might be using 99% of your CPU resources, for example. Or, an application might be experiencing a memory leak and using a large amount of memory, causing your PC to swap to disk. Alternately, an application might be using the disk a lot, causing other applications to slow down when they need to load data from or save it to the disk.

To find out, open the Task Manager. You can right-click your taskbar and select the “Task Manager” option or press Ctrl+Shift+Escape to open it. On Windows 8, 8.1, and 10, the new Task Manager provides an upgraded interface that color-codes applications using a lot of resources. Click the “CPU,” “Memory,” and “Disk” headers to sort the list by the applications using the most resources. If any application is using too much resources, you might want to close it normally — if you can’t, select it here and click “End Task” to force it to close.

Close System Tray Programs

Many applications tend to run in the system tray, or notification area. These applications often launch at startup and stay running in the background but remain hidden behind the up arrow icon at the bottom-right corner of your screen. Click the up arrow icon near the system tray, right-click any applications you don’t need running in the background, and close them to free up resources.

Disable Startup Programs

Better yet, prevent those applications from launching at startup to save memory and CPU cycles, as well as speed up the login process.

On Windows 8, 8.1, and 10, there’s now a startup manager in the Task Manager you can use to manage your startup programs. Right-click the taskbar and select “Task Manager” or press Ctrl+Shift+Escape to launch it. Click over to the Startup tab and disable startup applications you don’t need. Windows will helpfully tell you which applications slow down your startup process the most.

Reduce Animations

Windows uses quite a few animations, and those animations can make your PC seem a bit slower. For example, Windows can minimize and maximize windows instantly if you disable the associated animations.

To disable animations, press Windows Key + X or right-click the Start button and select “System.” Click “Advanced System Settings” on the left and click the “Settings” button under Performance. Choose “Adjust for best performance” under Visual Effects to disable all the animations, or select “Custom” and disable the individual animations you don’t want to see. For example, uncheck “Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing” to disable the minimize and maximize animations.

Lighten Your Web Browser

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There’s a good chance you use your web browser a lot, so your web browser may just be a bit slow. It’s a good idea to use as few browser extensions, or add-ons, as possible — those slow down your web browser and cause it to use more memory.

Go into your web browser’s Extensions or Add-ons manager and remove add-ons you don’t need. You should also consider enabling click-to-play plug-ins. Preventing Flash and other content from loading will prevent unimportant Flash content from using CPU time.

Scan for Malware and Adware

There’s also a chance your computer is slow because malicious software is slowing it down and running in the background. This may not be flat-out malware — it may be software that interferes with your web browsing to track it and add additional advertisements, for example.

To be extra safe, scan your computer with an antivirus program. You should also scan it with Malwarebytes, which catches a lot of “potentially unwanted programs” (PUPs) that most antivirus programs tend to ignore. These programs try to sneak onto your computer when you install other software, and you almost certainly don’t want them.

Free Up Disk Space

If your hard drive is almost completely full, your computer may run noticeably slower. You want to leave your computer some room to work on your hard drive. Follow our guide to freeing up space on your Windows PC to free up room. You don’t need any third-party software — just running the Disk Cleanup tool included in Windows can help quite a bit.

Defragment Your Hard Disk

Defragmenting your hard disk actually shouldn’t be necessary on modern versions of Windows. It’ll automatically defragment mechanical hard drives in the background. Solid-state drives don’t really need traditional defragmentation, although modern versions of Windows will “optimize” them — and that’s fine.

You shouldn’t worry about defragmentation most of the time. However, if you do have a mechanical hard drive and you’ve just put a lot of files on the drive — for example, copying a huge database or gigabytes of PC game files — those files might be defragmented because Windows hasn’t gotten around to defragmenting them yet. In this situation, you might want to open the disk defragmenter tool and perform a scan to see if you need to run a manual defrag program.

Uninstall Programs You Don’t Use

Open the Control Panel, find the list of installed programs, and uninstall programs you don’t use and don’t need from your PC. This can help speed your PC up, as those programs might include background processes, autostart entries, system services, context menu entries, and other things that can slow down your PC. It’ll also save room on your hard drive and improve system security — for example, you definitely shouldn’t have Java installed if you’re not using it.

Reset Your PC / Reinstall Windows

If the other tips here didn’t fix your problem, the one timeless solution to fix Windows problems — aside from rebooting your PC, of course — is getting a fresh Windows installation.

On modern versions of Windows — that is, Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 — it’s easier to get a fresh Windows installation than ever. You don’t have to get Windows installation media and reinstall Windows. Instead, you can simply use the “Reset your PC” feature built into Windows to get a new, fresh Windows system. This is similar to reinstalling Windows and will wipe your installed programs and system settings while keeping your files.

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If your PC is still using a mechanical hard drive, upgrading to a solid-state drive — or just ensuring your next PC has an SSD — will offer you a dramatic performance improvement, too. In an age where most people won’t notice faster CPUs and graphics processors, solid-state storage will offer the single biggest boost in overall system performance for most people.