SEO Blog

You must have saved several useful bookmarks in your web browsers. Even I have collected a large list of most creative website on the net , but what will happen if several users located worldwide try to access and view my bookmarks. This is simply not possible due to strict internet security guidelines.

However there is another way of making your bookmarks accessible to worldwide audiences by saving your bookmarks on Social Bookmarking websites. You can not only save your favorite websites, but you can also send them to your friends. This helps to exchange bookmarks with your friends just like sharing some nice stamp collection with your friends.

Social Bookmarking is a way to store, organize, manage and search useful bookmarks from a variety of business topics arranged in specific folders or tags.

So you can simply jump into Social Bookmarking websites to save your useful bookmarks. If you have found some useful article/video/news or anything, then you can save this link as a bookmark on a Social Bookmarking website. This will help others to view and access your saved bookmarks. If your article/blog or anything else was informative and helpful, then several other users will start linking your bookmark, thus helping you to receive clicks from several online users. Moreover links saved on Social Bookmarking websites receive instant exposure from search engines. Most of the bookmarked links are immediately crawled by search engines.

So, something that started as a way to send bookmarks to friends has now grown into social search engine. You don’t need to find a needle in a haystack. Now, you can just simply go to any Social Bookmarking site, choose the right category or tag that matches your interest, and find the most popular websites in that category.

Some of the popular Social Bookmarking websites are :-

• Digg - Digg is a place for people to discover new website and share content from anywhere on the internet.
• Technorati - Technorati is the most popular website that keeps you updated on what’s happening on the Web, right now.
• Del.icio.us - Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website which enables you store your bookmarks online and share it with your friends.
• Propeller - Propeller is Social Bookmarking Website and is a part of the AOL Network .
• StumbleUpon - It is a Bookmarking website that helps you discover and share good websites.
• Reddit - This is a very popular Bookmarking website that lets you discover new websites and share it with other users.
• Fark - Fark is a Website,which is a news aggregator and a social networking news site.
• Mybloglog - Mybloglog lets you share your favourite Blogs and discover new ones.
• Slashdot - Slashdot is a fusion of Article submission and a Bookmarking website and it is owned by SourceForge, Inc.
• Kaboodle - It is a kind of social shopping community where people discover, share products that they like.
• Bloglines - Bloglines is a website for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and great websites.
• Newsvine - Get latest news topic wise,also you can share news with your friends using Bookmarking.
• Brinklist - This website allows you to save websites, share with others and you can also keep your bookmarks private.
• Netvouz - On Netvouz you can share your bookmarks with other users and, of course also benefit from other’s bookmarks.
• Clipmarks.com - On Clipmarks bookmarking, you can see clips of text, images or video about various topics that other people find while surfing net.
• Furl - Furl gives you ability to save the important websites you discover on the Web and enables you to quickly find them again.
• Mister-wong - This is a Bookmarking website that allows you to save ,share your favourite links online.
• DZone - Dzone is a favourite links-sharing community for developers,programers .
• Gnolia - It gives you ability to find new websites and build your online community.
• Shoutwire - On shoutwire you can share News for the masses that you feel important.
• Simpy - This is a simple Bookmarking website which gives option to save, search your own bookmarks and notes or browse and search other users’ links.
• BlogMarks - Blog Marks is a collaborative link management project which allows sharing and key-word tagging for blogs.
• Bluedot - It enables you to discover ,share websites from people like you.
• Linkswarm -This provides bizarre news, updated every day with fresh new links.
• Spotback - On Spotback you can add your website and allow users to rate everything that you publish.
• Plugim - On Plugim you can ubmit content, share articles, comment and promote your favorites .
• Mybookmarks - This website allows you to access your bookmarks online anytime, anywhere.

Search Engine Optimization is evolving at a fast pace. Several new changes have been incorporated to make search engines more efficient in terms of presenting useful information to their users.
Page Rank (Google PR) and Trust Rank are the two main issues which are discussed frequently on various SEO forums. Although, both these terms are related to SEO, they have different relationship with the actual rankings of your website. Your actual rankings are known as SERPs in the SEO world which stands for the Search Engine Ranking Positions of your website/webpages on Google/Yahoo. Let us first begin with Page Rank.

a) Page Rank – Page Rank is the numerical value, weighting 1-10 for any single website or webpage. Page Rank represents the PR (Page Rank) strength of any given website. However, Page Rank should not be conufused with the actual ranking strength of any website (i.e. your actual SERPs ). If you have installed Google Toolbar, you would be able to see page rank of several different websites .

