Blogs and SEO

I never fail to marvel at the power of blogs in the SEO equation. I was looking at my google analytics screen tonight. And I noticed that I was getting a bunch of traffic off the keywords "sacha baron cohen" and "Sacha Baron Cohen". So naturally, I went and typed that into Google. Here are the top seven links.

IMDB, Wikipedia, Bullzeye, Yahoo!, Answers.com, Rolling Stone, and me.

Go figure.

Comments

[cyanbane]

I was going to ask if you were logged into a Google service at the time (and it took into account personalization or localization when displaying your results) but when I search for that term I have you as 9th, the wiki has a sub result and I also have images at the top.

Regardless, looks like you are pushing a lot of Google Mojo around ;)

[Steve]

So that's how you get so much traffic on your site..lol,j/k.

I think you might already know this, but if you Google "miserable failure" you get the biography of George W Bush.

I discovered this recently and got a good laugh out of it.

[Raj]

Search Google for "favorite records of 2006" and I'm the first two results.

http://www.google.com/search?q=favorite+records+of+2006&hl=en&lr=&start=20&sa=N

[Justin Ward]

I was insanely amazed to find that people googling "lollapalooza 2006" were finding Live Music Blog as #1 & #2 and lollapalooza.com was #3.

Talk about a lack of SEO on their side...

[Jarid]

"Very nice" (in my best Borat voice)

FYI, one of the big reasons blogs do well with SEO (without any additional effort by the individual bloggers) is the way the technology platforms create the URLs automatically using the post title. 5 of the 8 results above all have "sacha baron cohen" in the URL and all 8 have the name in the HTML title, both good SEO strategies.

[Greg Harris]

Doesn't really say much for Google's relevance though. It's no coincedence that they all have that file name. Hmm....

[wa]

Pertaining to your "go figure": I would figure you have developed insight on how to drive the greatest common denominator of people to your sight based on a few simple words of Algorythmic intent...Then consider a click here and a click there and you will continue to be a great source of charitable support via your donations gratus Google, eventually creating a "never been done before" benchmark that punches your ticket for the Wickipedian Keepers of the Gate. Good Show.

[Tony Alva]

This and a mention in Lefsetz Letter! You're heading for rock star blogging status.

[MIchael Beckner]

Curious: Is this a blog phenomenon (ie Jarid's comment), or is this a case of plain ol' Google goodness (ie quality sites linking to you etc)? How can you tell the difference?

[Jarid]

Michael,
There are over 100 (if not hundreds) of variables used by Google in their ranking algorithm. Quality inbound links is definitely one of the biggest factors (i.e. PageRank).

However, on-page factors (i.e. SEO-friendly URLs and page titles) are much easier to work on compared to acquiring links. It's not specific to blogs though. Anyone can create good URLs and page titles on their sites. It's just that blog platforms like Typepad and Wordpress make it idiot-proof.

According to Google's and Yahoo's link search, no other sites linked to the post in question. While the overall site has plenty of inbound links, I think this clearly shows the importance of the on-page factors in optimizing individual pages on a site.
--Jarid

[AdamD]

I'd echo Greg Harris' comment about Google relevance. No offense to Fred, but he's bound to not be in the best ten pages to find out about Sacha Baron Cohen.

This doesn't show me that blogs are powerful, it says that The Goog has a long way to go.

[bobby]

Fred,

you should use Enquisite www.enquisite.com it is freee, you can then track and monitor what search engines and keywords people are using to find you and your blog, even down to their zip codes

[Mike McDerment]

Fred...you want to move a little further up the ranks? Two quick and easy tips that will help this post and all your other posts rank a little higher in the SERPs:

1) Remove the "A VC:" portion from your title tag from this page...just display the post's title "Blogs and SEO" instead of "A VC: Blogs and SEO"

2) Change the post title on your post pages to a LINK instead of just plane old text. i.e. "Blogs and SEO"...the part that is in BIG BLACK TEXT...it ought to be a link.

Email me if you would like futher explanation, but these two tips will give every post you've ever written a little bump (once Google re-indexes your site...probably a few days). Since I gather you give your blog revenue to charity, and ought to give you a significant bump in organic traffic, I guess I've done my good deed for the day...

Cheers.

[Tom Evslin]

This shows up a flaw in Google's "authority" algorithm - the one it uses to decide which of the relevant entries get what rank. It calculates the overall authority of your blog based on the number of incoming links and the authority (recursive) of the sites that link to you. But it doesn't ask whether your authority is on comedy or investing or technology. In a sense, it aggregates your authority.

This algorithm results in my blog showing up on the first page of Google results both for "pornografia" and "vertical integration" I get lots of traffic from the former but probably disappointed viewers due to lack of pictures:-}

By coincidence, I posted about this today also http://blog.tomevslin.com/2006/11/the_power_of_go.html

[ventureblogalist]

I agree, its incredible. I have done 0 SEO and there are hardly any inbound links to my blog, but I routinely rank in the top 3 for google SERP on the companies I write about.

[Andy Beard]

Lots of the benefits of blogging platforms are easily thrown away by excessive blogroll use and lots of followable links which don't really need to be followed.

Some blogs get so many links, SEO doesn't matter as much for their newest content, but their older content frequently suffers over time.

If you try the same search in a few months time, you might find it has dropped in the results a little.