It's quite interesting (for me) that Google's Page Rank has updated today - after a gap of almost 6 months. What makes this update interesting, apart from the fact that I've had a few sites suffer go down, is that because of this blog, it's the first time that I've had new pages added daily that I can use to see how Google has tracked the page ranks.
And I record this as much out of interest and to compare to in the future as I do for a study into Google Page Rank. If you notice anything from my results or learn anything, don't keep it to yourself - post a comment!
First,the blog home page has gone straight in at Page Rank 3. Excellent! Only 2 sites link to it - my own and brit blog.
None of the pages added to this blog in the last 7 days have a Google Page Rank - all are grey bared. Pretty much to be expected.
All pages added in the previous days (3/10 to 20/10) have a Google page rank of 0. This means that Google has taken into account all pages it new about up to and including 7 days ago.
Pages prior to from 2/10 and earlier have a page rank of 1. This must mean that Google has given them some credit for existing some time back. Maybe it indicates that the previous actual update of Page Rank happened around this time - the toolbar page rank is just what is exported on an adhoc basis. This would mean that either the 2 to 3 weeks means the pages have counted as aged more, or (and I prefer this theory) that Google is updating Page Rank about every 2 to 3 weeks.
Lastly, for some reason the August posts are grey bared. This is probably because the blog was just starting up and were quickly archived, before Google had a real chance to take an interest in the pages.
It's also interesting to note that 2 of the experimental blogs are now page rank 0 (as opposed to grey barred).
These are (of course) those 2 that are linked to. The one with the 'clean' links is PR0 on home page and pages up to 20/10 (1 unexplained exception). The one with target="_blank" is PR0 on the home page, grey bared on the rest.
But another similar (and slightly older) test blog remains grey bared, even with links from 1 site that aren't using the target function. Another blog, again with 2 sites linking to it, starts with a PR0 (it's brand new - links from the last week or so.). Looks like there's a big difference to explain there...
I'm sure this is one post I'll be referring to in the future - to compare how page ranks change!
Saturday, 27 October 2007
Google Drops Websites
The reason my Mortgage Rate Comparison website so suddenly dropped from first listing to page 5 then 7 has still not been explained, but it has begun to slowly crawl up the 7th page. Analyzing the site, the statistics and recent changes and there are just too many possible causes and explanations.
Working on the theory that Google will visit approximately once per week (visits to the home page were 6 days apart) then any changes I make could take a week before they are recorded. Typically, I've noticed that after Google has visited a page it's 2 days before you see the cache change.
But it remains a very worrying time when a website drops so suddenly. It's long been a worry of mine that it would happen with this website, but there's just not been the time and effort available to develop a new site to share the load. Other sites that I've got in place for other schemes have been neglected recently due to pressures of work and left to rot, whilst the Mortgage Rates site has been given the attention it needed.
It's a hard lesson learnt - don't put all of your eggs in one basket. Just one site generating a huge percentage of income through search engine optimisation is a disaster waiting to happen.
Working on the theory that Google will visit approximately once per week (visits to the home page were 6 days apart) then any changes I make could take a week before they are recorded. Typically, I've noticed that after Google has visited a page it's 2 days before you see the cache change.
But it remains a very worrying time when a website drops so suddenly. It's long been a worry of mine that it would happen with this website, but there's just not been the time and effort available to develop a new site to share the load. Other sites that I've got in place for other schemes have been neglected recently due to pressures of work and left to rot, whilst the Mortgage Rates site has been given the attention it needed.
It's a hard lesson learnt - don't put all of your eggs in one basket. Just one site generating a huge percentage of income through search engine optimisation is a disaster waiting to happen.
Friday, 26 October 2007
Sometimes People Confuse Me
A really strange request accompanied a new website this week. Could we make sure that the URL we registered was NOT obvious and easy to find??? You would think from such a request that I had taken on a dodgy website, but no, this was a shop owner with a clothes shop on the high street.
He requested that we do everything possible to stop his competitors finding the website and 'stealing' his ideas. But, I tried to point out, if your competitors can't find the site, then surely neither will your customers. If you aren't advertising the website name on the shop front, in adverts, on receipts, on letterheads and business cards and everything else you get printed, how will your loyal customers know where to find your site - or even that you have one?
Would you ever not publicise a phone number so that competitors can't find out what type of phone line you are using and how good your telephone service is? Does it really matter if your competitors see your site - are they really going to copy your ideas (especially when the same web designer is building your site and theirs.....)?
Get your site published. Tell the world it exists and make it as easy as possible to find. It's hard enough getting traffic - don't make it harder for yourself!
