Find Bugs In Oculus Rift And Earn Money From Facebook

The concept of bug bounty is nothing new. You play around with an online service, discover security vulnerabilities and get paid for identifying them for the company instead of exploiting them. Facebook has a bug bounty program as well, and that includes some select acquisitions as well such as Instagram, Onavo, Moves and Parse. Facebook recently announced that it will now extend this program to its latest acquisition, Oculus Rift - a virtual reality product from Oculus VR.




Do these bounty programs really work?

Bug bounties are awarded at the discretion of Facebook's bug bounty team. You have a good chance of winning cash if your bug qualifies. Facebook handed out more $1.5 Million in the last year as bug bounty for thousands of testers who helped secure the site, and various other apps under its umbrella such as Instagram, Moves etc.

Facebook purchased Oculus in March this year for $2 Billion, and now wants you, developers, to test out the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset - Facebook's first hardware product.

How much can you earn?

Under the program, individual security researchers who report bugs to Facebook may be financially rewarded. The minimum reward is $500, but there is no maximum limit - you could end up earning thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of $$$ if the security flaw you find is sufficiently big.

Where to find bugs?

You can hunt for flaws in the code for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, the SDK (Software Development Kit) and the website.

Even though this is Facebook's first hardware device, according to a Facebook security engineer Neal Poole, the majority of bugs related to Oculus Rift are in the message system for Oculus developers and parts of the website. As a result, the bugs are similar to the ones found in the social network.

  "A lot of the issues that come up with Oculus are not necessarily in the hardware yet," Poole says.       "Potentially in the future, if people were to go explore and find issues in the SDK or the hardware,        that is definitely of interest to us."

However, since Oculus is the company's first hardware product, Facebook's security team may start getting a new species of bug. If you're a security researcher and own the device, you must try your hands at exposing vulnerabilities and earning some quick bucks!

Good luck :)

How To Add Enhanced Sitelinks To Bing Ads?

Bing Ads is the Bing equivalent of Google AdWords, where marketers and advertisers aim to capture the attention of potential customers searching for products or services online. We reported that Bing has just rolled out enhanced sitelinks worldwide for Bing Ads users. These enhanced sitelinks let advertisers add specialized links to their website within the ads, thereby creating a bigger and bolder advertisement to capture more user attention.




Today, we'll talk about how you can add enhanced sitelinks for your site to appear in ads.
What are Enhanced sitelinks?

Enhanced Sitelinks is a new format of Sitelink Extensions that allows you to add up to two lines of customizable, descriptive text to your Sitelink Extension. The result is a larger, more relevant and descriptive ad, and a more captivating ad format by which to attract your target audience.

Here's an example;

Bing claims that after the introduction of this feature, advertisers in the U.S. have seen an average rise in click-through rate by 27%, going as high as 68% for some. This is a phenomenal statistic, and gives advertisers all the more reason to add enhanced sitelinks.
How to add Enhanced Sitelinks?

From your Bing Ads dashboard, go to the Ad Extensions tab and choose Sitelink Extensions

Select the sitelink extension you want to add Enhanced Sitelinks to by checking the box on the left-hand side of your screen
Click on Edit an extension from the Edit drop-down menu
Click on the sitelink(s) you want to add a description to, and then write in your description(s)

You can also choose the Device preference by checking the Mobile box.  Bing Ads will give preference to those Sitelinks in mobile devices. Note that Enhanced Sitelinks is currently not supported in mobile devices.  You can select the Mobile preference without entering Sitelink descriptions

Click Save and repeat for other Sitelinks

Only high-quality ads serving in the top position in the ad block above the algo results will trigger Enhanced Sitelinks. Therefore, make sure you focus your efforts on high performing campaigns such as your brand term campaigns first.

If you have problems or questions regarding the addition of enhanced sitelinks in your ads, shoot us a question in the comments section below!

Google To Show Tweets In Search Results Pages

Twitter has just confirmed today that it has signed a Firehose deal with Google, which will bring Twitter news to non-Twitter/logged out users. For the benefit of both the companies, this deal will make Twitter's feeds directly accessible to Google, meaning that Google can now display tweets in its Search Results pages in real-time.




Google had a pretty similar deal with Twitter years ago, but that was dropped in 2011. Google previously had to crawl Twitter for new information - pretty much like it crawls every other website.

