We all know that there was a lot of speculation about the dark side of the moon regarding what information does it contain. Coming to our article today, we see that China is planning to launch its satellites orbit around the dark side of the moon so as to know what really lies beyond our vision. Dark side of the moon also often known as the "Far side of the moon" is really the dark side of the moon because all the satellite communications would black out once the satellite goes into that orbit. We will see in detail why it happens but don't worry we will keep it short. Before going to read, let's get familiarized with some technical aspects.
"There is no dark side"
The reason we can’t see the far side of the moon is that our
satellite rotates exactly once per orbit so as to keep that side hidden
from view (see video below).
Mission:
Chang'e 4 is the vehicle scheduled to launch in the late 2018 (but it's already late). This mission, if successful, gives deeper insights to the alien place of the moon. This lunar mission comes as a successor for the Chang'e 3 which landed on the moon in the year 2013 and deployed a robotic rover, Yutu, which malfunctioned on the second day itself but continued to record and transmit the data. The interesting part to continue this mission is that the robot has identified a new type of rock fueling the idea to relaunch another lunar rover.
Lagrange points:
China’s solution to this dilemma is to deploy a relay satellite that
will be able to see both the lander and the Earth at the same time.
Rather than being placed in orbit around the moon, the Chang'e 4
Communications Relay Satellite will be sent to one of the five
Earth-moon ‘Lagrange points’. These are positions where the
gravitational forces and orbital motions of the spacecraft, Earth and
moon interact to create a stable location. The one chosen in this case
is the Second Lagrange Point, ‘L2’, which is 67,000 km beyond the moon.
Earth-moon Lagrange points.
Seen from the exact L2 point, the moon would completely hide the
Earth. However, this can be solved by causing the relay satellite to
follow a “halo orbit” around the L2 point. This is like a small ring
around the Earth-moon-L2 line, of a diameter sufficient to keep the
Earth in view beyond the moon’s edge. This situation is one of “unstable
equilibrium”, but requires very little expenditure of fuel to sustain.
It may seem tricky to achieve, but several spacecraft have already made
successful visits to L2, including Chang'e 5-T1, a test mission for
another planned lunar mission, Chang'e 5 (which will land in 2017 and
return a sample to Earth).
Far side of the moon with Earth in the background.NASA
Big basin: The Chang'e 4 landing site has not been confirmed, but it is widely expected
to be inside the South Pole-Aitken basin. At 2500 km in diameter and 8
km deep, this is the largest impact basin on the moon. Unlike those on
the near side, it has for some reason not been flooded by lavas, so it
offers us a window deep into the Moon’s crust for study of the lunar
interior. There could even be fragments from the moon’s mantle scattered across
the surface here – the impact that created the basin could well have
reached the mantle and thrown up debris. Lunar geologists believe they
can deduce the mantle’s composition by examining the crust, and this
would be a good chance to test whether they are right.
Colour-coded topography of part of
the Moon, mostly the far side, seen from above the South Pole-Aitken
basin. Blue is lowest, red is highest.NASA
Other proposed missions to the far side of the moon – such as the crowd-funded Lunar Mission One, the Russian and European Space Agency jointly-planned Luna 27,
and maybe an independent ESA lander, too – are aiming at the fringes of
SPA basin at the moon’s south pole, from where the Earth stays in view
as it tracks around the horizon. These will have the benefit of
permanent sunlight, and a chance to find ice inside permanently-shadowed
craters. However, thanks to its relay satellite, Chang'e 4 looks set to
provide the first surface-based analyses from deep inside the lunar far
side.
Let's see what will work out with the China's mission!
Firstly, I would like to apologize for the delay in posting this one. To conclude the episode of "wife-husband relationship," let us know about the third couple in the Ramayana. We shall see the life of Vali and Tara. To give a brief introduction, Vali is the king of the monkey kingdom and Tara is his wife.
Vali was a very strong warrior with great valor and had a boon of getting half the strength of his opponent while fighting. Once a demon called Mayavi challenges Vali for a duel. Vali being an excellent warrior defeats Mayavi and in the pride of victory, throws the body of the demon as far as he can. The dead body falls in a hermitage of a sage on a mountain called Rushyamooka. That's how powerful Vali is. The sage sees the dead body and curses the one who did this. The curse is that if the person who has done it comes on to the mountain, his head would blow into thousand pieces. This serves as the reason for Sugreeva to stay on this mountain when Vali throws him out of the kingdom.