He requested that we do everything possible to stop his competitors finding the website and 'stealing' his ideas. But, I tried to point out, if your competitors can't find the site, then surely neither will your customers. If you aren't advertising the website name on the shop front, in adverts, on receipts, on letterheads and business cards and everything else you get printed, how will your loyal customers know where to find your site - or even that you have one?
Would you ever not publicise a phone number so that competitors can't find out what type of phone line you are using and how good your telephone service is? Does it really matter if your competitors see your site - are they really going to copy your ideas (especially when the same web designer is building your site and theirs.....)?
Get your site published. Tell the world it exists and make it as easy as possible to find. It's hard enough getting traffic - don't make it harder for yourself!
Thursday, 25 October 2007
When Google Drops Sites
It's very frightening when suddenly your traffic drops and you realise that your site that was top of Google is now down on 5th page, and your major source of income has dropped.
And that's what's just happened to my Mortgage Rates site. I've had it happen to customer sites and with a little work they are quickly back up again. It can be one of many reasons, sometimes it just happens and then a few days or weeks later it reappears, back where you wanted it.
All it seems to need is for your server to be having a bad day at the wrong time, Google doesn't find the site and then you drop. As long as the server is back next time Google comes visiting then it should recover.
Or it could be that you have made changes to the site that have taken the optimisation over the top - it looks too spammy. Have a think (or keep a log of changes) as to what you might have changed over the last couple of weeks and see if they can be undone.
It's unlikely with a massive drop that it's all your competitors suddenly out performing you. More likely something you have done, or something happened on your server.
It's a horrible time, but you just have to sit there, take stock of the situation and see if you can rebuild. You were there once, try to get back there!
But it's also a very good reason not to have all your eggs in one basket - don't just rely on 1 site and it receiving visitors from search engines.
And that's what's just happened to my Mortgage Rates site. I've had it happen to customer sites and with a little work they are quickly back up again. It can be one of many reasons, sometimes it just happens and then a few days or weeks later it reappears, back where you wanted it.
All it seems to need is for your server to be having a bad day at the wrong time, Google doesn't find the site and then you drop. As long as the server is back next time Google comes visiting then it should recover.
Or it could be that you have made changes to the site that have taken the optimisation over the top - it looks too spammy. Have a think (or keep a log of changes) as to what you might have changed over the last couple of weeks and see if they can be undone.
It's unlikely with a massive drop that it's all your competitors suddenly out performing you. More likely something you have done, or something happened on your server.
It's a horrible time, but you just have to sit there, take stock of the situation and see if you can rebuild. You were there once, try to get back there!
But it's also a very good reason not to have all your eggs in one basket - don't just rely on 1 site and it receiving visitors from search engines.
Tuesday, 23 October 2007
Articles for Link Building
My troubled SEO experiment makes me wonder - is it worth writing articles any more? And by this I mean for submission to article directories, not blogging.
I suppose the answer is – why are you writing them? If you are hoping that loads of people will publish them and thus give you links back, there's a chance you are wasting your time. Some of these people will have ‘forgotten’ to include your link. But that's a minor problem. My experiment showed that Google just wasn't interested in syndicated articles. It ignored the pages. If it's ignoring the pages then it's ignoring the links on those pages.
So if you are writing in the hope of gaining lots of links, stop it. You are wasting your time!
Is there any use in writing articles? I believe so, and as always we are being pushed more towards honest openness with people browsing the internet. If you write interesting articles that people will read on ezines etc and those people then want to read more from you or about what you say, then this is the way forward.
Write articles that make people want to read more about what you have to say. Link to your blog or where you publish your thoughts – or just give the URL, it doesn't need to be a link.
Link building is dieing – search engines created a monster and now are going to kill it. Just pity the poor SEO companies that survive on link building.
I suppose the answer is – why are you writing them? If you are hoping that loads of people will publish them and thus give you links back, there's a chance you are wasting your time. Some of these people will have ‘forgotten’ to include your link. But that's a minor problem. My experiment showed that Google just wasn't interested in syndicated articles. It ignored the pages. If it's ignoring the pages then it's ignoring the links on those pages.
So if you are writing in the hope of gaining lots of links, stop it. You are wasting your time!
Is there any use in writing articles? I believe so, and as always we are being pushed more towards honest openness with people browsing the internet. If you write interesting articles that people will read on ezines etc and those people then want to read more from you or about what you say, then this is the way forward.
Write articles that make people want to read more about what you have to say. Link to your blog or where you publish your thoughts – or just give the URL, it doesn't need to be a link.
Link building is dieing – search engines created a monster and now are going to kill it. Just pity the poor SEO companies that survive on link building.
Monday, 22 October 2007
Another Twist in the Tale…
Well here is another interesting twist in the saga of trying to explain missing link backs. After changing tack yesterday because the duplicate content filter seemed to be doing it's job and linking directly to the new posts, the second blog, the one linked to without the target tag, has reappeared in the Google listings.
