How SEO Works

We all hear about SEO ( Search Engine Optimization) on a regular basis, yet we are not sure about what is exactly is. How it works? We just feel that SEO is a complex thing and it requires expertise to be called SEO champion. Well not all is true. SEO is not as complex as we think, yet proper thinking and analysis will go a long way in making SEO effective.

You've finished your web design, uploaded your files, and set up your blog, but you're still not getting as many visitors as you hoped for. What is wrong here? Chances are you haven't started working on one of the most important ways to market your site and which is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Search Engine Optimization refers to the collection of techniques and practices that allow a site to get more traffic from search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing). SEO can be divided into two main areas: off-page SEO (work that takes place separate from the website) and on-page SEO (website changes to make your website rank better).

One of the basic truths in SEO is that even if you do all the things that are necessary to do, this does not automatically guarantee you top ratings but if you neglect basic rules, this certainly will not go unnoticed.

SEO can be a 30-minute job or a permanent activity. Sometimes it is enough to do some generic SEO in order to get high in search engines – for instance, if you are a leader for rare keywords, then you do not have a lot to do in order to get decent placement. But in most cases, if you really want to be at the top, you need to pay special attention to SEO and devote significant amounts of time and effort to it. Even if you plan to do some basic SEO, it is essential that you understand how search engines work and which items are most important in SEO.

Keywords – the Most Important Item in SEO

Keywords are the most important SEO item for every search engine – actually they are what search strings are matched against. So you see that it is very important that you optimize your site for the right keywords. This seems easy at first but when you get into more detail, it might be a bit confusing to correctly determine the keywords. But with a little research and thinking the problem of selecting the right keywords to optimize for can be solved.

1. Choosing the Right Keywords to Optimize For

It seems that the time when you could easily top the results for a one-word search string is centuries ago. Now, when the Web is so densely populated with sites, it is next to impossible to achieve constant top ratings for a one-word search string. Achieving constant top ratings for two-word or three-word search strings is a more realistic goal. If you examine closely the dynamics of search results for popular one-word keywords, you might notice that it is so easy one week to be in the first ten results and the next one– to have fallen out of the first 30 results because the competition for popular one-word keywords is so fierce and other sites have replaced you.

2. Keyword Density

After you have chosen the keywords that describe your site and are supposedly of interest to your users, the next step is to make your site keyword-rich and to have good keyword density for your target keywords. Keyword density is a common measure of how relevant a page is. Generally, the idea is that the higher the keyword density, the more relevant to the search string a page is. The recommended density is 3-7% for the major 2 or 3 keywords and 1-2% for minor keywords.

3. Keywords in Special Places

Keywords are very important not only as quantity but as quality as well – i.e. if you have more keywords in the page title, the headings, the first paragraphs – this counts more that if you have many keywords at the bottom of the page. The reason is that the URL (and especially the domain name), file names and directory names, the page title, the headings for the separate sections are more important than ordinary text on the page and therefore, all equal, if you have the same keyword density as your competitors but you have keywords in the URL, this will boost your ranking incredibly.

These are few of the Basics of SEO. I recommend that we as testers should be knowing these basics to increase our knowledge.

Happy Testing.

Madhukar

Speech by CEO of Mind Tree

I would like to share with you one of the best I received just a few days ago. Its a Speech delivered By Mr Subroto Baghchi, CEO Mind Tree to the class of 2006 at IIM Bangalore defining success.

Here are a few parts of the speech.

My mother used to take ash from the chullah and mix it with the earth and plant seedlings. This time when they bloomed, the neighbours asked her why she was taking so much pain to beautify a Government house? My mother replied it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom.She said," I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited".

That was the first lesson in success," It is not about what you create for yourself, it is about what you leave behind that defines success".

Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it. If we can create it, others can live in it. This is the essence of success.

The safdurjung Hospital is a cockroach infected dirty place. The over-worked under resourced sisters are victims of de-humanized life at its worst. One morning attending to my father i realized that the blood bottle was empty. Fearing that air would get into his blood I summoned the sister to do the needful. she very rudely asked me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death I was in pain, frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came my father opened his eyes and murmured to her," why have you not gone home yet?" here was a man on his deathbed more concerned about the overworked nurse. I was stunned at his stoic self.

I learnt that there is no limit of how concerned you can be for another human being. Success is your ability to rise above your discomfort whatever be your current state.

Two years at the age of 82 my mother had a paralytic stroke. I flew down from US and spent two weeks with her. She was neither getting better nor moving on. I had to leave back to work. while leaving her behind I kissed her face. Int he paralytic state and garbled voice she said," why are you kissing me? Go kiss the world!"

At the confluence of life and death a woman whose life was crowned by adversity was asking her son to go and kiss the world!.

Success is about giving back to life more than you can take. It is about creating extraordinary success with ordinary lives!!