Page rank is generally calculated by search engines by analyzing and calculating various back links pointing towards a particular website. Google Page rank algorithm uses its own complex alrorithmic formulas to calculate Page Rank of any given website or webpage.

So far so good, but the real question comes up “Whether Page Rank has any relationship with the actual rankings of your website?” The answer is a big NO.

There are several hundred webmasters discussing increase/decrease in Page Rank on various forums, but none of them realize the importance of their actual SERPs as compared to Page Rank.

There are several hundred websites with low PR (1 or 2), and several of these websites genuinely overshadow other high ranking competitor websites with higher Page Ranks (generally 4-5 or even higher than that).

There is a wrong misconception among several webmasters that higher the page rank, higher will be their rankings on search engines. The truth is that your increase or decrease in page rank has no relationship with the actual rankings of your website.

There are several webmasters who will argue that if any website sees a steep decline in their Page Rank, then it could be an indication of drop in their actual SERPs. If your website is having some major SEO issue related to content or links on your website, then your actual rankings (SERPs) will drop first. Once you observe a drop in SERPs, your Page Rank will eventually drop after a period of 2-3 months. Till the next update in Page Rank, the Google Toolbar will keep pulling PR Data from its stored database.

Your SERPs relies on the current status of your website whereas PR relies on the stored database which gets updated only once in every 2-3 or 3-4 months.

Case Study: Take for example, Google and Yahoo launches a free web directory for webmasters around the globe. Now this directory will show PR 0 for period of 3-4 months. Does this imply that this directory is useless in terms of its importance? I am sure you wont need explanation since the answer is NO.

After 3 months this directory will score a page rank of 6. This does not imply that this directory was worthless on a day before the page rank update took place. The PR for this directory was calculated somewhere in between 2-3 months, but only got officially displayed after 3 months in Google Toolbar.

These issues shift our focus from Page Rank towards another important hidden factor known as Trust Rank. This is the real factor which heavily influences your SERPs on various search engines including Google and Yahoo.

b) Trust Rank – The Google/Yahoo Trust Rank is one of the most important factors in determining actual rankings of your website i.e. your SERPs. Trust Rank is the Trust levels granted to any single website on the net. This Trust Rank helps certain websites to score higher rankings on search engines.

Let us try to anticipate some of the hidden factors which could influence Trust Rank of your website.

a) Age/History of your domain – The age of your domain is an important factor which can increase your Page Rank as well. There are several domains which are 5-6 years old and have higher rankings as compared to any other website within the same business category. Search Engines also rely on the history of your domain to detect any SPAM activity.

You can change everything in SEO, but you cannot change Age/History of any domain. Therefore search engines could rely on this factor to grant Trust status to certain websites.

b) Quality of your back links – Now quality of your back links doesn’t necessarily mean higher Page Rank links. In most of the cases it is observed that a website with Page Rank 2 is far much beneficial than getting a back link from a similar Page Rank 4 website. Search engines can easily detect any unnatural pattern in the back links of your website. If you purchase 50 back links with PR 3-4, then surely Google can detect it easily. The worst part is that your Page Rank is not related with Trust Rank, but these activities will lower your Page Rank as well as your Trust Rank. This paid link activity will increase your Page Rank, but it will lower you Trust Rank which ultimately decides ranking of your website.

c) Content on your website – There are several article websites which have observed steep decline in their traffic on both Google and Yahoo. The reason behind this decline is the duplicate articles which are submitted to several hundred websites by various webmasters and SEO. Several of these article websites have suffered consequences of duplicate penalty. Although there are several SEO’s who will argue that duplicate penalty is just a myth. There are some who will say that duplicate penalty does exist, but it is more like having your duplicate content in supplement index. However, the truth is that if your content goes into supplement index, then obviously it will lower your Trust Rank.

One should concentrate on producing high quality content, rather than having bulk of content. If your content is good and informative, other webmasters will automatically start linking to your website.

d) Optimization History of your domain – It could be possible that search engines store the optimization history of any single domain to determine their Trust Rank. If your website purchased 50,000 back links in 2006, then surely Google will keep an account of that activity to determine your Trust Rank.

Let us watch Dr.Matt Cutts live in action explaining and hiding Trust Rank at the same time. The video gives good information, but surely something is too secret about Trust Rank.