Sugreeva challenges for a duel after having Rama on his side. Unable to find the difference between the two, Rama would not be able to shoot his arrow and Sugreeva gets all beaten up! Sugreeva runs for his life and comes to the Rushyamooka mountain. Rama asks Lakshmana to put a garland on to Sugreeva so that he can differentiate. Now Sugreeva goes and challenges Vali again. Vali would be in his palace with Tara beside him. Tara is depicted as a very intelligent, courageous, and convicted wife. She observes that there is something fishy about Sugreeva calling Vali for another duel. She asks Vali to stop and think about how Sugreeva after getting beaten up so badly almost to death can come back in no time? She understands and explains that the voice with which he is calling Vali out has some kind of confidence in it. She also tells that she got news that Rama along with Lakshmana has come into their kingdom recently in search of Sita. She explains Vali about the greatness of Rama and expects that Sugreeva has joined with Rama. She even mentions that Sugreeva is not someone who would believe somebody very easily which happens to be true. Sugreeva did not believe in Rama unless he proved himself and only then Sugreeva came for a duel with Vali. She tries to convince Vali in every possible way by describing Sugreeva and Rama. Vali listens to whatever she had to tell, doesn't even step forward while she is speaking, doesn't talk back. Then he turned towards her and said, "It is so kind of you that you warned me about the possible danger. Now that you have told what you wanted to, I will do what I want to!". That is the kind of relationship between Vali and Tara. He listens to all of what she had to say (unlike Ravana) but doesn't follow a word of what she told.
So these are just three couples from the Ramayana. Vali listens to Tara but doesn't follow.Ravanadoesn't listen to Mandodari at all. And then there is Gauthama who cleanses all of the sins done by his wife and makes her pure all again. Now it is your turn to choose whom to follow.
I humbly place this article at the feet of Sri Chaganti Koteswara Rao and feel extremely privileged for having got an opportunity to translate his speech so that it benefits the society. In his words, "Every couple that is going to get married should be made to analyze these couples and should be asked to come up with a certain summary of what they understood with the parents. Parents would then have to correct them if they are going wrong somewhere in the interpretation". Hoping for a better society, may all the beings in the world be at peace!
Om Namah Shivaya! Om Sree Gurubhyo Namaha! Harihi Om!
I hope that you are eagerly
waiting for the second part. If you are a new reader, it is suggested you read
the first part and then come to this article. The next life story is about
Ravana and Mandodari.
While Lord Hanuma was in search
of Sita Devi, he expected her to be amidst ladies and entered Ravana’s palace
in Lanka. He saw a great personality with the whole body glowing with eternal
light, charming like many suns put together and was in deep sleep. Hanuma
understood that he was the great Ravana. Hanuma was awestruck to see Ravana
like that; he was imagining that if Ravana is all glowing and appealing even in
deep sleep then how he would look like when he is awake and is on his throne!
Hanuma saw thousands of women around him all deep asleep and understood that
Ravana was in intercourse with all these women before going into sleep. Valmiki
says it was difficult for Hanuma to find out whose limbs are on whom and whose
clothes are on whom. So it was evident that women lying over there were not at
all conscious about their body or clothes. But Hanuma who was in search of Sita
was so pious that he just saw the ladies and when he understood it was not
Sita, moved on to see other ladies. The duty of the eye is to see but it is the
mind that shouldn’t get affected by the sight. One who achieves that is a real
sage. Thus Hanuma was a real sage doing just his duty and not being carried
away by the sight. It is said that all the women who were lying there were not
forcibly brought by Ravana but came themselves getting attracted by Ravana and
desiring intercourse with him. They are from high classes of the society, rich,
young, unmarried and extremely beautiful. Hanuma saw another room adjacent to
Ravana’s room and found a lady on the bed taking rest. She was very charming
and the divine light coming out of her was filling the whole room. Even the
intellectual Hanuma mistook that lady for Sita but she was actually Mandodari
who is considered to be a very pious pathivratha (fidelity to husband). It is
left for us to imagine what must be her mental state when she knows that her
husband is in sexual relationship with thousands of ladies and most importantly
has brought the wife of Lord Rama forcibly. The irony is both Mandodari and
Sita are very pious towards their husbands but we never find a temple for
Mandodari devi; the only reason she being the wife of Ravana which is not her
mistake.
