A Little Google Ranking Experiment

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.