Are you on uTest... I am....Check out the interesting things happening...

Boston-based uTest has raised $1.7M to bring to market a crowd-sourced quality assurance
(QA) marketplace and community. The service has begun recruiting testers in anticipation of its official launch, expected in early 2008.
No fuzzy logic here; uTest presents clear and communicable value propositions: For companies in need of QA, uTest is providing an on-demand environment for the management of full testing cycles.
The company’s founders recognized that QA and usability testing solutions are inefficient. QA departments are either under-utilized when waiting for versions to test, or over-extended when a new version comes out. To most SMBs, QA outsourcing is neither cost effective nor available “on-demand”. Then, of course, there are cost-cutting measures that leave companies unable to sufficiently fund QA efforts, ultimately shipping buggy applications to users like us.
The uTest testing platform itself is entirely Web-based and provides the management of complete QA cycles, from creating/loading test scripts, to selecting the target community (profile and environment) of testers required. The platform also provides test case management tools, real-time information on bugs and defects logged, statistical information on release maturity level, as well as QA coverage and market readiness. Support for bug tracking systems includes Bugzilla, Jira, FogBugs and will be expanded over time.

In a smart business move, uTest will not charge companies to use their platform to manage testing and QA cycles—this will be entirely free of charge. uTest will only charge for the services provided by the community of testers.
The uTest offering makes a lot of sense to me and I expect it will be warmly embraced for several reasons. First, consider for a moment that for many SMBs, QA management solutions such as those offered by Mercury or IBM-Rational are beyond their reach. Speaking from personal experience, the majority of the testing cycles I’ve seen have been “managed” on Word or Excel. The “on-demand” model which has been proven time and time again on the Web from CRM to ERP, should work just as well for QA. The fact that the platform will be offered free of charge, pushes the offering to “no-brainer land”.
Second, beyond the manageability aspects of uTest’s service, companies will obviously enjoy the cost saving aspects of paying testers by the bug. It’s this aspect that in my opinion will make uTest’s offering relevant not only to SMBs but to large organizations as well. Logic would dictate that if they embraced off-shoring and near-shoring, crowd-sourced QA shouldn’t be too jagged of a pill to swallow.
Third, recruiting a userbase of testers should not be difficult. There are droves of potential testers in countries such as India, China, Russia, Bulgaria, Estonia, etc. Also, getting hired through sites like Elance and RentACoder is becoming increasingly difficult due to the growing number of service providers. These same individuals can theoretically provide testing services instead of programming.
All-in-all uTest sounds quite promising and has earned a place on my companies to watch in 2008 list.

Confused IT Engineers

I was reading this very nice article about this famous fable "Grass is always green on the other side of the fence". It reminded me of an conversation which i had with a IT Engineer some time back. He wanted to move from his present company due to few reasons which gives an insight into confused IT engineers mind. Somehow i feel like that the same confusing situation is present in every Software Engineer's mind or rather the phenomenon is more common in entry level candidates as they don't know what is that which they exactly wanted to do. Some get fascinated by the Higher salaries, some by onsite opportunities and some just want to jump without proper analysis about the type of work which the Organization where they are going to join will be offering them. I feel that this situation is more prevelant among the group of people who are in early Years of experience levels say people with 1-3 years experience. Here goes the conversation:

IT Engineer: What is the promotion cycle in Company X? Do they give any weightage to previous experience?
Madhukar: Since u have around 1.5 years exp only earlier hence u might get prmotion to senior software engineer at least after 2 years but that all always depends on your performance. It might happen earlier as well. If you had around 4 years to 5 years of prior exp then they would have taken you mostly as senior engineer, but not now.

IT Engineer: 2 years after I join them or of total experience?
Madhukar: 2 years after u join them would be an ideal time, however it might happen earlier as well.

IT Engineer: ok
IT Engineer: and do they have salary blocks for Engg and senior Engg?
Madhukar: no..average hike will be 10-15% or 12-16% every year like other companies normally give but this as well depends on the performance.

IT Engineer: ok and what is the componenet of there salary like basic pay, felxible benefits and Specail compensation plan etc.
Madhukar: lta, basic, bonus, gratuity etc.

IT Engineer now stops asking questions. I thought why not i ask him some questions just to know his opinions.

Madhukar: What difference does it makes if you are not hired as a Senior Software Engineer at Company X...?Means what is your take on this?
IT Engineer: Right now I am working as Senior Executive Quality and if I stay with this compnay longer I would become lead executive by end of this year so If I decide and go to Company X ... then I would have to start as fresher and then after minimum two years I will become what I am right now.

Madhukar: Ok why do you want to change your present job when u feel u have so much opportunities at the current company?
IT Engineer: tell you honestlyI was thinking of leaving my organisation 3-4 month back

Madhukar: hmm ok...

