Tag-Archive for » Page Rank «

16
Jan
Google Kicked Me Out Of The Sandbox

It wasn’t until I started blogging that I read about “Google’s Sandbox”.

Apparently, the terminology was given to some blogs that may be on a “probationary period” with Google. These are blogs that Google is “watching” to see how internet users react to them. Google may be looking to see if they are being visited, or linked to. Until they “see” these blogs are actually legitimate, Google may place them on what could be called a “time out” in cyberspace, or “placed in the sandbox”.

Today’s Lesson

On ThreadWatch.org, an article was posted that discusses the Google “sandbox” phenomenon.

Although some dispute the existence of a Google sandbox, I wouldn’t be surprised if this blog was in the infamous sandbox.

How did I come to that conclusion?

In the past, the majority of my traffic came from referrals.

Even though I tried to use keywords and keyword density, only a very small percentage of my traffic was coming from search engines.

However, recently, I have seen a surge of search engine traffic.

When reading about the Google sandbox “conditions”, it says that a blog may be placed in the sandbox for six months to a year. I began to see the search engine traffic increase around month nine.

When I think back to what I had done:

1) I think of my “blogging buddies” page (which is under re-construction). I had created the page and it was a list of links to websites or blogs that had commented on, or had linked to either of my two blogs. I still wonder if that could have been construed as a “link farm”, even though there was only 28 links.

2) WordPress is notorious for “duplicate content”. When you post and place your posts into your categories, archives, etc…the same post is located on many areas of your blog. To correct that, I began using excerpted posts. This may not make a difference, as I haven’t the same problems with my Observation Mountain,com (OM) WordPress blog.

3) The name of my blog – Blogging Without A Blog, and it’s subtitle, plus the meta tags, include the word “blog”, many times. Google may have seen that as me trying to “spam” the word “blog”.

4) Both of my blogs hit cyberspace within days of each other….coming from the same IP address. Ironically, my OM blog was the first to publish. From the beginning, I have had search engine traffic on the OM blog.

5) I am blogging in a field/niche that is saturated. With a beginning page rank of 0/10 (it’s now 1/10), I have been up against thousands of others competing for the same blogging keywords.

Although the “Google sandbox” theory is disputed, based on my experience, I believe it may exist.

Would it be so bad if there was a sandbox, of sorts? I don’t think so.

If hundreds of thousands of blogs are started each day, guaranteed, they are not all worth reading. A high percentage of them may be very spammy, and not provide good content. If a spammy blog is started and doesn’t get traffic, chances are, the blog will be abandoned or discontinued.

With that being said, who, in there right mind, would continue maintaining a blog for 6-12 months, if they get low traffic counts?

Only those who believe in themselves. Only those who can continue to provide quality content for their readers. And….,only those who have loyal readers and commenters who inspire them to go on.

Hey, that sounds like me :D

Today’s Assignment

Have you ever heard of the Google sandbox phenomenon?

Do you think you have ever been in the sandbox?

If there is a sandbox, do you think it’s a good idea?

Category: Archives, Blogging Lessons, Lessons Learned, New To Blogging  Tags: , , , , ,  12 Comments
04
Jan
Copy Successful Blogs/Websites – Or Not

It is often written, “Do not try to reinvent the wheel”.

In blogging, some will say, find a popular blog, and copy what they are doing, and you have a better chance of becoming successful.

Is that true? Or, is there a better way?

If you look at inventions, often individuals will take a good idea, and make it better. Others will say, “Why didn’t I think of that?’ Or, maybe they did, but didn’t act on it.

Today’s Lesson

I have an inquiring mind, and for years, I have been researching online. In the process, I have been on thousands of sites.

While researching, I would almost always end up on one particular website, only because it was on the first page of the search engine results. It got to be that I would silently curse, as the site was full of pop-ups and other ads. Just to read one particular article, I would have to click several times as they only gave an excerpt. I felt like they were wasting my time.

To avoid this, I began to look at the URL of each “hit”, and avidly avoided that site.

Recently, I went back to that site to see why they were consistently on the first page of the search engine results.

The site has changed, to some degree.

Some of the pop-ups are gone.

worked good at blocking those that tried to open, but the pages are still heavily ladened with Google ads…strategically placed, I might add.

They have, what appears to be, thousands, of articles. The site is non-niche, but the articles are neatly “niched”, into what us bloggers know as categories.

The articles are relatively short, concise, and include many internal links.

Their site is very professional looking, and is adorned with photographs.

The site is using a three column, newsprint theme, which is easy to navigate.

Their Google page rank, for their home page, is 8/10. Not too shabby.

The name of the site, I’m speaking of, is About.com

Founded in 1996, About.com was acquired in March 2005 by The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT). Today, About.com is recognized as a top 10 content site and one of the largest producers of original content on the Web.

This is what I attribute to their success.

First and foremost, About.com was founded in 1996. That means they have been around for close to 12 years, and their page rank also reflects that.

Their articles are short. If you want to read more about a given topic, they provide links.

The three column theme gives them more space to highlight the site’s features.

The homepage, newsprint layout, gives them more space to showcase particular stories.

Their Google AdSense ads are done, using complimentary colors…same color as their links, therefore, they blend in. In fact, I clicked on one, thinking it was an internal link.

I would guess, in the past, they used many SEO (search engine optimization) techniques, however, with a page rank of 8/10, a library of thousands of articles, a large readership, and name recognition, many readers are probably bookmarking or subscribing to their site.

Today’s Assignment

Based on the above analysis of About.com, do you see any factors you could use, to improve your blog’s readership and/or popularity?

Do you frequent a popular site that you have considered copying the format of?

Do you know of other bloggers that use techniques that could benefit others?

Care to share?

Category: Archives, Blogging Lessons, Lessons Learned  Tags: , , , , ,  7 Comments
15
Dec
What Are Paid Links

For some time now, there has been a debate going on about Google decreasing the page rank of a website or blog, if it has “paid links”.

Today’s Lesson

So, what are paid links?

Not knowing for sure which links Google considers as “paid links”, I decided to go right to the source.

In a “must read” article, written by Matt Cutts, of Google, How to Report Paid Links, he addresses the issue of paid links, affiliate marketing, Pay per Post, submitting to directories, buying and selling links, plus several other issues. The post also includes links to others articles that provide more detailed information on these subjects.

In short, paid links are any text links, which are purchased (paid for), with the intent to try and increase page rank with search engines.

Following up on this subject, on December 1, 2007, Matt did another post on Selling Links That Pass Pagerank, that is also well worth reading.

Today’s Assignment

If you are curious about paid links, and if your blog/site is affected, please read the above mentioned articles.

Make time to read the comments also, as this issue is quite controversial.

Do you think Google should decrease the page rank of blogs or websites that contain paid links?

Do you think this move on Google’s part will affect your rank?

Do you care?

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Category: Archives, Blogging Lessons, Increase Traffic, Linking, Page Rank  Tags: , ,  2 Comments
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