This blog didn't appear there earlier in the day before I added the link to the unique content, so on first glance it could be that the link without the target statement has helped.
Might be too soon to deduce proper conclusions, but it's looking like there could be a conclusion coming out of this experiment.
Now I just have to work out why the Promotional Items blog is not yet listed! One day, I will understand these search engines!
This blog didn't appear there earlier in the day before I added the link to the unique content, so on first glance it could be that the link without the target statement has helped.
Might be too soon to deduce proper conclusions, but it's looking like there could be a conclusion coming out of this experiment.
Now I just have to work out why the Promotional Items blog is not yet listed! One day, I will understand these search engines!
Sunday, 21 October 2007
Turning The Experiment On It’s Head
Well here's an interesting little twist to the experiment – playing with duplicate content filers.
I've added to the blogs one entry of my own thoughts. Each one is different - the first is about open water training in Lanzarote; the second is about Advanced Open Water Training In Lanzarote and the third about Diving In Lanzarote.
Over the next week or so I'll post to each blog every few days – my own diving thoughts rather than cribbed articles.
In theory, given time (hopefully no more than a week, but who knows with blogs) the 2 with inbound links should be cached. I'll watch how often they are cached for a month or so, then I'll turn the experiment around.
If they blogs haven't been cached because I've used content from article sites, what happens if I get the blogs cached and then submit the posts to the same article sites?
You would hope that the search engines would see that the blogs were there first and keep them cached. But I suspect that Google will decide that the article sites are older and have a higher PR and instantly drop the blogs.
It will be interesting to see what happens. And there are plenty of conclusions to be drawn if my blogs are instantly dropped.
I've added to the blogs one entry of my own thoughts. Each one is different - the first is about open water training in Lanzarote; the second is about Advanced Open Water Training In Lanzarote and the third about Diving In Lanzarote.
Over the next week or so I'll post to each blog every few days – my own diving thoughts rather than cribbed articles.
In theory, given time (hopefully no more than a week, but who knows with blogs) the 2 with inbound links should be cached. I'll watch how often they are cached for a month or so, then I'll turn the experiment around.
If they blogs haven't been cached because I've used content from article sites, what happens if I get the blogs cached and then submit the posts to the same article sites?
You would hope that the search engines would see that the blogs were there first and keep them cached. But I suspect that Google will decide that the article sites are older and have a higher PR and instantly drop the blogs.
It will be interesting to see what happens. And there are plenty of conclusions to be drawn if my blogs are instantly dropped.
Saturday, 20 October 2007
The First Week’s Results
So I created 3 identical blogs, every day I posted a different travel article to each blog. One blog didn't have any external links, just relied on the ping. The second had links from pr3, pr4 & even a pr5 site (on all pages of each of these sits). The third had the same links as the second, but all included target=”_blank”.
Theoretically, 2 & 3 should be seen as the same to search engines, in popular belief. 1 should be far less popular.
But, content is king and this experiment has proved that!
Day 1, all 3 sites cached on Google – caused by the initial ‘ping’ from blogspot.
Day 2, none of them cached.
Day 3, site 1 (the one without links) is cached, the others aren't…
Day 4, site 1 still cached and site 2 (without target) has 1 sub page cached.
Day 5, only the sub page on the second site is cached. Great I thought, expected results starting to appear…
Day 6, where have all of the sites gone!!!
It looks like using the freely distributed articles was a big mistake. Google has already detected them as duplicate content and dropped them (and of course the links within them – the authors have wasted their time…).
It's proved to me how effective Google is at spotting duplicate content (there were some minor spelling corrections etc applied to some articles) and the importance of writing your own material.
So I'll be starting the experiment again, this time with 3 sub domains. But first, the task of writing an interesting article for each blog. I might as well leave them running and give each one a genuine piece of new content and see what's happened in a week.
Theoretically, 2 & 3 should be seen as the same to search engines, in popular belief. 1 should be far less popular.
But, content is king and this experiment has proved that!
Day 1, all 3 sites cached on Google – caused by the initial ‘ping’ from blogspot.
Day 2, none of them cached.
Day 3, site 1 (the one without links) is cached, the others aren't…
Day 4, site 1 still cached and site 2 (without target) has 1 sub page cached.
Day 5, only the sub page on the second site is cached. Great I thought, expected results starting to appear…
Day 6, where have all of the sites gone!!!
It looks like using the freely distributed articles was a big mistake. Google has already detected them as duplicate content and dropped them (and of course the links within them – the authors have wasted their time…).
It's proved to me how effective Google is at spotting duplicate content (there were some minor spelling corrections etc applied to some articles) and the importance of writing your own material.