IT Engineer: and now this came to me like a surprise because i was not expecting anything like that now and here in my company in last 3- 4 month things have improved a lot.

Madhukar: So what are your priorities and long term goals?
IT Engineer: I learnt a lot in this company and still I am learning and if i stay here for another 3-4 months I would get the oppurtunuty to impement CMMi in my company.

Madhukar: What CMM level does Company X has?
IT Engineer: they dont go for CMMi, they say they have there own standards.

Madhukar: Then what is the compelling factor which says you to change since in this case you will be moving to a place where you will not be able to work on your interest area. Lets say a company Hires you as a Lead In qualtiy will you join that company? I mean to ask what do you look while making a change Designation, Money, type of work? what?

IT Engineer: right now I looking for more money because I took a home loan and want to repay that fast and I know that kind of profile I am looking for ... is always challenging
Madhukar: How will joining Company X help you in that? What is your total expenses at present location after spending on room rent, food, transport and all like going to your hometown once a month etc......If at Company X you have a higher take home salary then on the other hand you might also have higher expenses per month in the new city as well.

IT Engineer: thats what making me rethink each and everytime because my major concern is this only.
Madhukar: means i am interested to know how does joining Company X gaurantees you that you can repay home loan quickly.

IT Engineer: yes true
Madhukar: Hmm which means designation does not matters?

IT Engineer: it wont help me, Designation do matter to me.
Madhukar: How? Don't you feel that all these designations are the fancy names given to just seperate out people and make the people happy....Ok what are your responsibilities as a senior QA engineer at present role..and how do you gaurantee that being Senior QA at Company X also will give you same? Might be Company X's definiton of Senior QA and the roles and responsibilities is quite different than other companies.

Madhukar: In India if you are not promoted to a higher level by attaching a fancy tag to your
Visiting Card then people start to change the companies and thats the game companies play to lower down the attrition rate,....The Thumb rule in India is 0-2 Years Entry Level, 2-4 Years Senior Engineer, 4-6 Years Lead..., 6+ years Manager
IT Engineer: yeah you are absolutely correct as i told you that I was not at all expecting the call from Company X once i received a call I thought why not to give an interview and see where i stand in the market clearing the first round gave a confidence and then clearing a second round gave me more confidence

Madhukar: Ok, i was just asking the questions because of my curiosity.
IT Engineer: ok

Madhukar: It was not meant to demoralise you or stop you from taking any decision....I just wanted to know if you have thought from all angles and was just making you realize the impact which this decision can have at a later stage.

The discussion continued for a long time and i made few observations: Software Engineers in early career just dont realise the big picture and want to change companies because of money, better work, onsite and several other reasons. We should always see as to what extent we fit in the next company, what goals and benifits are fulfiled and finally we should not move by the feeling that better things exist on the other side. Better things do definitely exist however they needs to be explored properly.

The uTest Testing Community: Get Paid for finding Bugs

Found out a pretty interesting new concept uTest, check it out.

By joining uTestTM you will become a member of the world's first online community of software testers and gain access to the uTestTM Testing Platform. As a Tester in our community, you will be the first to try exciting and innovative applications, many of which are pre-released and have yet to be introduced to the public. Our network of testers (whose experience ranges from common consumers to highly trained testing professionals), forms a community from around the globe dedicated to experiencing and helping perfect bleeding-edge technology.

Our Testers enjoy extremely flexible hours - so you can work when you want to and at your own pace. In addition, the uTest Testing Platform can operate on any machine connected to the internet, which means Testers can work anywhere they want: from the comfort of their own home to their local coffee shop.

Appreciation and its impact......

Was thinking from a long time to write some thing and after a long time here i am with my thoughts on a topic rarely in the discussions. The inspiration for writing this came from Shrini whose views i love to read.
I had a recent conversation with Shrini on testing ERP applications which made me write my experiences.

ERP , the vast ocean of Enterprise applications, I was doing this testing for an ERP application some time back and due to a showstopper in the application for which i was developing automation scripts i thought of doing some testing of my own. To my surprise i was finding bugs which could have been caught long time back and which were so obvious, this raised my curiousity to test it more and i started doing exploratory testing. As i was finding more and more bugs my excitement was rising.
I managed to find some 50 odd bugs in 2 days and was extremely happy that i found some real trivial and amazing bugs in the application. Then started the real challenge of explaining the management about the importance of rapid testing versus scripted testing as somehow i have the feeling that scriptd testing is considered by the management as a robot which will perform all jobs by itself and once completed we can run them to find if any bugs have been injected when a new build was released.

Here goes the conversation:

Me: I would propose ET (Exploratory Testing) for testing this application as i dont find any value addition in doing scripted testing which i have been assigned which does not finds the bugs which ET can find.
Manager: Why?

