pagerank
November 26th, 2007 at 10:17am
Under pagerank
Beginners often ask why there is so a big difference between the backlinks they receive in different search engine. Often, they say we have that large number of backlinks in Yahoo and <your search engine choice here> but Google has only one or two.
Does Google ignore your site? Well, that may be (speaking of the sandbox). But most often the cause is much simpler. Google offers a backlink search via the “link:” special search keyword. You type, for example “link:spacelaunch.gerhards.net“. At the time of this writing, it brings up 61 pages linking back to my space blog. That doesn’t sound too bad. But it is not the full truth, either…
Google has a special offering, called the “Webmaster Tools“. There, you can authenticate your site. This is done by adding either a meta tag or a special web page. After you have done this, Google knows you are actually the site owner and lets you dig into all the details. There is a section “Links” and in it “Pages with external links”. This is where you shall look for your inbound links. For my blog, it just showed 506 backlinks! Obviously, this is much better than what the search query brought up. In webmaster tools, you also have a very nice interface where you see which pages attract which backlinks - a useful tool for continuing to build your network.
My assumption is that Google does this to protect webmasters from competitors by not revealing all backlinks. Otherwise, it is too easy to try to get listed in the same places…
Lesson learned: If you’d like to know your backlinks, do NOT use the links: search keyword but use Google Webmaster Tools instead.
By Rainer
November 13th, 2007 at 04:24pm
Under pagerank
There is some rumor about a new Google algorithm (or call it parameter) named trust rank. In many webmaster forums it is claimed that Google will no longer actively develop page rank. The reason is that it is spammed to much. Instead of it, the new “trust rank” will be a premier factor in deciding which sites to put up first in the search engine result pages (SERPs).
Google’s trust rank is supposed to be awarded by humans, most probably Google employees. It shall reflect the trust that Google has into a site. High profile sites, e.g. active gouvernment, educational or big-player company sites will probably receive a specific trust from Google. I guess it will be only awarded to the main site, and not any subsites of it. Otherwise it would be too easy to fool the new system, too.
For the same reason, I think that trust rank will most probably not be automatically passed on to pages that are linked by the trusted site. IMHO that would foil the approach to select what is really trusted and what not.
Also, if I understand the concept right, trust rank will probably assigned on a site-wide basis (e.g. www.example.com). I assume this, because if you trust, e.g. BBC, you do not need to verify each and all of its new pages. Plus, it would be impossible to do a human review of that many pages while it is a comparatively easy effort to check the trust level of a site at whole. This is a huge departure from the page rank concept, which was assigned on a page-by-page basis.
So is trust rank good or bad for you? It depends. It for sure benefits the big guys and I am tempted to say that it benefits the average Internet user. I may benefit web masters if the run a well established site with good content and reputation. I am just curios how much effort Google will put into finding those. Thus I am a bit concerned here … If you were used to push up your page rank for a non-quality site, trust rank will probably come very though after you. No wonder, because that supposedly is why it was created.
Depending on how it is implemented, I am concerned that trust rank might shift the web to become more “big guy focussed”. In my worst thoughts, a view highly trusted sites will then probably serve the majority of search results, taking away a lot of our freedom in finding information that is not mainstream (sorry, I know I drive a bit into politics, but that needs to be from time to time ;)).
So I am watching trust rank very closely - not just in regard to search engine optimization and traffic building. Also, so far it is mostly rumors. I’ll try to investigate it further. Maybe trust rank is just another myth. Maybe (and this is more likely) it is a beast different from what we currently think it is. And, as always, Google doesn’t comment at all…
Oh, and an interesting site note: if trust rank is actually what we currently think it is, Google would give in to spammers. After all, Google was always proud to algorithmically (read: automatically) fight spam. If they now really need to resort to human review, that war seems to have been lost … And, yes, that’s one reason why I do not fully believe in the current rumors.
By Rainer
November 7th, 2007 at 04:23pm
Under pagerank
The last Google pagerank update caused a lot of confusion among bloggers. Few saw largely increased page rank, most saw their page rank drop. The official thought is that Google has tried to punish those that seem to be selling links or have bought them.