So I'll be starting the experiment again, this time with 3 sub domains. But first, the task of writing an interesting article for each blog. I might as well leave them running and give each one a genuine piece of new content and see what's happened in a week.
Friday, 19 October 2007
The Experiment in Progress
Well the three blogs are up and running and have been for a few days now. I can't put a link to the first blog here, that would defeat the Backlink Experiment! But the second blog and third blog are there for you to see – you might notice the target=”_blank” on the 2nd link!
All three have had the ‘about me’ box removed so that there's no linking there and all use exactly the same basic template. I've not set up any adsense or affiliate banners as I don't foresee them having loads of traffic, but who knows!!!
I've also set up links to 2 of these blogs from 6 travel websites that I maintain. All of the links are from PR3, 4 or 5 sites with link to the third blog including target=”_blank”.
But what am I expecting to see?
Well the first blog will probably be cached very slowly, if at all, as it is unpopular (no links in).
The second blog should cached reasonably quickly and hopefully after a few weeks of hard work it will get to the point whereby Google shows how many hours it is since the last update of the home page.
The third is a bit of a mystery. In theory, it should be similar to the second, but if I'm right then I expect it will list quickly, BUT then it will be unpopular (no links listed) so it might not get cached as often as the second blog.
I'll be recording frequency of caching of the home page as a marker of how popular each page.
All 3 sites were on Google within 40 minutes of first publishing. Before I had time to link to them. But none were cached within an hour of the second post the following day, unlike when I posted to this blog that day.
The blogs have actually been running for a week now (I thought documenting the whole lot in one go would be too much for anyone to read!!!), so tomorrow I'll recap on the first week's results.
All three have had the ‘about me’ box removed so that there's no linking there and all use exactly the same basic template. I've not set up any adsense or affiliate banners as I don't foresee them having loads of traffic, but who knows!!!
I've also set up links to 2 of these blogs from 6 travel websites that I maintain. All of the links are from PR3, 4 or 5 sites with link to the third blog including target=”_blank”.
But what am I expecting to see?
Well the first blog will probably be cached very slowly, if at all, as it is unpopular (no links in).
The second blog should cached reasonably quickly and hopefully after a few weeks of hard work it will get to the point whereby Google shows how many hours it is since the last update of the home page.
The third is a bit of a mystery. In theory, it should be similar to the second, but if I'm right then I expect it will list quickly, BUT then it will be unpopular (no links listed) so it might not get cached as often as the second blog.
I'll be recording frequency of caching of the home page as a marker of how popular each page.
All 3 sites were on Google within 40 minutes of first publishing. Before I had time to link to them. But none were cached within an hour of the second post the following day, unlike when I posted to this blog that day.
The blogs have actually been running for a week now (I thought documenting the whole lot in one go would be too much for anyone to read!!!), so tomorrow I'll recap on the first week's results.
Thursday, 18 October 2007
Experimenting With Backlinks
Does target=”_blank” prevent Google from counting a link or not? There's only one way to find out – set up some new web sites and vary the links in.
For this I'm going to set up 3 new (but similar) travel blogs. None will link to each other. I'll post articles from the same source into each one at the same time each day and will allow pings to be sent to search engines. Then I'll watch what happens to the blogs.
The first blog will not have any inbound links to it – this one will be relying totally on pings to get the search engine's interest. This, in scientific / mathematical speak, is the control. Without any links, what happens?
The second blog will have links from a variety of pages, mainly on travel sites. I'll pick a cross section of pages from sites. Some will be those shown as listing to my own web design site, others won't be shown. All will be PR2 or above and most importantly none of the links will include target=”_blank”.
The third blog will have links from the same sources as the second and the links will be in the same area of the page. Sometimes the link will be above the second link, sometimes below. But this one’s links will use target=”_blank” on every link.
I'll talk about the expected results tomorrow.
For this I'm going to set up 3 new (but similar) travel blogs. None will link to each other. I'll post articles from the same source into each one at the same time each day and will allow pings to be sent to search engines. Then I'll watch what happens to the blogs.
The first blog will not have any inbound links to it – this one will be relying totally on pings to get the search engine's interest. This, in scientific / mathematical speak, is the control. Without any links, what happens?
The second blog will have links from a variety of pages, mainly on travel sites. I'll pick a cross section of pages from sites. Some will be those shown as listing to my own web design site, others won't be shown. All will be PR2 or above and most importantly none of the links will include target=”_blank”.
The third blog will have links from the same sources as the second and the links will be in the same area of the page. Sometimes the link will be above the second link, sometimes below. But this one’s links will use target=”_blank” on every link.
I'll talk about the expected results tomorrow.
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