OK, here’s the background. Damien Mulley has set a challenge to get your site listed in first place on Google.ie for the search term ‘geansai gorm’ (which means ‘blue jumper’).
Anyway, I decided to give it a shot today, in between getting the baby to the creche, doing some shopping, doing some proper work, and overseeing a bit of minor building work at home. I built a quick webpage, set up a subdomain on this site, blogged about it briefly on my other blog and even uploaded a shoddy video to YouTube. And when I eventually got back online this evening, I was ever so slightly disappointed to find that not only was my site NOT on the first page of Google, it wasn’t actually anywhere on Google at all. (Yes, I clicked all the way to the end).
Reckon I may have to rethink my strategy. Or maybe hope that there’s a prize for the WORST bit of search engine optimisation in Ireland.
Update:
After a brief spell at around the 30 spot, the new ‘improved’ WordPress powered site has disappeared completely. Either dark forces are at work, or I was a bit over-enthusiastic with the cross-linking (especially beween my own sites, all hosted by the same ISP. I’m not surprised I’m now in Google’s bad books!). I’m removing links now, but I’m thinking ‘horse, stable door’…
Update (2):
Roll back the carpets grandma, it’s party time.
My geansai gorm site has rocketed back up to page 2. It’s now the 16th result out of 71,000 odd. And that will do me just fine.
Final update:
It’s all over. Congratulations to the winners (www.mybluejumper.com I think it was). And happy days to everyone who took part.
I managed to reach 15th position (highest 11th, lowest nowhere) but I clearly have a lot to learn.
I’ve tried to hoover up most of my own mess, so with any luck this is the last remaining splurge of blue jumper related madness, on this site at least.
9 Comments
Unfortunately you would need a new domain to enter the competition unless of course you are just doing it to experiment with a new keyword.
Thanks for that Gavin – so sub-domains don't count – I thought that might be the case – but it IS still an interesting experiment don't you think? Anyway, I reckon there's enough blue-jumper related domains already without me clogging up the internet with yet another one.
And surprisingly enough, my site just popped in on page four of Google this morning, so maybe it wasn't such a complete waste of effort.
Now I'd better get back to blogging about jumpers some more…. 🙂
Does anyone know if repeatedly commenting under different names between a number of different blogs and occasionally mentioning geansai which means jumper every now and again and maybe linking to the finest blue jumper related website known to humanity is likely to have any effect at all on page rank?
Well that's an interesting question. To be honest I'm not too sure if linking to other sites that mention jumpers, or even the same one over and over will help, particularly if the sites in question have feeble rankings to begin with.
Guys, for your information, all links in wordpress comments are 'nofollow' by default so the search engines will take no notice of the sites your links point to! Just thought I'd save you some time! If you want proof, install the 'seoquake' plugin for firefox and turn on nofollow highlighting.
Also Mike, your Geansai Gorm efforts (and mine) break competition rules as our sites are not new but it just dawned on me the other day that even though we're not in the competition we'll get some nice exposure when everyone searches for geansai gorm!! Oops!
Leon – you the man. I have much to learn!
Anyways – now I have adjusted this blog so now it is 'nofollow'-free. Unfortunately that also means it's going to have to be moderated too naturally enough. And talking of Geansai Gorm… what happened to the Reverb Studios result on Google – you were at number 2 slot for ages and now you've vanished..?
Hi Mike,
I've popped a link to your gorm site on my blog. Fingers crossed that it might help you get on the first page 🙂
Keep Rockin'
Ports
Why thank you Mr Ports. Much appreciated – my page is currently loitering with intent at around the 24th position (out of 54,000 results) which is not so bad considering I hadn't really thought it through when i started…! Your valuable link-juice much appreciated!
Keep rockin' yourself!
m
try this
point to your webpage from google notebook.
get some 'do follow' links to the notebook page
good luck