How to Lose Your Excellent Spot in Google
A few weeks ago I found two WordPress Plug-ins that promised to optimize my blog for Search Engines. I installed both and was eagerly waiting for improved results in Google.
Before I installed these ‘upgrades’ if you searched for ‘Boris‘ in Google this blog was result number 11. This was pretty good but I wanted to have my blog on the first page and not the second. It is just so cool to be able to say to people who want to reach me:
Just search for “Boris” in Google.
I’m right there on the first page…
So after a few days I tried ‘Boris‘ in Google and found out that my blog was now nowhere to be found. At first I attributed this to the famous Google Dance in which Google slightly changes its (just to bug me!) algorithm which re-arranges a lot of the results, with dramatic effects for some people.
I didn’t even consider the possibility that the Plug-ins could be responsible for this. After all, they are official SEO plug-in specifically designed to make your site appear higher in search results.
But then I talked about this with Arjen and he suggested just turning the Plug-ins off. I was hesitant at first because I couldn’t believe they could have had such an adverse reaction. But I ended up disabling them anyway.
So today I checked again and you can guess what happened. I am now result number 10 for ‘Boris‘ in Google!
In a few weeks this blog will be exactly one year old. In another year I hope to be the number one result for ‘Boris‘ in Google. Want to help me? Link to this blog from your blog with my name.
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12 Responses to “How to Lose Your Excellent Spot in Google”
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Welke plugins waren het?
Autoheader and head-meta-desc. Don’t know which one caused the problem…
I recommend using your name in your weblog’s url. Besides the SEO-effect it also encourages people who link to your weblog to use your name instead of “Bomega” or “The Internet Entrepreneur”.
Ofcourse I would rather be in the top results for “The Internet Entrepreneur” instead of my name since if people are really looking for my website they will find me anyway. However, people looking for something “internet entrepreneur”-related will only find me if I’m in the top results for those keywords.
About those plugins: I did a quick check and noticed they modify your meta tags however these aren’t really used anymore by search engines. The title-tag is still pretty important though but I believe Wordpress handles this pretty well automatically.
You can use the “optimal titel wp” plugin for an even better title. I also recommend using the “google sitemaps” and the “www redirect” plugins. If you have some time left it’s nice to install a keyword plugin like UTW or Jerome’s keywords. Enough plugins to optimize your blog!
Euhm, what’s a ‘official SEO plug-in’?
Whenever I think of SEO, official practices is not the first thing that comes to my mind, but rather shady practices ;-)
Now I did some optimizing myself, but more with the visitor in mind than a search engine. For instance, I moved my sitename in the title after the blogpost-title. I mean, to me that makes perfect sense. Somehow I try to adapt to Google, not try to beat them at their own game.
I trust in the wonders of their algorithms and I just want a deserved spot in their results, based on some proper content, not based on some trick, but maybe I’m too much of a nice guy here. Anyway, good thing is, I don’t have to worry about how I do in Google either since there’s no trick involved and I can only cheer to them for further optimizing their algorithms. Content is king after all.
About a first page. Well, with only your first name as a query, that most definately is cool. I don’t have my hopes set for that, although my last name now is a number 5 result in Google. But that’s merely thanks to Engadget, who now have a tag with my name :D
Imho, getting linked on some good places for good reasons, there’s no SEO-trick or plugin that can beat that! ^_^ (and that’s where my energy goes)
@Pieter - @Boris: Looks like you already use the optimal title plugin (which i will install asap as well). or does this come out of another plugin? Standard in WP i get page coding instead of names…
@ Mark: Content is king, I agree with that! But you can always help google to find this content! Using permalinks in your URL is good for the search engines but also for your visitors, its the same with most “tricks”.
SEO is more about usability then it is about cracking the algorithm.
You have a link “Boris” on my blog Boris :).
A lot of people have opinions about SEO, so do I, but I won’t bother you with the details. Just get links and write good content, thats important. All the other stuff helps, but content & links are king ;)
As long as there are still many fans of Boris “Keep the soul alive”, it will be hard to stay at the first page of the search engines. So you should try to become a rockstar to increase your fame.
Change your homepage titel to “Boris | The Internet Entrepreneur” that will help. You can also check your backlinks and ask the persons you know to use the right keywords (boris) in the link and anchor text. I think it shouldn’t be that hard to optimize your blog and get on the number one position.
I changed the title. Wonder what the effect will be. I moved to spot number 9 this week but seem to be on 10 again today. We will see what the new title does…
Two more tips for optimizing your blog for the keyword boris. Try to use “Boris” at least 3 times on your homepage. Your about-page is good for the keyword Boris, but google can’t index that page like your homepage because there are not enough links to it. Second tip: Ask some people you know to change the link to your site in “boris” (or boris the internet entrepeneur, or something like that). You’re still on number 10 but I think it’s possible to get a top 3 position with this blog.