On the other hand there are certain SEO techniques which could lower your Trust Rank. You should avoid these SEO techniques which will ultimately effect your actual search engine rankings or SERPs. Read about these SEO activities at : http://blog.seohawk.com/avoid-these-seo-techniques/

All these factors can help to determine the Trust Rank of your website. There is no tool to detect Trust Rank as compared to Page Rank. However, one should try to follow a natural pattern in search engine optimization. This will help you gain higher Trust Rank which will ultimately decide the actual rankings of your website. Trust Rank is the hidden factor used by both Google and Yahoo while determining actual rankings of any website. Page Rank algorithm is completely different from Trust Rank Algorithm. Trust Rank effects your actual rankings, whereas your Page Rank effects your PR within Google Toolbar. Page Rank can never be considered as a parameter to gauge ranking strength of any given website. A website with extremely low Trust Rank could show a high Page Rank, whereas a website with low Page Rank could have a high Trust Rank. This is the reason why there are several websites ranking above other high Page Rank websites. It is extremely important to understand the difference between these two aspects of Search Engine Optimization.
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Search Engine Marketing

Search engine optimization is one of the most sought after internet marketing services worldwide. There are several different techniques used by SEO’s around the globe. Some of these techniques have become stale while some of these techniques have expired way back in 2005-2006. A website which is ranking higher in search engine result gets more visitors than those which are not listed on the top pages of search results. Over the years several webmasters and SEO optimizers have been inventing techniques to score higher rankings on various search engines including Google, Yahoo and some other. Some of these techniques like submitting unique articles could really help your website to score higher rankings. On the other hand, several techniques like link exchanges could put your website in trouble (if done unscrupulously ). There are some basic guidelines which everyone should follow while optimizing their website. The first and the most important one are Google webmaster guidelines. Google is regularly updating its ranking algorithm. Each day you will come across some update in the ranking algorithm OR you can say that Google is applying patches to its existing algorithm. One must ensure that you adhere to the guidelines laid by Google if you are planning to score higher rankings on Google.

Read Google Webmaster Guideline : Click Here

Let’s now start with the techniques which should be avoided while optimizing website on search engines.

A) On-Page Optimization

1. Hidden Text – Hidden text could get your website penalized on search engines. Google and other search engines are not yet fully equipped to detect and penalize websites using hidden text. However hidden text could be reported by your competitor, which could hit your website like a boomerang. If your website is detected by search engine crawler or is manually detected by Google team, then you have less chances of retaining your website rankings. SEO Tip: Avoid hidden text at every cost. In case your website has been penalized, then try to remove every single instance of hidden text from your web pages.
2. Keyword Stuffing – Keyword stuffing should be avoided at every single cost. Over the past few years, search engines have shifted their focus from on-page optimization towards off-page optimization. Nowadays, search engines are giving preference to websites which maintain a balance between their off-page and on-page optimization techniques. Keyword stuffing can be easily detected by search engines including Google and Yahoo. Once detected, it will ultimately squeeze your rankings for your targeted keyword (or artificially stuffed keyword). Most of these websites get labeled as “Spammy websites” by search engines.SEO Tip : Make sure that your keyword density is natural. There are several websites which will put figures around ideal keyword density (ie 5-7% of the overall text). However, you should try to keep your website natural in terms of content and keyword density.
3. Cloaking – Cloaking is the technique to display different content to search engine spiders (based on their I.P addresses). This content is different from the normal format and content of your website as viewed by human visitor.Cloaking was widely used during 2005-2006, but in the past few years search engines have upgraded their algorithms. They are smart enough to detect any suspicious activities like Cloaking. If you are using cloaking technique, then you are preparing your website for a hara-kiri which your website will perform automatically. If you dislike your website too much, then it is the perfect way of getting rid of your rankings and search engine traffic ;). If you really want to get rid of your website rankings, then try adding some duplicate content.
4. Duplicate Content – Duplicate content is one of the most serious SEO offences. There are several webmasters who argue that duplicate content simply puts your website in supplement index. However if your website rankings are shifted from page 1 to page 500 then it cannot be termed as a shift towards supplement index. Duplicate penalty is one of the most serious penalties which can suck your website’s ranking power. Further, duplicate penalty will lower the Page Rank as well as Trust Rank of your website.
5. Doorway Pages – Doorway pages are artificial pages with artificial content. The sole purpose of having a doorway page is to gain higher rankings for a specific set of targeted keywords. These pages are specifically designed and kept outside the main navigation menu or links. These pages rely heavily on a particular set of targeted keywords. SEO Tip : If you really want to target a particular set of keyword, then try adding a blog section and add some useful content which is helpful for your visitors as well as search engines. Make sure you do not copy-paste articles from various ezine websites.
6. HTML/Programming errors - Webmasters should ensure that their website is error-free. This will help search engines to easily crawl your website. If your website designer forgets to close the <H1> tag, then it could make your website look spammy. However most of the HTML errors are accidental, and should it avoided. There are several websites which get penalized due to some serious errors in their HTML coding.There are several webmasters who use external redirection without waiting for a gap of 5 seconds. There are several websites, which get penalized due to this redirection issue. SEO Tip : You should create a Google webmaster account which will help you detect any serious HTML errors. Most of the errors get listed under your website profile and should be removed quickly. Further, you can try to make your website W3C validated, which will help to ensure that your html coding is 100% error free.

