Monday, October 12, 2009

On Google Search Results and Other Stats: Nothing stays the same

Google

 

This is a screenshot I did the day (Oct 6th) I noticed that bahaiviews.net was on the first page of results (no.6) when I did a keyword search for "Baha'i" on Google, using the default search of "all results, any time, standard view, standard results."

Back in early 2008 when my Baha'i Views was just on Blogger bahaiviews.blogspot.com , I used to track where I was on Google using a general search for "Baha'i." Of late I have loved being able to search for "all results, past 24 hours," or even just in the "past hour," seeing my posts in the mix, and simply haven't noticed rankings among "all results, any time."

It was April of 2008 I started up Baha'i Views on WordPress ( bahaiviews.net ). It was interesting to see it on page one, if only for a day, because I doubt it will ever rank that high again. I am now posting Baha'i Views using the Posterous blogging platform and using autoposting not only to my Baha'i Views on WordPress, but also to Baha'i Views on Blogger, in effect reactivating it. I have also been posting the same mirrored content to two other previous blog incarnations, Defense of Faith defenseoffaith.net ), and Teaching the Baha'i Faith teachingthebahaifaith.blogspot.com ), reactivating those two as well. Further I have begun a new spinoff, bahaimusic's posterous ( bahaimusic.posterous.com ), also with autoposting.

Mirroring content from my Posterous blogs to four other blogs is something of an experiment. One thing I've noticed: it appears that Google will notice my content quicker than if it is posted just on just one site only.

Another note about stats: After years of using Sitemeter, I am now relying on Google Anaytics to give me daily feedback. I am able to track all the numbers from all of the blogs in one place. I'm doing a daily tally,which is fun. Highest total of visits in one day so far was 406on Wednesday.

Other changes: I am also finally taking Facebook seriously. My Baha'i Views content has long been posted as notes to my Facebook home page. Posterous permits me to autopost my blog post titles to my Twitter site and FriendFeed., two more social networking sites. FriendFeed allows me to autopost my Flickr pics as they're put up. And my YouTube account is automatically linked to Twitter and FriendFeed. Social networking is in the ascendency.

Professionals in the business of website promotion may hardly be impressed with my efforts, but it sure is fun for this amateur (who has a job to go to) to be able post content to the web and try to track the results. Hopefully, my content and the content of all the other Baha'is in the world who are using the Internet will advance the Baha'i Cause, the purpose behind all this. -gw

Posted via web from Baha'i Views

1 comment:

dan said...

The same thing happened to me a while back; I saw that my blog (doberman pizza. a baha'i blog) was ranking on the first page of google. but when i tried to confirm it from a different computer, it didn't show up. turns out that, if you're logged in, Google uses your web history to adjust its search results, so that pages you've visited frequently show up closer to the top. This can be misleading to people who rely on Google searches to try and optimize their blogs.