Megaupload.com, one of the largest file-sharing sites in the world, was shut down on Thursday with its founder and several company executives charged with piracy law violation.

An indictment accuses Megaupload.com of costing copyright holders a giant loss of $US500 million in revenue from pirated films and other content.

The indictment was unsealed one day following the temporary shutting down of well-known websites including craiglist and Wikipedia in protest ay congressional proposals intended to stop online piracy.

Megaupload.com had previously been endorsed by artists such as Alicia Keys,  Kanye West, and Kim Kardashian, among others.

Common SEO Mistakes Still Being Made by Retail Websites

Most organizations understand the importance of Search Engine Optimization in ensuring a higher rank for the website in search engine result pages.

This is meant to attract more traffic to the web pages but the problem is that the SEO efforts by the most prominent of organizations are still marked by glaring errors that call for attention and immediate rectification.

Organizations are likely to gain immensely by avoiding such mistakes:

1. Lack of appropriate content

It is often observed that organizations seek to give importance to the aesthetics of the pages. This results in marked improvement in the visual quality of the pages but the content does not match up to the same.

Some pages do not have any verbal content at all. Content optimization and appropriate verbal description of products is an essential constituent of the overall SEO process.

Lack of appropriate content deals a telling blow to the effort that goes into increasing the page of a rank. Optimizing the content of home page may make it rank higher on the result pages but the other pages are likely to go unnoticed.

2. Vague URLs

The URLs of pages should be such that these are indicative of the content of the web page. These should also contain the keywords that are meant to be highlighted on the page.

Many organizations overlook this important factor.

The use of Content Management Systems which generate URLs that are devoid of page description are a setback for the overall search engine optimization process.

3. No provision for user reviews

User reviews serve the dual purpose of giving a favorable opinion of the product and optimizing the page content. The content is optimized as the review of the product is likely to carry keywords relating to the search for the specific product category.

Originality of the content is a further advantage. Retail websites that do not offer buyers the provision to give a review lose out on the opportunity to capitalize on the product’s goodwill among buyers.

4. Little attention to meta descriptions

Making the page rank higher in search results is not enough. The meta descriptions serve as an advertisement for the content of the page. Many organizations lose out on this after doing all the work to ensure that the page ranks higher.

Improperly worded meta descriptions can direct the potential customers to other portals. This spells doom for any retail website.

5. Content repetition

In the virtual world, the uniqueness of the content counts above all. A retail website that uses the same content to describe similar products or the portals that put the same product under various categories and thus present multiple copies of the description of the product themselves weaken the pages in terms of rankings in search engine results.

6. Neglecting the brand as the keyword

Many organizations make an effort to rank higher on keywords that are arrived at after a lot of research but it is observed that they lag behind in the search results for their own brands and products. This is a blunder on the part of the organizations.

Search Engine Optimization is immensely important as it ensures traffic for websites. This drives the sales and the revenues for business portals.

The people at the helm of the affairs can ensure better business prospects by doing away with such bloopers. It does not require a herculean effort. Only a logical understanding of things will suffice.

About the author: Ellen is a blogger by profession. She loves to write on technology and gadgets. She can’t live without her mobile phone. Beside this she is fond of Mac Apps. She recently completed an article on ipad dock.

Common SEO Mistakes Still Being Made by Retail Websites