B) Off-Page Optimization

1. Buying Links – Buying links was widely popular in 2005, where some websites used to purchase links in tune of 10,000-50,000. However this started to jeopardize the real objective of search engines i.e to give preference to natural websites with best content and information. This is the reason why search engines have started to nullify back links which are purchased from high PR websites. The page rank (Google PR) of any website has no connection with the actual rankings of your website on Google, but still there are several hundred “ignorant” webmasters who simply want back links from PR3-4 websites alone. This could easily trigger sandbox on your website. If you are purchasing links in bulk, then it can be detected by search engines as well.Moreover purchasing bulk of back links with same anchor text is more like performing Hara-Kiri (suicide) on your own website. If you have made your mind to purchase back links from particular websites, then you should make it look natural. Try using wide variety of anchor text, but at the same time you must ensure that you are not going overboard in purchasing links. A website which is only concentrating on purchased links will suffer the consequences. You should try not to entangle yourself in the “Page Rank Matrix”. If Google or Yahoo launches a new directory, I am sure it will remain Page Rank 0, for a period of 3-4 months. Till that time, several “ignorant webmasters” will reject this free directory due to its PR0, but the smart ones will know why they must submit their link to this PR 0 website.
2. Link Exchanges – Link exchange technique was widely popular in 2005-2006. However in the past 1-2 years, search engines have started to give less significance to websites relying on link exchange techniques. Link exchange techniques were widely used in 2005-2006 where website owners used to create link directory on their website and exchanged links with several hundred or even thousand of websites. In the past few years, search engines have started to clamp down on websites which rely heavily on link exchange techniques. Link exchange can still be used, but you need to be more careful and vigilant. However, you must completely avoid automated link exchanges in any form. They will ultimately result in SEO penalty.You will find several emails landing in your inbox with text “Hey ! I got PR blah blah , do you want to exchange with my blah blah website”. It is disheartening to see that so many webmasters and SEO’s have entangled themselves within the boundaries of Google Page Rank. People are willing to exchange links with websites having higher PR, but they never give a thought about Trust Rank of the website with whom they are exchanging links.SEO Tip: Try to exchange links with websites which are related to your business theme. A web design related website can easily exchange link with another flash design website. However you should make sure not to exchange links with websites which are outside your business niche.

You should make sure that your optimization process is both natural and healthy. You should make sure not to use any hidden SEO Techniques ( especially on-page) which could result in lower rankings of your website. If your website is not adhering to on-page guidelines, then it could result in serious penalties as compared to off-page guidelines. There will be several instances where some unknown website will start linking to your website. These external links do not necessarily lead to penalty. There are several black hat techniques revolving around both on-page and off-page optimization, but you must always ensure that your website is following a natural pattern in SEO optimization process.

Google has emerged as the most popular search engine, and its popularity is increasing day by day. Several webmasters are working day and night in order to score higher rankings. There have been several significant changes in search engine algorithms due to which several legitimate SEO techniques have entered the “No Entry Zone” of Search engines.
During 2005-2006, article promotion was quite popular, and was used to score higher rankings on search engines. Several webmasters used to write informative article and then they tried submitting their articles to several hundred websites. Article promotion was widely accepted and a popular technique which was used to score higher rankings on search engines. However, it has started to suffer consequences of duplicate penalty . If your same article is submitted to 100 different websites, then search engines will only consider 1-2 back links from the article website where your article was submitted/crawled first time. Most of the article websites have suffered duplicate penalty due to duplicate articles which were copy-pasted from other article websites. If you are serious about Google, then you should abstain from submitting same article to several hundred article websites. If you can manage to submit 100 different/unique articles to 100 different article websites, then it will help to improve search engine rankings of your website significantly.