However, the new deal once again gives Google immediate access to Twitter's live data stream, which means that the slow crawling process can be done away with, and tweets can be made visible in SERPs in real-time.

The changes will incrementally start taking place within the next few months.

Back in 2009, Google was able to index tweets automatically. But that deal sort of fell away as the then CEO wanted to have control over the network's content. Now though, things have changed. Twitter is very focused now on bringing more traffic to its content and possibly monetizing that to greater effect. So this new Google deal will give Twitter just what it needs - more eyeballs for its content. According to CEO Dick Costolo;
 “We've got the opportunity now to drive and aggregate eyeballs to logged-out experiences that we plan to deliver on the front page of Twitter,” he continued, “and that’s why it makes a lot more sense now.”
This can also be seen as an expansion strategy. Twitter is obviously set on targeting logged-out or non-Twitter users with this update. This would serve to bring new users over to the network,  and is exactly the type of attitude the company needs right now as it’s growth in terms of both daily active users and stock price has fallen flat as of late.

So what does Google stand to gain in all this?

This deal is being described as a win-win for both companies. In addition to potentially accelerating Twitter’s growth, it’s also good for Google because the ability to index real-time tweets is valuable for searchers.

Of course, this deal also stands to greatly benefit businesses and publishers as well, as their search engine visibility and social media audience will be amplified. Hence, a new arena for Bloggers and content markets to explore (:

How Can Websites Rank Well Without Backlinks?

A large proportion of people out there seem to believe that backlinks form the backbone of a website's SEO strategy. Having high-quality and relevant backlinks has its advantages, but are they a necessity? We have talked aboutthis topic many times in the past. Today, I'd like to share highlights from Googler John Mueller's recent hangout where he proved that backlinks, while important, are not a must for ranking well in Google!

John Mueller is the Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google. He shared an instance of a website ranking well without backlinks during his hangout at the GooglePlex with two of his colleagues. Here's the video of the hangout, with adjusted starting position.



Someone asked at the 26 minutes and 3 seconds mark, why does Google use links for ranking at the level they do. He said, Google should use other means to rank sites. Of course, he knows they do use other factors but his point was why do they place so much weight on links.

John Mueller answered that saying they do have tons of other factors outside of just links.
John then said he has a friend of his who is “back home” in Zurich, his friend just put up a new web site for the local neighborhood. The new site does not have any links at all and over 300 pages are indexed and pages are ranking and they are getting a lot of traffic from search.

No one ever linked to the site ever, he said, but they did submit sitemaps to Google and they have an RSS feed.

The web site does fairly well without any links at all, John said. So it is not the case you absolutely need links to rank, he added. John did say that links are "obviously" it is part of Google’s ranking factors, but it isn’t something Google only relies on.

We know a year ago, Matt Cutts said Google did try turning off links in their ranking algorithm and the results were horrible. We also know that Yandex, the huge Russian search engine, did remove links from a niche segment in their ranking algorithm when that segment was spammed to death.

With that being said, let's not forget the importance of backlinks. But the point here is, there are many other factors you need to be focusing on as well.

Create A Great Website That Is Valuable To Your Audience

Are you an entrepreneur looking to set up a new blog or website? The Google Webmaster Academy can help! Ever since its launch in 2012, it has helped hundreds and thousands of webmasters take their websites from mere startups to large money-making ventures. However, going over each resource from the academy can be time-consuming. Here's our version on how to build a website from scratch to greatness.


   This is the first post in the series.

Part 1: How To Create A Great Website That Is Valuable To Your Audience?

Part 2: Coming Soon

Part 3: Coming Soon

Step 1: Setting up a new website

Setting up a website is the easiest part. But you have to get out of the comfort of a sub-domain, and spend a few bucks on buying a custom domain name and hosting (unless you're Blogger, in which case you just need to buy a domain).

But before that, you need to decide whether you want a blog, or a website.

Read: 5 Major Differences Between a Website and a Blog

If you decide that you want to get a blog, you have the choice between two of the most popular platforms, Blogger and WordPress.

Again, Read: Blogger or WordPress?

