Well, it’s a lazy Sunday and I’m looking to make a quick complaint entry on the blog. Those of you who read this blog that are engulfed in the blogosphere or involved in any type of website might be familiar with the term Google PageRank. If you’re not familiar with that term, a website’s Google PageRank is calculated by Google using some ridiculously long formula that eventually decides if your website should be ranked higher or lower in search results. For those of us who are actively engaged in trying to make a few dollars via our blogs, PageRank means everything.
For the longest time, JerseySmarts.com was set a Google PageRank of 4. That’s pretty damn good. One gets a higher PageRank through link exchanges, frequent content updates, and getting a high level of hits – all of which we have here at JerseySmarts.com. However, Google doesn’t like it if you put up paid advertisements on your site that are not within the Google system. For example, I have the “Additional Information” links to the right of this entry. Those are paid through a company called “Text Link Ads, Inc.” which Google doesn’t like. Also, you may remember when I used to put up random entries about moving companies or hotels in Italy – those were all paid entries, too.
Well, I think someone at Google took notice because my PageRank fell from a 4 to a 3. Frankly, this is completely counter-intuitive to reality since my hits have gone up a great deal since a few months ago, when my PageRank fell. But more hits aside, there is a real effect to having a lower PageRank. For one, I’m not being offered those random paid blog entries any more, which means I lose certain revenues each month. Also, you’ll notice that the “Additional Information” links have been greatly reduced. That’s lost revenue, too.
And to think, the cause of this lost revenue (which is now over $100 per month that I’m losing) is all because Google isn’t happy with paid links on a blog. I’m still trying to build something with this blog and I’m pleased that my hits keep going up. However, it does appear that I’m going to have to rely on new ways to earn some money from this site since relying on systems that use Google’s PageRank don’t seem to be the way to achieve long-term success on the internet. What a shame.
I’ve become quite familiar with the entire “search engine optimization” (SEO) game in the last year, since somehow, the task of keeping our company’s website strong with Google fell onto my shoulders.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever spoken with an “SEO expert” before or not. Pretty much, the idea of SEO has turned into its own profession, with many Internet marking people offering it as part of their consulting services. Many of them are lying cheats, who send mass emails to every company email address in the world promising to make their website number one with hundreds of keywords. Such a promise is impossible.
Google claims that they determine their page ranking off a few different aspects. Content is the number one thing they care about. Relevant content. They also like to see websites that are updated regularly (with your blog, that is a gimme). They pay a lot of attention to your H1 and H2 tags, then to your META title and META description tag. The META keyword tags supposedly have no value with Google, but other search engines may consider them. It’s a game however.
The thing of it is, and as you have experienced, Google owns the Internet, especially when it comes to search engines. Yahoo as number two is not even close. Bing (though new) is not even close. Anybody implementing SEO strategies does it for Google… and since Yahoo and AOL have similar standards, anything you do for Google generally applies to Yahoo and etc., though Google tends to be more conservative.
Basically, the art of trying to manipulate search engines has turned into a profession for some, and the good ones make a lot of money doing it (by saying the good ones, I mean the people are know how to B.S. and make you believe they can help you). There are some good SEO people out there, but there is no magic formula to make your site number one. A lot of it has to do with a few things you can do to your site, and a lot of luck.
Fortunately, the company I work for had a website that was already doing pretty good when I started. Since the task fell on me, I managed to not mess it up yet, thankfully.
Sorry for the long dissertation. You probably already know all this stuff anyways…
Martin – while I know of this stuff, I think the information that you provided could be of assistance to the other readers of this blog. I know that a lot of smaller webmasters come through here, so hopefully my story and your information can help them out.