Me: Its been more than 2 years since the development for this application started and and still their are so many bugs in the application which should have been caught by now. I would like to know from you what are the benifits of we doing scripted testing when it is serving no purpose.

Manager: Well i feel that their is already another group who is looking after this aspect of the application.

Me: You mean to say after the exploratory approach of testing.
Manager: Well i don't know what is exploratory testing ( The manager is from a development background), i only can suggest you at this moment that we have some goals to achieve and we have clear directions from higher management of how we achieve the same hence your priority should be to perform scripted testing.

Me: But it is not finding any bugs which should be our goal.
Manager: I already told you that other groups are taking care of this.

Me: ( I knew no other such group is doing this kind of testing) I would like to know who is that other group and if such a group exists then i would like to see how they are performing testing as according to me these bugs should have been identifed by now.
Manager: At this point i have no clue as their are so many teams working acroos the Globe so it would be difficult to identify and provide you the details, hence you pay attention to your goals for this year that is scripted tests.

Me: Are you aware of something called “Pesticide Paradox”?
Manager: No, what is this pesticide killer you are taling about.

Me: Well bugs are like pesticides in software terminology. As pesticides over a period of repeated application of a specific pesticide acquire immunity to it and fail to show their presence, in the same manner software bugs fail to show up and become immune to repeated application of specific Test cases which we call scripted testing. Might be some bug is lying in the system which our tests dont navigate through at all.

Their are still so many bugs lying in the application but since the way we are looking at quality is just to make sure that the important business processes keep on running hence we are not seeing the so many hidden bugs which makes me more concerned about the quality of the product.

The discussion continued for a long time and the output was negative as due to vastness of ERP applications generally quality is given a backseat and thing which is made sure is that the main functionality or the Business flow should work properly which the customers are going to use.

Customers also being not taught about the application and with limited knowledge just know what they have to follow to complete a scenario and follow the same steps. The scripted tests also are made sure so that they cover the business flow. So many bugs are left in the application and no one complains about it simply because the business scenarios are running and thats what customers are going to use, but what if the customers deviate from the normal process and do a bit different?

The attitude for quality should be present during testing and this should be well supported at an organizational level, for this we still need to educate ourselves a lot and give due respect to quality.

The point i like to highlight here is:

If the software testing team gets appreciation and their views are taken with due respect then we have many passionate testers who can do wonders for the company.

Sadly we dont find such managers and stakeholders, everyone is busy in thinking that why should i put my head in this dirty work, let me do what i am assigned to and achieve the objectives and goals assigned.

Appreciation and freedom given to express views and taking prompt actions on the same goes a long way in building good testers.

What do you say?

Madhukar.

Testing Google- Boundary Values Explored

Another interesting feature which i tested was Boundary value of Google's search box. I was reading this interesting post by Debasis and i found out the work done by him really impressive and thought of doing my own boundary value exploration for Google's search box...


Debasis has mentioned in his analysis that he found out the maximum no of characters which can be pasted in the box is 2048 and on further analysis he found that it is 1980 characters which when passed will result directly on a "Google 404 Bad request Page".


Here is what i have found:


I found that it is not the exact no 1980 which can cause the "Google 404 Bad request" page. I found it to be something else. I found that it is not the no. of characters which really matter for getting the bad request page, however it is the positioning and placements of few special characters like #,@, ( to name a few which were causing bad request page.

We need to definitely explore a bit in deep to find out what exactly causes bad request page because after my initial investigations i am now sure that it is something which needs time and deep investigation to be done to find out the exact reason.


I found out that i was able to reproduce the "Google 404 Bad request" page several times using different combinations and different placements of characters in the search string. The interesting part was that whenever i included a ( after several @ symbols in my search string, the result would automatically shift the line starting with ( on the next line. For more clarity check out the snapshot here.


I was surprised that why the search was displaying (, # and few other characters in next line of search results. I found out that increasing the no. of #'s in the search string was increasing the chances of minimising the 1980 barrier required to get a Bad request page. I pasted the string mentioned below which has 770 characters in it..


_________####_______________#############____________________+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++@@@@@@@@######@@@+++++@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@(((((((((((((((((((++++++++))))))))))((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@((((((((((((((((((((((((@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@))))))))))))))))))))))##################################################################********************************(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((=====================================================================================================================================((((((((((((((((((((()))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))0#################################################(######


Paste the above string exactly in the Google search box and you will find that when we press Search Button we get the bad request error. Now if i reduce the above string to 769 characters i was not getting bad request error.

The interesting part was that sometimes this bad request error comes also when i have 765 characters and sometimes it does not comes.


Strange but true.. I see definitely here a relation between how we place characters and which characters are at what position has definitely to do something with bad request page.


I am sure that we can even further reduce the no of characters to get bad request page.


Output:


We need to explore more on what exactly causes Bad Request Page..


Happy Googling..
Madhukar.