On the other hand link exchange technique was widely popular during 2005-2006, but since 2007, search engines have started to nullify the effectiveness of link exchange programs. However, you can still try to exchange links with niche websites. You should ensure that your link exchange partner is related to the business theme of your website.

All these changes in the past 1-2 years have started to bring out some real issues in SEO including Sandbox, Duplicate Content Issues, and some others.

Search engines are working hard to secure their ranking algorithms in order to make more profits through PPC. On the other hand SEO individuals are working day and night to understand search engines and their ranking pattern.

If you search online, you will stumble upon several hundred or even thousands of forums and blogs discussing Page Rank and other issues. However the truth is that your page rank has no relationship with the actual rankings of your website. The only benefit which page rank can give you is to help your website appear on the top positions of various web directories (which organize their links according to PR). There is even a formula on how to calculate your future Google Page Rank .

Search engines rely on a hidden parameter known as “Trust Rank”. This parameter is used to gauge the real ranking strength of any website. A website with Page Rank 2 can easily overshadow website with page rank 5 due to its hidden but higher Trust Rank. You need to concentrate on whether you need a higher page rank OR more clicks and higher search engine rankings for potential keywords (i.e your website’s actual SERPS). If you are concentrating on the latter part, then do not entangle your SEO activities geared only towards increasing page rank.

Therefore one should try to concentrate on building a naturally popular website with quality content. If your content is good enough, you will automatically gain back links which will result in higher rankings.

Search engine optimization is a constantly evolving technology, and you should always abstain from artificial techniques in order to score higher rankings. Search engines are working hard to secure their ranking algorithm. They do not want anybody to abuse the effectiveness of their search engine algorithm which is programmed to present the most relevant content pertaining to any searched keyword by its search users.

Click Fraud is one of the most serious issues effecting both Google Adwords and Google Adsense. SEO Click Fraud is also evident on other search engines like Yahoo, MSN. The issue of Click Fraud is giving sleepless nights to several companies who spend thousands of dollars on their online marketing.

What is exactly meant by Adsense/Adwords Click Fraud?

SEO Click Fraud is more like a hallucination . Website owners get an impression that they are receiving legitimate clicks through Adsense/Adwords. However, the story is completely different.

SEO Click Fraud is more like a fake click for which a particular company has to pay to Google or Yahoo. This fake click is not generated by legitimate customer/client. If you log into your analytic section you will clearly observe a clicks which never got converted into lead. The bigger problem than click fraud is incapability of search engines to detect click fraud.

How can I detect Adsense/Adwords Click Fraud?

Click Fraud can be detected through advanced click statistics. If your target location is US, UK, and you are receiving certain clicks (even 20-50%) from countries such as Syria and Botswana, then it is a sure indication of click fraud.

There is a huge pool of marketing techies who have mastered this art of click fraud. Normally they create a network of users who make profits by clicking on ads. There might be hundreds or even thousands of people who do just nothing, but click on sites. Google and Yahoo have been trying hard to cut-down click fraud, but it is virtually impossible for them to nullify click fraud. It is estimated that 10% to 15% of all clicks are fake, and 300-500 million dollars of advertising budget gets exhausted each year into click fraud.

However, there are various benchmark tests which you can follow to detect fake clicks. These are as given below:-

1) If you observe a unusual click trend or CTR (Click Through Rate) in your adwords account, then it could be an indication of click fraud. You should manually monitor your adwords account to detect click fraud.
In case you observe a sudden increase in no. of clicks within a short timeframe of 15-30 minutes during a day, then it could an indication of unusual click trend. Moreover if none of those clicks actually convert into lead, then it could be an indication of click fraud.

2) You are receiving 5000-15000 clicks from adsense, but none of those clicks actually get converted into lead. Moreover, if you observe sudden drop in conversion rates, then it could be an indication of click fraud.

3) If you observe your Google analytic section, you will clearly come to know how many pages were visited by a particular user. Moreover you will get to see how many minutes that particular user stayed on your website. If you observe 1 page visit/ 0 minutes stay, then it could be an indication of click fraud.

4) Normally fake clicks originate from 1 or 2 particular locations (depending upon your competitors/industry). If you observe a regular pattern of several clicks from one geo location, but none of those actually converting into lead,
then it could be an indication of click fraud. You should keep tabs on clicks from suspicious or untraceable I.P addresses.

There are business sectors like online gaming, seo marketing, website development where click fraud is really high. Click Fraud is also evident in other business fields.

5) Use advance tracking codes to keep tabs on your online visitors. Google analytic coding is fine, but you can also use some other effective and efficient track codes. You can also use conversion tracking codes to detect clicks which
are converting into leads/sales. This conversion tracking is available within Google adwords account.