They had a son named Indrajith. Agasthya
maharshi mentions to Rama about the greatness of Indrajith – once Ravana was
fighting with Indra and after a long fight gets tired and rests. His son goes
and defeats Indra in just an hour and brings him to the jail in Lanka. Such is
the power and valour of Indrajith thus the name (jith-won; one who won with Indra).
At last, when Ravana fell down on the battlefield with all his ten heads cut
and all the devas waiting for this moment from the sky, Mandodari was brought
to the battlefield in a palanquin. She boards down the palanquin and walks
towards the body of Ravana. Everybody expects that she would curse Rama for
doing that to her husband but she breaks out into tears telling it is not Rama
who killed but his own deeds and wrongful desires. She scolded him for taking
her son along with him. This was the moment she spoke out few lines which would
tell us the kind of relationship they had. She says, “I have always warned you
about your deeds and actions, warned to specifically about abducting Sita devi
but YOU HAVE NEVER LISTENED TO ME!” And to make this point strong, Valmiki
maharshi has never mentioned a scene when Ravana and Madodari talked which
means Ravana never bothered to consult his wife before taking a decision. He never treated his wife as a human being with feelings and was involved with many other women. This kind of behaviour of husbands with ego and pride, neglecting the opinion of his wife would take him nowhere is the lesson that their relationship teaches us.
It is up to the reader to realize the greatness of your soulmate. All this which Ravana did in Treta yuga is still continued in Kali yuga (present day) across the length and breadth of the world. There are a lot of Ravanas now in the society. It would all seem fine to the husband to a point where he can no more do his own chores on his own and explicitly needs someone to help him in his old age. Nobody other than the wife would be ready to do the service and imagine she cursing the husband at that time, that he used to be all egoistic and now he wants me to help him with his chores. Do you think the husband is really alive if wife starts hating him?
I feel blessed to be writing this post which is just an attempt to translate the speech of Brahmasri Chaganti Koteswara Rao for the benefit of the society. The third part would be out soon.
I am really excited to write this post. The reason is it being a spiritual one. My humble request to the readers is not to misunderstand this post as a religious one talking about a particular religion but kindly try to grasp the spirituality in it which would enhance your personality. This, in a way is a tutorial for your personality development. Let me introduce this post as the first one among the three posts which are going to talk about husband and wife relationship.
It so happened that once Lord Vishnu created a beautiful lady named Oorvasi for a reason. All the devas were astonished to see such a beautiful lady who is very alluring and charming. Lord Brahma (the creator) was taken back when he got know about this and he took it as a challenge to create an extremely glamorous girl called Ahalya. When the baby girl was born, he wanted a good caretaker for her. So he chose Gauthama Maharshi for the task because of his pious nature and extreme devotion. He gives the responsibility of raising her to this Maharshi. Once the girl was in her youth and was ready to get married, Gauthama took her to her father abiding to dharma because a father has to conduct his daughter’s marriage. Lord Brahma calls for a swayamvara (a process in which the bride has liberty to choose her groom) for which kings from all the three worlds appeared. The king of devas, Indra was also attracted by her beauty and came to the Congress. While Indra was coming to the Congress, Ahalya saw him and had feelings for him instantly because of his charm and valour. Lord Brahma decided to conduct a competition and decide the groom so he asked everybody to go round the Earth once and come back. One who comes first would be declared the winner was the decision made. So everybody starts off with their divine vehicles but Gauthama doesn’t go. Upon asking, he replies that going around the Kamadhenu (the divine cow) gives the result of going around the Earth so he prostates to the cow and goes around the cow twice. After a long time, the others came and were told by Brahma that Gauthama has already completed 2 rounds and is waiting for a long time. After the devas came to know how he achieved it, they were astonished to see his wisdom. It was decided that Ahalya would be married to Gauthama Maharshi. But one thing Lord Brahma missed to do was to consult his daughter about her opinion before conducting the offering (Kanya Daana).