For my blog, however, I think there is a different reason. I started this site on an old domain from my domain properties. I re-used it and the content changed considerably. I guess Google simply noticed that the old site no longer was there and thus took away my PR 4. However, I am lucky to be still at PR 1, so I wasn’t banned or something else. I am quite positive that I will be able to restore pagerank for this blog, as I am now actively building it again.
And, as I have written in another post, it is quite possibly to gain pagerank quickly if you just do it right.
By Rainer
November 6th, 2007 at 03:00am
Under pagerank
I started my space blog roughly six weeks ago. It was an experiment for me: would it be possible to get search engine visibility quickly. After all, the blog was about a space shuttle launch that happened within five weeks of me starting the blog. And, I have to admit, the blog was also a lot of fun, so not much to lose if the experiment would fail.
A lot of folks advised me not to promote the blog quickly, as this would put me into the sandbox for sure. But with just 4 weeks to go (and one week to get traffic), what was to be lost?
So I started to promote the blog and obviously, it worked. After roughly three weeks, I noticed first hits coming from Google. They grew and grew and so the timing seems to have been perfect. A week ago, I noticed that the blog had gained page rank. And, guess what: it was immediately at page rank 4 (I thought to be lucky if I got 1 or 2, but obviously Google was trusting me more). I even waited that week to see if it is temporary, but PR 4 is still there today. So I thought I share the good news.
What did I do? A few basic things:
First of all, I created good content. Except for the very first days, I made sure that I had at least one post each day. Some days had as much as four or five posts - but never overdone, only if justified by events.
I made sure that I got backlinks from relevant (and well-known) forums. That was easy, because the content was great, so I could always find a reason to post a link to my blog entries. Of course, that still required effort as I needed to view forum threads to find matching ones (with this pet project, though, that was part of the fun…).
I also searched for blogs on similar topics. There, I posted comments. Some of them pointed to specific pages of my blog. On others, I just left the generic blog URL with my name. From the later, I had expected nothing as I thought today all of them would have a NOFOLLOW tag. But Google Webmaster Tools tells me that at least some of them qualify as actual backlinks.
I also went to social bookmarking services and posted links to relevant pages. Here, I used only very good content and made sure that it was almost exclusive, at least for a few minutes 
That turned out in traffic spikes, but any long-term effect is yet to be seen.
I posted links on some other sites of mine. Thankfully a have a few PR 4+ sites and on some them it was appropriate to post links. I stayed back from posting links from everywhere. I kept close attention that I did not do any irrelevant linking (which would also hurt the other sites).
I also did a single ezinearticles.com article on the topic. That was timed to be close before launch (the culmination of the blog) and at least the timing worked out nicely. The traffic spike, however, I can not really detect because it came together with lots of other traffic starting shortly before launch day. Google Webmaster Tools does not yet tell me any backlinks from there, but I hope it will show some effect over time.
That’s more or less all I did. Most importantly, I intentionally stayed away from asking old friends to link to that page. The blog, however, made a few new ones and I got links from most of them. Besides that, I waited patiently for the outcome of my experiment and waited for the result. Of course, most of the time I kept adding content. The site is now at 110+ pages and still growing.
I have to admit two things:
First, the domain I host it under is in existence for quite a while. However, I used a brand-new subdomain. Most experts will tell you that this does not bring you any boost in search engines. I concur to this finding. So the domain age was probably irrelevant here.
The second thing is far more important: I targeted the blog on “space launch viewing”. This is a tiny, non-competitive niche. I think the success has much to do what that fact. So the traffic isn’t really soaring (and even less the income). However, I will now add a more broader range within the “space” theme. Again, part of that is because it is also personal fun. But it will be interesting to see if I can keep my page rank while extending the breadth of the site (I suspect so). That would be an indication that it pays to focus on a very small niche just to expand it further over time.
I hope you find my experience report useful. Comments are always appreciated!
By Rainer