6) Click Fraud detection should be a part of your PPC Marketing policy. You should keep close watch on issues like click fraud.

What should I do, if I detect click fraud issues within my adsense, adwords/ppc account?

a) You should make sure that you are targeting right set of keywords for right
set of audience.

PPC Tip 1 : If you are only selling pizza , then do not target keywords related to Pop-Corns . It is as simple as that.

Targeting wrong keywords will always result in lower conversion rates and higher clicks.

b) Use advanced online tracking codes from google analytics or some other. You should keep a close watch on your daily/hourly stats, if you observe any unusual click behaviour.

c) Target specific cities/locations, rather than targeting whole country. This will lower click fraud to a great extent. If you are a lawyer who is based in New York, then concentrate on regions nearby New York rather than whole US (since you know that 90% of your potential clients will be from regions around New York).

Who could be behind Click Fraud of my company’s website. I got kicked out of my seo job last month since conversion ratios suddenly dropped in the last few months.

SEO Click Fraud could be triggered by your company’s competitor, competitors of your hired marketing company, or any other. This type of click fraud is even harder to monitor since you are unable to trace the real culprits. Click Fraud could be triggered by any of the following:-

1. Competitors of adword advertisers: Their sole intention is to harm a competitor who is “unluckily” advertising within the same niche market. These culprits will click on their competitors PPC ads. The real objective of these perpetrators is to force advertiser to pay for invalid or irrelevant clicks thus weakening or reducing a source of competition.

2. Competitors of adsense publishers: These persons may wish to frame an online website which generates revenue through adsense and other banner advertising. It is made to look like the website owner is clicking on its own ads to make profits. The advertising network may then terminate the relationship with that particular website. Many online websites and publishers rely exclusively on revenue from advertising and can be put out of business by Click Fraud.

3. Other malicious intentions :
There are several people who wish to cause harm to either an advertiser or a publisher. These people do not have any financial motives. Their motive could be political or personal rivalry.

4. Unintentional Click Fraud:
Sometimes your fan, family member or a personal friend will click on your online ads to help you generate more profit. However this action can backfire where the publisher has to face the brunt of click fraud by their advertisers.

We are sure that addressing these issues will help you lower click fraud to a great extent. Every coin has two sides, and this rule is applicable to PPC too. However, you can minimize fake clicks by following instructions given in this article.

Google has introduced a new feature within their Webmaster Tools Section. This option is more like a “magical wand” which could help you to specify geographic location of your website, or sub-domain (irrespective of your web hosting I.P address).

Over the last few years, website owners have been facing issues while specifying targeted geo location of their website. They have been previously relying on I.P address of web hosting or using country specific domains. This feature will help website owners to specify their target geographical location for their website, or sub-domains.

Suppose, your business is based in Netherlands, but your website is hosted in US. This could result in seo ranking issues, since your website will score higher rankings within Google.com (US), rather than Google.nl (Netherlands).

This tool is accessible within Google’s Webmaster Tool as shown below:-

SEO HAWK Advice: Google has a separate webmaster tool section accessible at http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/. You need to first create an XML sitemap, and then submit it to Google. Webmaster Tool section requires you to submit your XML sitemap first. Read more about Google’s XML Sitemap : https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/protocol.html
Q. If I specify my targeted geographic location as US, will this result in lower rankings worldwide?. I am currently receiving good traffic from UK, and other regions.

SEO HAWK Advice: This tool has been launched recently, and website owners/seo companies are still gauging the real effectiveness of this tool.

If your website is meant for worldwide audience, then we would never recommend you to restrict your website within one particular geo location.

Q. I am having a .com domain, and this site is hosted in US. My target location is London. Is this tool helpful for me?

SEO HAWK Advice: Yes,  you can specify Country, or a specific City/Location using Google’s Geographic Targeting Tool.

However, this tool will have no effect if you try to move country specific domains out of their pre-defined geo locations ( co.uk implies UK domain).  A country specific domain like .co.uk, or .com.au is meant for UK, and Australia search results respectively.  Google geo targeting will not allow you to move pre-defined locations for country specific domains.

Q. Can I specify multiple targeted locations for my website?

SEO HAWK Advice: Sorry, that feature is not available yet. Google’s geographic targeting feature allows you to target only one specific location for any single domain.

However sub-domains of your main domain (other than country specific TLD’s ) can be used to target different geographic locations around the globe.