How accurately do online comments represent the true underlying sentiment of a product’s customers? New research sheds light on several important dynamics that affect the opinions that customers post about products.
Social Media has generated an unprecedented volume of word of mouth surrounding brands and products. Customers who had historically engaged in water-cooler discussions with coworkers or backyard conversations with neighbors are now turning to online ratings and reviews, blogs, discussion groups and Twitter feeds. Previously private conversations are now publicly visible to potential customers and product managers.
From the standpoint of companies, social media can provide valuable customer feedback about their products by allowing them to eavesdrop on these conversations. The desire to listen in on customers’ online conversations about products is so pervasive across companies that it has spawned a cottage industry of listening companies that regularly scan online conversations to gauge customer sentiment.
But how accurately do these conversations represent the true underlying sentiment of a product’s customers? To probe this question, we analyzed product ratings and sales over time from a popular online retailer. By studying rating behavior at the level of individual contributors, we uncovered several key dynamics that drive the evolution of online forums. We subsequently demonstrated how these dynamics influence product sales by relating online opinions to sales performance across a sample of products.
Σάββατο 29 Οκτωβρίου 2011
Link popularity --- To be linked or not
If you have a website, all you want is traffic, as more hits translates more sales. But getting good amount of traffic is not a simple task, for this you need to have a higher page ranking in Google’s search results. As Google rank websites based on the number of links that point to the site, link popularity has been seen as a golden egg in the search engine optimization industry. It is true that Google ranks website according to the number of links that points towards that site. People link to good sites and not the bad ones so it makes sense. Most of the webmasters unanimously advocate the role of link popularity in page ranking scheme. So don’t miss the buzz.
Website linking scheme-
1.Incoming links - if one site ‘A’ links to other site ‘B’ then ‘B’ gets an incoming link. These types of links are highly valued by major search engines. Incoming links show that your website provides good information therefore people link to you naturally.
2.Outgoing links – if site ‘A’ links to site ‘B’ then site A gives outbound links to ‘B’. And if you give lots of good and useful outbound links then search engines see you a directory and likely to give you better ranking.
3.Reciprocal links - if ‘A’ links to ‘B’ and in exchange ‘B’ links back to ‘A’ then it is called a reciprocal link and search engines perceive it as an agreement between the two webmasters. In that case the search engines disvalue both of the links.
Now more and more webmasters in the race of getting their page rank high in search engine results are falling prey to the link swapping scheme. You cannot fool the search engines by you-link-to-me and i-link –to –you technique. Though it is true that Google ranks websites higher that have more links pointing TO the site, it is also true that search engine use highly sophisticated tools and their page rank formula keep changing to curb link swapping. More Enterprising webmasters put all their link swaps on one single page and end up creating link farms. And when Google robot finds a link farm then the website is penalized. And if one website is listed in many link farms then it is removed from the search engine. So link swap should be a no- no. Whenever you get an email requesting you putting a website link on your page just because it’s done, so be alert. Think once before you swap link, that only those webmaster who have zero traffic request you to do so.
It is not that anybody is advocating against link building, on the contrary they are highly useful. but always go to place those links on your page that give information and can be of good use to your visitor. When one places a legitimate and useful link on the webpage, it shows a low link density. Google’ ranking formula gives this website a thumbs-up and awards it with a higher ranking. On the other hand if Google finds a page with high link density i.e. having numerous links with frivolous content then it gets negative score. And negative score means lower rank in search engine results. So don’t try to trick search engines as it never pays.
The best and simple yet time consuming way to get links is to have meaningful content. Try to make your website best in the respective industry. If your site is loaded with useful information and constantly updated, you are most likely to get other sites linking to you. Provide valuable content; write articles, post comments and all this will get you desired results. Or you can hire an SEO firm to work for you content but never try to scam or trick search engines.
Website linking scheme-
1.Incoming links - if one site ‘A’ links to other site ‘B’ then ‘B’ gets an incoming link. These types of links are highly valued by major search engines. Incoming links show that your website provides good information therefore people link to you naturally.
2.Outgoing links – if site ‘A’ links to site ‘B’ then site A gives outbound links to ‘B’. And if you give lots of good and useful outbound links then search engines see you a directory and likely to give you better ranking.
3.Reciprocal links - if ‘A’ links to ‘B’ and in exchange ‘B’ links back to ‘A’ then it is called a reciprocal link and search engines perceive it as an agreement between the two webmasters. In that case the search engines disvalue both of the links.
Now more and more webmasters in the race of getting their page rank high in search engine results are falling prey to the link swapping scheme. You cannot fool the search engines by you-link-to-me and i-link –to –you technique. Though it is true that Google ranks websites higher that have more links pointing TO the site, it is also true that search engine use highly sophisticated tools and their page rank formula keep changing to curb link swapping. More Enterprising webmasters put all their link swaps on one single page and end up creating link farms. And when Google robot finds a link farm then the website is penalized. And if one website is listed in many link farms then it is removed from the search engine. So link swap should be a no- no. Whenever you get an email requesting you putting a website link on your page just because it’s done, so be alert. Think once before you swap link, that only those webmaster who have zero traffic request you to do so.
It is not that anybody is advocating against link building, on the contrary they are highly useful. but always go to place those links on your page that give information and can be of good use to your visitor. When one places a legitimate and useful link on the webpage, it shows a low link density. Google’ ranking formula gives this website a thumbs-up and awards it with a higher ranking. On the other hand if Google finds a page with high link density i.e. having numerous links with frivolous content then it gets negative score. And negative score means lower rank in search engine results. So don’t try to trick search engines as it never pays.
The best and simple yet time consuming way to get links is to have meaningful content. Try to make your website best in the respective industry. If your site is loaded with useful information and constantly updated, you are most likely to get other sites linking to you. Provide valuable content; write articles, post comments and all this will get you desired results. Or you can hire an SEO firm to work for you content but never try to scam or trick search engines.
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