A Little Google Ranking Experiment
By leelefever on April 22, 2005 - 1:20pm.
I'm hoping to make Common Craft the #1 result for a Google query on the term "Social Design". Right now, I'm around #3.
- Hypothesis: Changing my "weblog name" in Movable Type will help me achieve higher Google rankings for the query "Social Design"
- Control: I'm currently ranked #3 and my weblog name is "Common Craft"
- Test: As of today, my weblog name is "Common Craft - Social Design for the Web"
I'll check back in a couple of weeks to see if this has any net effect. I think it's interesting that the very act of posting this will have some effect on the outcome. Before you call me on it, is know this is not the true scientific method.
I've done similar tests before and have managed to retain a first page ranking for the query "weblogs and business" for over a year. In fact, I wrote a case study about it.
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A Little Google Ranking Experiment
Why not just add a H1 for "Social Design" permanently to the home page?
A Little Google Ranking Experiment
Interesting, Lee. I've had a similar problem. The title for my blog hints at the theme of my blog, but isn't very obvious about the main thrust - commentary on public relations and marketing.
So I've taken your idea and applied it to my title in Typepad. Now instead of the cryptic "Mutually Inclusive", it says "Mutually Inclusive PR and Marketing". Not as coy, but a lot clearer about what to expect.
A Little Google Ranking Experiment
Even better, I think I'll just change the whole blog name to Mutually Inclusive PR. Thanks for getting me thinking about blog names. I've been meaning to take a look at mine for a while and see if I could do anything to make it work better for me.
A Little Google Ranking Experiment
I remember som spammer saying that it was better to be 6/7/8 than 1 or two for yer average dodgy sites... am not entirely sure whether that applies to people looking for social design but poss worth considering :)
A Little Google Ranking Experiment
Nick,
I could just add a heading, yes. For this experiment though, I want to test the site title using Movable Type. The main reason is that it's a consistent practice for everyone using MT and if it works for me, it may help others too.
Eric- Cheers!
James- That's an interesting point and one that I could see being true. If I can get to #1, my bet is that it would change over time anyway.
This makes me wonder too, if the reason it might not be good to be #1 is because people assume it was achieved by some underhanded means.