After the marriage, they returned to their Hermitage. They were leading a very peaceful life and Gauthama Maharshi would always be in deep penance. One day, it so happens that Indra comes in the disguise of Gauthama when Maharshi is out for the morning bath in the river. Ahalya notices that it is Indra who came in the disguise of her husband but due to her interest in Indra, she accepts to satisfy his sexual desires. After the intercourse, Ahalya asks him to leave as soon as possible and Indra gets ready to leave. By this time, Gauthama returns and sees a man looking similar to him coming out his Hermitage and with his spiritual knowledge he understands what has happened. Upon knowing this, he curses Indra to lose his masculinity explaining that, even if Ahalya was moved by this desire it should have been Indra who should have suggested her that what she was thinking is not right but he didn’t so Gauthama took out those which were responsible for his ego that he is a male and can experience pleasure in a wrong way. The reason for Indra coming and involving in this was that Gauthama was doing severe penance and was about to reach penance of a thousand years and if he achieves that then he would become Indra. In order to stop him, Indra had to make him curse someone so that he loses the power of his penance.
Now, the aspect we are interested in is what happened to Ahalya after the incident. There was no question of divorce in Sanathana Dharma because Gauthama Maharshi need not have a more valid reason than this to give divorce to Ahalya but he didn’t because Sanathana Dharma doesn’t teach that at all. Instead, he punished her telling that it was the mind that had this feeling of having pleasure with Indra so it has to be made pure by doing penance and the body which supported her to fulfil her desire so he asked her to take only air as food and nothing else. He also told that she would be covered with ash and the hermitage would be empty thereafter. She has to do deep penance till a divine soul steps into the Hermitage. Valmiki Ramayanam doesn’t state that Gauthama cursed her to become stone. It is in this way that she has just become motionless and she has to undergo this for several hundreds of years before Lord Rama stepped into the Hermitage. The moment he entered the hermitage, Ahalya began to come back to her senses and Gauthama came to the hermitage to accept her again as his wife because now she has washed away her sins.
This is the greatness of our land where there was nothing called as divorce; once a marriage takes place, under no condition the couple can be separated. This is the message that the life of Gauthama and Ahalya tells us.
I humbly place this article at the feet of Sri Chaganti Koteswara Rao and feel extremely privileged for having got an opportunity to translate his speech so that it benefits the society. The interesting thing is, this post is just a beginning of a series of posts that I am planning. The future posts would also be about the relation of husband and wife taking examples of 2 more couples from Ramayana. Even these lectures were told by Brahmasri Chaganti Koteswara Rao.
Blockchain technology is one such buzzing word which is shaking the financial and other sectors of the world. Today we are going to explain what exactly this technology means to you and what it can do for you.
From a cruising altitude, a blockchain might not look that different from things you're familiar with, say Wikipedia.
With a blockchain, many people can write entries into a record of information, and a community of users can control how the record of information is amended and updated. Likewise, Wikipedia entries are not the product of a single publisher. No one person controls the information.
Descending to ground level, however, the differences that make blockchain technology unique become more clear. While both run on distributed networks (the internet), Wikipedia is built into the World Wide Web (WWW) using a client-server network model.
A user (client) with permissions associated with its account is able to change Wikipedia entries stored on a centralized server. Whenever a user accesses the Wikipedia page, they will get the updated version of the 'master copy' of the Wikipedia entry. Control of the database remains with Wikipedia administrators allowing for access and permissions to be maintained by a central authority.
Wikipedia's digital backbone is similar to the highly protected and centralized databases that governments or banks or insurance companies keep today. Control of centralized databases rests with their owners, including the management of updates, access and protecting against cyber-threats.
The distributed database created by blockchain technology has a fundamentally different digital backbone. This is also the most distinct and important feature of blockchain technology.
Wikipedia's 'master copy' is edited on a server and all users see the new version. In the case of a blockchain, every node in the network is coming to the same conclusion, each updating the record independently, with the most popular record becoming the de-facto official record in lieu of there being a master copy.
Transactions are broadcast, and every node is creating their own updated version of events.
