Saturday, December 29, 2007

Mordheim Blog - Update

Websites in a Flash MascotIt has been under two months since I have started my Mordheim Blog, and we are seeing lots of good progress in the Search Engine Rankings.

For almost the entirety of the last 7 weeks, my blog has been ranked on the second page for the keyword "Mordheim" at Google. Just this last week, I've arrived on the first page! My blog has been sitting in the #10 rank for about 3 or 4 days now.

My blog is very content heavy on the word "Mordheim" and is included in the title of my website and in almost every post title and keywords. Many of my categories also begin with the word Mordheim. I currently have 42 posts in my Mordheim blog. That is almost .9 posts a day!

Merry Christmas,
Ashton Sanders

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Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Google Index Spasm (Google Dance)

Websites in a Flash MascotI call this the Google index Spasm (other's call it the Google Dance):

After a couple weeks in existence, my new blog found itself on the second page for it's main keyword. After fluctuating between rank 12 and 18 for another two weeks, it fell to rank 80+... If I didn't know better, this would have caused me to be very disgruntled.

I don't know the purpose is of the Google Spasm, but it's kind of funny and annoying at the same time.

Today my blog is back up to rank 19 for its keyword. I think some call this the "sandbox" but my site wasn't in it for very long. Although that could be because it is a blog.

-Ashton Sanders

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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Google's Indexing Delay: Update

Websites in a Flash MascotAs of today, Google knows about 35 pages of my Mordheim blog. The last time the Googlebot hit this blog was on the 22nd, and my post on the 21st of November is up second when I check to see how many of my pages Google has added to it's search index.

It looks like Google has a fondness for blogs, as I've never had a page on my website get into the Google index that fast. Usually it takes at least a couple weeks.

Another thing to note: this blog is a subdomain of www.ashtonsanders.com, and Google already knows about this site. Even thought it is only a one page site, I'm sure it helped the speed into Google's index because it already knew that that domain existed.

-Ashton Sanders

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Thursday, November 22, 2007

Google's Indexing Delay

Websites in a Flash MascotI created a new blog about Mordheim on the 10th of November. I worked on the design of the blog for about a day, and then linked to it for the first time on the 11th. I linked to it from a couple different sites: Websites in a Flash on the 11th, my Website Design Blog on the 17th, and Board Game Geek on the 17th.

By adding this new blog to my Google Webmaster Tools account, I could tell that Google Accessed my new blog on the 11th of November, 11 days ago. I have checked my site in Google's Index everyday for the last week, and yesterday, the 21st, I got my first click through from organic search results. Today, I have 5 pages in the Google index; the same five pages that were my only pages on the 12th of November (Home Page, About the Author and the entries for the 10th, 11th and 12th).

From this, it seems that it takes 10 days from the time that the Google-bot sees your page/site till the time that it gets entered into Google's search index.

I'll keep my eye on how Google reacts to my blog, and will keep you posted.
-Ashton Sanders

Update: This blog shows up at #23 for the keyword term "Mordheim"

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Thursday, April 26, 2007

How Do Search Engines Think? SEO Basics

WiaF MascotSearch Engine Optimization is fairly easy to understand. All you need to do is put your self in a Search Engines Shoes.

Let's start with Google's Mission:
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

-http://www.google.com/corporate/
Nice and Simple. But it gives you a good understanding of what you are working with and helps us to realize some very basic truths about Search Engines.

Search Engines Truth:

Search Engines want to find useful, informative sites for every search term.

Duh... And they do that by using robots (or bots) that are programmed to "index" websites and decide how useful/informative they are. So our job as Search Engine Optimizers is to make it obvious to search engines that your site is useful and informative. Here are some basics to Search Engine Optimization:

Use Valid Code: The search engine bots don't have eyes, so they can't see your website, but they can read the code that makes your website, and they do know how to read valid HTML. But if your code isn't valid, the bot can get confused and ignore parts of your site.

Content is King: Anyone can make a site that says, "Hello World!" Search engines don't value sites that don't have any content. You need to have relevant content on your website. If your site is about fixing Race Cars, but you never say race cars on your site, don't be surprised when you never find your site under the search term "race cars."

Don't Hide Text: An old search engine "cheat" was to have white text on a white background. This would allow you to have lots of keyword heavy content on your site without actually having to bug your visitors with the large amount of text. This will damage your rankings much more than it will help.

Basic Principles: Google recommends that you don't do anything solely for search engines, which isn't to say that you shouldn't get your site search engine optimized, but rather, don't waste time and money trying to develop tricks to deceive the search engines. Just make a good, quality site that people will find informative and useful.

Links:If someone likes your site enough, they'll link to it. Duh. So if your site is extremely useful, and a lot of people like it, you'll have a lot of links to it. The number of links you have to your site is one of the biggest things that the search engines will judge your site on.

That's a nice overview of how search engines think, and the basics of search engine optimization.

-Use it wisely
-Ashton Sanders

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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Google is: Funny

WiaF MascotYes, Google is a lot of different things. One of the things that Google is, is "Funny"

I don't know who figured this out... but let just say you wanted to drive from Boston, MA to .... France! You could ask Google Maps to give you directions...

And It's actually a fairly simple process. I've got the map saved Here:

Click to Get Directions

I'd like to bring your attention to step 5.

HAHAHA

-"I love Google!"
-Ashton Sanders

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