May 26, 2005
Blogging | Movable Type | Search Engine Optimisation
Trackbacks Killed My Google Rank
I initially thought someone had finally dobbed me in to Google and let them know my blog was of no redeemable value whatsoever. It seemed my one post that was doing okay in the Google rankings, Optimising Movable Type for Google, had disappeared altogether from the optimising movable type google search. After some investigation though it turns out those damn trackbacks have come back to haunt me.
Posted by Adam Boddington at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2005
Blogging | Movable Type | Search Engine Optimisation
Google Pain
Damn trackbacks. I went back to my previous post Optimising Movable Type for Google and put in trackbacks for all the blog entries that I referenced (those that would accept trackbacks anyway). Most blogs use rel="nofollow" on their comment and trackback links now (standard in Movable Type 3.16), so I wasn't expecting this to help the Google rank of my post at all. 'Twas more of a courtesy thing to let those folks know I had referenced them...
Well it turns out the trackbacks hurt my post's Google rank somewhat. Here are the before and after snapshots. You can see the title of my post has pushed one of Ander's posts up one slot (not a big deal since that post was already ahead of mine). Cre8asite has come out of no where, but that's the nature of the web. The other change is the Six Apart post on Cal's Dashify plugin. It has nothing to do with Google optimisation at all -- it simply has a trackback from my post. Google doesn't know that though, it just knows Six Apart's post is more important than mine and (now) has the right keywords. Argh! I suppose it's some consolation that anyone that goes there looking for information on Google optimisation will eventually click through to me.
Posted by Adam Boddington at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2005
Everything Else
Culture Shift
Living on the South Coast is... different. I just did a quick run into Bateman's Bay to do some shopping. The purpose of the trip was to pick up a new phone that I've been waiting four weeks for. And not from some small country shop either, this was from the local Telstra Shop, a supposedly homogenous shopping experience wherever you are.
Posted by Adam Boddington at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2005
Blogging | Movable Type | Search Engine Optimisation
Google Optimisation Works!
Google has found my site! I'm not sure how, probably through a comment that I left on another blog. I wasn't quite ready for it as the CSS design isn't complete, but oh well, the HTML itself is fine.
Anyway, I searched for optimising movable type google and this is what I found.
It looks like the optimisation tips worked! For a brand new site that no one is referencing this has got to be an amazing result. Interesting that the US spelling of optimising, optimizing, doesn't work so well. Probably because I only have that spelling in the entry once, and in the URL itself. I might display my keywords under the posting information and see if that helps. It's also interesting that optimise, optimize, optimisation and optimization don't work at all.
Posted by Adam Boddington at 07:24 PM | Comments (0)
Keywords: Google Optimisation Optimization Works
May 05, 2005
Blogging | Movable Type
Cruft-Free, Future-Proof URLs
I recently embarked on a crusade to rid my Movable Type blog of all things cruft. Below is a bit of a spiel on what cruft is, followed by the process I went through to decruftify Movable Type.
Posted by Adam Boddington at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)