It is this difference that makes blockchain technology so useful – It represents an innovation in information registration and distribution that eliminates the need for a trusted party to facilitate digital relationships.
Yet, blockchain technology, for all its merits, is not a new technology.
Rather, it is a combination of proven technologies applied in a new way. It was the particular orchestration of three technologies (the Internet, private key cryptography and a protocol governing incentivization) that made bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto's idea so useful.
The result is a system for digital interactions that does not need a trusted third party. The work of securing digital relationships is implicit — supplied by the elegant, simple, yet robust network architecture of blockchain technology itself.
Defining digital trust
Trust is a risk judgement between different parties, and in the digital world, determining trust often boils down to proving identity (authentication) and proving permissions (authorization). Put more simply, we want to know, 'Are you who you say you are?' and 'Should you be able to do what you are trying to do?' In the case of blockchain technology, private key cryptography provides a powerful ownership tool that fulfills authentication requirements. Possession of a private key is ownership. It also spares a person from having to share more personal information than they would need to for an exchange, leaving them exposed to hackers. Authentication is not enough. Authorization – having enough money, broadcasting the correct transaction type, etc – needs a distributed, peer-to-peer network as a starting point. A distributed network reduces the risk of centralized corruption or failure. This distributed network must also be committed to the transaction network’s recordkeeping and security. Authorizing transactions is a result of the entire network applying the rules upon which it was designed (the blockchain’s protocol). Authentication and authorization supplied in this way allow for interactions in the digital world without relying on (expensive) trust. Today, entrepreneurs in industries around the world have woken up to the implications of this development – unimagined, new and powerful digital relationshionships are possible. Blockchain technology is often described as the backbone for a transaction layer for the Internet, the foundation of the Internet of Value. In fact, the idea that cryptographic keys and shared ledgers can incentivize users to secure and formalize digital relationships has imaginations running wild. Everyone from governments to IT firms to banks is seeking to build this transaction layer.
Authentication and authorization, vital to digital transactions, are established as a result of the configuration of blockchain technology.
The idea can be applied to any need for a trustworthy system of record.
I might get trashed for the following write-up but just hold your jitters and comment below if I'm wrong.
Few reasons for which this "ism" started gaining its popularity are, because of some stereotypic ideas that some works are confined to only men and some to women and the term "safety" is always far from women especially in India.
India, a country where we have Bhumatha, Bharatamatha and so many millions of mathas, a place where women get the privilege of being idolized, iconized with the most premium and precious things, have always given the first place to women right from its existence. But why are we talking about this topic in the first place?
Did we forget our traditions? Or did we change our traditions?
How can we solve this problem? Okay, fine. First, we need to admit one thing. Intentionally or unintentionally, there has been a continuous domination of men over women in the Indian society, no matter what so ever it is. So, what's the solution now?
If you think that giving more chances and more opportunities to women in the fields where we failed to give them importance can solve this problem, then you are absolutely wrong because if that's the case, we should be ready to hear a new "ism" in the future called "meninism" or "masculinism".Domination of any group is not good for the society.
What I mean is, we shouldn't give more opportunities to one group in the name of so called "ism", which in turn trashes the other group. Everyone should be equal and everything should be equal for all which I finally mean to say, the term "equality" should be given more emphasis than the term "feminism". Reservations should be given to the needy but not for the greedy.
Think of a scenario where an old man and a young lady got on a public bus on a hot sunny day and where the only seat reserved for women is free. Now, tell me who deserves that seat? old man or young lady? Reservations or favours which are given in the name of "ism" should serve the deserved people. They should not be misused or overused.
Some feminists in the name of feminism misuse their privileges and counter attack men by giving flaw statements. This should not be encouraged at all because as I said earlier, "Meninism" or "Masculinism" is not far to come into existence if this situation prevails to continue.
I'm not against the idea of feminism, I'm against the misuse of the term feminism. By the way, Happy friendship day to you all. I believe, friendship is not confined to any gender. :)
Bicycling is not only a sport, but a means of transportation to get a person from one
place to another. As such, you could look at it as a means of negotiating a road just
as philosophy is a means of negotiating life. In both there are directions to take,
choices to make and destinations to choose. In both philosophy and cycling, one has
to choose one's way of going about things and learn from one's mistakes. Following
are a few of the lessons I've learned on the bike that I have been able to take with
me into the larger realm of life as a whole.