By now, you should have figured out what you want to do in life whether to set up a website or a blog (and which one). The next step is to select a domain name. The following post will tell you (almost) all you need to know about choosing domain name

10 Tips To Buy Useful Domain Names

Now, it's time to look into a domain name registrar and web hosting provider. We would recommend going either with GoDaddy (for registering domain name) and HostGator (for web hosting), since we have experience with these companies and they have never let us down. But of course, you can pick another company of your choosing, as long as it is either HostGator or GoDaddy :) (just kidding).

Step 2: Identifying a target audience

Before you create content, you should identify your site's audience. These are the people you want to visit your site. For example, the audience for brandonsbaseballcards.com include people who are interested in baseball cards. Once you identify your audience, you can create content that is useful and relevant to them.

Understand your audience

You can use a powerful tool called Google Trends to explore trends and related keywords your audience might be searching. A search for "baseball" shows variations and related terms that people have searched in addition to "baseball". You can see when and where these searches come from, along with search volume for different terms. It also shows interesting trends over time associated with search terms. Understanding related terms to your site’s content helps you to create more relevant content for your audience, leading to more people finding your site.

Gather a test audience

Once you have plans for your website written down, show your friends and family to gather feedback. Ask them what they think of your site as a potential visitor. You can also conduct surveys or usability tests. Ask insightful questions: What would they expect to find on your site? Is there missing information that they would find useful? Hearing what others have to say about your site can help you relate to your audience better.

Now that you've identified your audience, you can begin creating content with them in mind.

Step 3: Creating high quality content

The key to creating a great website is to create the best possible experience for your audience with original and high quality content. If people find your site useful and unique, they may come back again or link to your content on their own websites. This can help attract more people to your site over time.

As you begin creating content, make sure your website is:

• Useful and informative: If you’re launching a site for a restaurant, you can include the location, hours of operation, contact information, menu, and a blog to share upcoming events.
• More valuable and useful than other sites: If you write about how to train a dog, make sure your article provides more value or a different perspective than the numerous articles on the web on dog training.
• A recognized authority on a subject: Think about how your users might identify authority by using original research, citations, links, or references. Things like a short author biography can help boost your articles’ trustworthiness and reputation.
• High quality: Your site’s content should be unique, specific, and high quality. It should not be mass-produced or outsourced on a large number of other sites. Keep in mind that your content should be created primarily to give visitors a good user experience, not to rank well in search engines.
• Engaging: Bring color and life to your site by adding images of your products, your team, or yourself. Make sure visitors are not distracted by spelling, stylistic, and factual errors. An excessive amount of ads can also be distracting for visitors. Engage visitors by interacting with them through regular updates, comment boxes, or social media widgets.
• Protected from user-generated spam: If your site contains user generated content such as comments and forums, read the User-generated spam article and watch this video to learn how to create a spam policy in place to protect your site from malicious users.

Google Webmaster Guidelines

It's important to familiarize yourself with our Webmaster Guidelines. Our guidelines outline practices that could negatively impact your site’s performance in Google Search. If content on your site violates any guidelines, we'll inform you through Webmaster Tools. We’ll focus on Webmaster Guidelines and Webmaster Tools in Module 2.3.

Step 4: Site Structure

As a webmaster, you want your users to quickly and easily navigate your site to find the content they are looking for. You also want search engines to easily crawl your site and understand the content that you consider important.
site structure

Create a clear and logical structure for your website

All sites have a home or "root" page. It’s usually the most visited page on a site and the starting place of navigation for visitors. Unless your site has only a handful of pages, you should think about how visitors will go from your home or root page to a page containing more specific content.
Showcase a navigation bar

Help users navigate within your site with a useful navigation bar. A navigation bar allows you to call out important sections of your website. Create intuitive and organized categories such as ‘Home’ and 'News' and don’t overwhelm your visitors with too many choices. You can place the navigation bar on the top or side of each page for easy access.

Use informative URLs

When users search for a term or phrase in a search engine, the URL can help them determine if there is relevant content on that particular page. For example, example.com/article123.htm isn't as descriptive as example.com/latest-soccer-news.htm.

5: Mobile Optimization

With increasing smartphone usage, mobile is now just as important as desktop. As a webmaster, it's important to prepare a mobile version of your website. Learn best practices for setting up mobile-optimized websites to provide the best user experience and to avoid configuration mistakes. The following posts will help.

Got questions? Ask away! And stay tuned for more posts in the series. Cheers :)