Or, If I using my recumbent exercise bike at indoor, it also teach me many things
about physical and mental philosophy.
Exercise in the Morning
Traditionally, Native Americans of the Navajo Nation begin each morning running
toward the east to greet the gods that come up with the sun. Native American
tradition says that a runner creates a "living cord between the earth and sky." This is
how I feel when I bike to work in the morning: I am creating a connection between
myself and my universe. What better way to start the day?
I notice that when I take the train to work, whether I read or sleep or just sit there, I
arrive tired and lethargic and have to rev myself up for the repetitive work I do all
day. When I drive, I arrive aggravated. When I bike, on the other hand, I arrive
energized and positive. After all, I just had an adventure! I lock up the bike, wash
up and change, and I am really, really ready to start my day.
Dealing With Danger
One of the benefits of cycling to work is the danger. Yes, that's right: the danger.
Most of the danger comes from "sharing" the road with cars.
Dealing with a greatly superior and often hostile force is full of important life
lessons. Some of these lessons I learned the hard way. For example, once I was
riding along down the right hand side of a line of cars stopped in the road. I didn't
think that they might stopped for a REASON. So when the oncoming car turned
across my path I was unprepared. My bike smashed into the side of the car and I did
a shoulder roll across the hood, collecting some road rash as I skidded to a stop on
the pavement on the other side. Well, let me tell you, it didn't take me but four or
five times to realize that when cars are stopped like that in a line like that, they are waiting for something to happen. If you are a bicyclist, you don't want that
'something' to happen to you. So I learned to slow down and find out what it is
before I smack into it.
Several times cars have sped up to beat me to a corner and turn in front of me. A
couple of times I hit them, and several times I have gone down. Luckily I have not
ended up under any-one's wheels, but instead have learned to listen for the car
accelerating to beat me to the turn and slow down in time to avoid the collision.
Sometimes a bicyclist is just going to crash. It happens. But knowing that you might
hit a deep patch of sand or gravel, you might misjudge a turn, or you might forget to
pop out of your pedals in time serves to remind you that these things might happen
and encourage you to watch out for yourself to try to make sure that they don't.
Extending these lessons brings up the wider idea of anticipating problems. Granted,
in life, some bad events simply drop out of the sky onto you and you have no choice
but to deal with them. However, many times, if you examine the event in your
memory, you will realize that you could have avoided a disaster by noticing the
warning signs.
When I ride I am totally alert and every sense is turned up to maximum. I am
watching for the door of the parked car to swing open in my path or the car darting
out of the driveway; I am listening for the sudden sound of braking or accelerating
behind me; and I am feeling the road surface through the bike for adverse
conditions.
When I am not riding, I am still in tune with my surroundings. On a dark street I
hear the footstep or the car door open, and in my home I am conscious of the
background noises, whether some child is doing something they shouldn't or some
washing machine or furnace is about to go ka-fluey. Watching for hazards on the
road has taught me to watch for hazards in the rest of life, too.
Courtesy
Although I seem to be alone in this realization, I have found that one of the best
ways to avoid danger on the road as a cyclist is to show courtesy and to maintain a
courteous attitude. Most cyclists seem to feel that they need to fight for their rights
on the road against drivers who regard them as persona non grata. I agree that a
little bit of that is sometimes necessary, but usually in my experience drivers
respond better to courtesy than confrontation. Hand signals and a polite wave of
thank you or "my bad" can go a long way toward taming road rage, and a courteous
response to road-rage-induced invective can calm down an enraged driver who
might otherwise take out his rage on some other innocent victim down the road.
Likewise in life, although there are certainly times to play hard ball, as the saying
goes, one can trap a lot more flies with honey than with vinegar. If you want to get
people to cooperate, being nice works a lot better (generally speaking) than being a
jerk.
Cycling taught me why it is important to be courteous.
Planning
Both the hazards of day to day commuting by bicycle and training for bicycling
events have taught me to plan better. I need to plan what to do if I get a flat tire. I
need to plan to have biking clothes and work clothes to change into. I need to plan
to maintain my bicycle.
One reason my near-death cycling experiences have greatly decreased in frequency
and ferocity is that I have taken the time to plan my route. My main criteria? To
avoid parked cars. Parked cars are the cyclist's bane. After dodging doors for a
couple of years on commutes though high-traffic business districts I finally got wise
and designed a new route past a couple of parks and golf courses. I looked at
MapQuest and checked out the route I should take, then I drove it to check it out. It
turned out it wasn't even any longer than my old route, just more peaceful.
Although it takes much more courage and willpower to plan a route through life
than a route for a bicycle commute, the same principles apply.
You must recognize that a problem exists
You must overcome your own inertia
You must do the research
You must make the new plan
You must test the new plan
If it passes the test, you must implement the new plan
Yes, I know it sounds like a lot of work, but if you do the research and testing,
you'll know you're doing the right thing.
Cycling has taught me the value of planning.
Focus
When I ride my bicycle, I must focus. I must keep optimum position on the bike. I
must keep a steady pace. I must shift smart. I must listen and watch for road
hazards. I must feel for adverse road conditions. I must be prepared to react.
To be focused is a good way to live life. To notice every nuance and potential
problem, every sound and sight, smell, taste, and feel is to get the most out of life.
To be ready to react and ready to recover is the essence of survival.
For about two hours a day, when I commute by bicycle, I am utterly focused on
cycling. It's like meditation. When I am finished with my ride, my mind is clear and
I am more than ready to face my next challenge.
Search engine optimization has become all about impressing the search engines. For that, webmasters do whatever it takes to come on the favorable list of the search engines, even if they have to resort to some black-hat means.
As a result, many webmasters are pushing some SEO techniques to their limits and trying to exploit the loopholes to manipulate the search rankings, and Google is one of their top targets.
However, in the recent time, Google has changed itself a lot more than what we could see a few years back.
In its path to make its SERPs relevant and useful to the end users, Google now puts some extra attention on the questionable links that manipulate the SERPs and degrade the search result quality.
As a result, a huge number of websites get penalized either by Google's algorithmic penalty or manual penalty. If you are lucky, you might be on the safer side with just the algorithmic penalty. On the other hand, trust me you don't want to get into the Google's manual penalty scoop.
Google takes over 400,000 manual actions each month according to Matt Cutts. So, a large number of websites fall into the manual scoop because of their questionable practices pushed to the limit.
Have your website just received a Google manual penalty? Don't panic because I am going to show what you need to do to recover your lost ranking from the penalty and get on the safer side by correcting your mistakes.
Confirm if it is a manual action by Google
If your website is hit by any kind of penalty (algorithmic or manual), the first thing you will notice is a steep drop in your search rankings. To find out if it is due to manual or an algorithmic action, go to your Google Webmaster tools and see if you have received any new notifications. For example, a notification telling you about bad links on your site can be something like this:
If you have received such notification, sadly you are a victim of Google's manual penalty. Considering the situation, these 5 steps will help you to successfully remove the manual penalty and recover the rankings.
Step 1: Access your site and discover the links
As in the notification, you can easily see that suspicious links are the main cause of the penalty. To catch the links, you need to first collect a list of all the links that link to you from other websites.
This is a huge task. You cannot do it manually. There are various tools that can help you to get this done, Google Webmaster Tools is one of them. After collecting the list of all the backlinks, you will know where they are coming from.
Once you have a clear list of links and their sources, you can inspect them and find out which are bad links and which are not.
Step 2: Inspect the links
Once you have a list of all the backlinks, the next job is to find the culprits. It’s recommended to organize the links on a spreadsheet where you can include two columns- ‘Links’, ‘Natural Or Bad’. You can them mark them as Natural Or safe based on your inspection.
While there are various tools that can sue to inspect the links for you, it also recommended going through each link manually as automatic tools are not so reliable. It's a big job to inspect and catch the bad links, you don't want to leave any stone unturned. So, rely more on manual link checking for better inspection.
Bad links are generally automatically built without editorial control and they point to irrelevant contents with no value for your niche users. Always consider these factors while manually inspecting a link:
Low quality, bad, or unnatural links generally come from low-quality sites. These sites can be identified with both automatic and manual inspection. They can be easily caught due to their non-adherence to the search engine guidelines.
High quality or natural links can be identified by inspecting the uniqueness and relevance of the content. You must inspect what value the content is providing to the real users and what it provides additionally that are not there in other similar contents on the web.
Check if the links are coming from scrapped, plagiarized, or poorly repurposed contents. Such contents are not valuable to the users and are identified as bad links by search engines.
Check if the links are coming from sites with poorly handled Ads, careless interlinking, stuffed keywords, and other spam indicators. Those sites which have so many Ads that overshadow the main content are marked as low-quality sites by the Google.
Step 3: Contact webmasters to request a link removal
Once you have inspected the links and prepared a list of the backlinks which you want to remove, it’s time to contact the respective webmasters. Contact all the webmasters of the bad links linked to your site and request them to remove the links from their site.
Don’t ever threat them to remove the links. To increase the chances of receiving a helpful behavior you must follow these basic rules which are also recommended by Neil Patel in his post:
Be polite with your language.
Contact them from your company's email address, not from your personal Gmail or other free email accounts. Say, johndone@yoursite.com.
Try to get the name of the webmaster and use a personal salutation instead of “Dear webmaster”. Say, “Dear John Done”.
Be clear and to the point with your message to make them understand your point easily. Explain what's going on; and why you are removing the link. Also be clear if you want to remove the link completely or just a Disavow is fine.
Don’t follow up by bombarding the emails. A single email is enough to wait for the response for few days.
However, there are few cases when you will need to do a follow-up. Some websites with spammy content may not easily be ready to help you. It may require doing several follow-ups to such websites. In this case, it is always recommended to keep a track of all the conversations and whom you have contacted. Once they remove the link, always re-check by manually verify it and then update your list.
Step 4: Disavow rest of the links
Disavowing is a process in which you tell Google to ignore a link from or to your site in its search ranking assessment. It means the Disavowed link will have for effect on your search ranking (neither positive nor negative).
You will need to adopt Disavowing for two crucial reasons:
- Not all the webmasters may consider getting back to you in response your request.
- You may have bad links appearing from the sites that are no longer active.
In both the cases, you don’t have a control on what to do next to get the links removed. So, it’s safe and better to get rid of such links by Disavowing them using the Google’s Disavow Tool. Using this tool you can mark the links that would be ignored by Google while assessing your search ranking.
You can mark the links for Disavowing by preparing a list of all the links in a ".text" format and then uploading it to your Google Webmaster Tools.
Please note: Before you place a Disavow request, make sure you have cleaned all the possible bad and unnatural links by following the above steps. Disavowing is the last resort that you should adopt only for those links whom you were not removed by any other means.
Also, if you find a site using rogue practices and not adhering to webmaster’s guidelines, it's better to Disavow the whole website instead of some particular page link.
Step 5: Finally, Submit a reconsideration request to Google
Google encourages the websites hit by a manual penalty to perform the cleaning and then submit a reconsideration request so that the penalty can be revoked after checking the site.
Once you have completed all the 4 steps successfully and you are certain that you adhere to the webmaster's guidelines, you can submit a reconsideration request to Google.
Use your Webmaster Tools to send a message to Google mentioning all the actions you have taken to fix the problems that caused manual penalty. Also, mention the changes that you have made to your SEO techniques and how they adhere to the Webmaster's Guidelines.
It may take months to get a response from Google’s search quality team. They will manually check your site so it’s understandable. You can also place multiple reconsideration requests if you don’t get a response for a long time.
To conclude
It's not impossible to get rid of Google manual penalty. Many sites have recovered from it. With correct steps and white hat SEO getting rid of any Google penalty is perfectly possible. Follow the steps mentioned here, and get rid of bad backlinks, Google will certainly revoke the manual penalty. If you are not an expert in the SEO tactics, it's better to hire an SEO expert who can understand the guidelines and knows what needed to be done.
Author Bio: Ethan Roy, a technical content writer by Profession. With years of experience on various eCommerce platforms (Magento, PrestaShop, OpenCart, Shopify), he has a lot to share with the readers. Currently working as Technical Content Writer at Velsof.
