.: What do the search engines consider relevant about you? Analysis of a name search.
Category:Home / Internet Marketing / Search Engine Optimization
I admit it, I search for my name a lot. Firstname Lastname, click, send, wait, smile! It’s exciting to see what the search engines find most relevant about me. If you haven’t tried it yet, you should. Everybody likes to feel important or at the very least less obscure and more accessible online to friends, loved ones, fans, viewers, colleagues you name it.
What’s interesting is the distinctly different types of websites and information that the top 3 (Google, MSN, and Yahoo) return in response to a firstname lastname search. Now a lot of these differences are not specific to a name search and would fit in the categories of convtionial SEO, but the reasons why I think it’s important to talk about this specific search separately from regular SEO are:
1. This search is one of the most important to an individual emotionally. Your first and last name appears on everything you create. It can represent your reputation, your family heritage, your professional image, your expertise, and your experience, all at the same time. Give me another two search words that cover all of that.
2. People use their first and last name in documents and websites in similar ways that differ extensively from other words Most of us, for example, don’t have social networking accounts, blogs, press releases, work history, personal comments and video files all attached to a string of keywords like “buy movies now”.
Recently, do to the pending release of the free movie Boy Who Never Slept and an aggressive marketing campaign, references to ‘solomon rothman’ have increased dramatically and span many different sources. Considering this, I thought it would be a perfect time to do a search comparison on the different types of results to gain a fresh perspective on name searches and what each of the search engines prefer.
Initial things to note:
1. My myspace account is very new with almost to no outside links pointing at it.
2. I use my real name solomonrothman in my usernames for website profile pages. Examples of this are below.
www.myspace.com/solomonrothman
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Solomonrothman
Search results by each engine for solomon rothman
On MSN (results summarized in bullets)
* My website
* My profile page on associated content
* My profile page on Design Firms
* My profile page on Blog Flux
* My user page on Wikipedia
* Google Video listing
* Contact page on top design firms
On Yahoo (results summarized in bullets)
* The other solomon rothman’s website (not me)
* My website
* Specific associated content articles
* Deep pages within my website
* Archive.org
* Press releases
* Creative commons blog
* Directories
* Comments I made on some substantial blogs
* Dig article
* Google video
On Google (results summarized in bullets )
* My website
* My user profile at Associated Content
* Profile at blog Flux
* WikiNews Article
* Design Firms Profile
* Internet Archive
* Feedburner URL
* LOTS OF PRESS RELEASES
* Google Video listing
* Wikipedia User Page
* Myspace Profile
This is my no means scientific, but by comparing all three there are some interesting conclusions that could be drawn or at least hypothesized about. You would of course need a lot more test data, to make any concrete, but here are some interesting comparisons.
Analysis on searching for a persons name or first name, last name searches
Commonalities among all 3:
* my personal website to be the most important / relevant (yahoo liked the personal website of the other solomon rothman more)
* individual Google Video Listings were included in the top results
Individual Relevancy Preferences
MSN
* Values both topic related and general Profile and user pages on large established websites and social networks over other results.
* Wikipedia pages including user pages
* Link Directories
It’s interesting that it brings up my wikiusername page on the first page results, this is just a free userpage used to let editors I may be working with know more about me.
Yahoo
* Specific Articles (as opposed to the profile pages at article submission or promotion sites)
* Deep pages within personal website
* Internet Archive Listings (put them above Google Video)
* Listings and tag entires on technorati.com (blog search engine with listings and tags)
Google
* Highly values profile pages on topical sites like (designfirms.org)
* Myspace
* Wikinews items rank very high
* Internet Archive Video Listings appear EXTRMELEY high
* Individual Video Listing from other video distrubition websites like bolt, and vivemo.
* feedburner urls
* press releases
Individual Dislikes or things that seen to rank substantially lower specifically on these engines
MSN
* Doesn’t rank press releases very high in results for a person’s name, puts them after profile pages, and directories.
* Listings and tag entires on technorati.com (blog search engine with listings and tags) none show up in the top 100.
Yahoo
* Wikipedia Items (not one listing in the top 100, as opposed to msn, (in top 10) and Google in top 30
Google
# listings and tag entries on technorati.com
Remember that I use my real name as my username and repeat it specifically on the about me pages etc of each of these websites, that I’m sure obviously if you don’t use your first name or last name on these sites, they won’t come up.
Interesting things to note:
In the top 50 resutls of MSN was included my user page on the social bookmarking system del.icio.us/solomonrothman . That’s EXTREMELY intesting because in the meta tags on that page say no index, no follow and no archive:
It appears msn is not only indexing this page, but ranking it above other information rich sites for certain keywords. YET ANOTHER REASON TO start SOCIAL BOOKMARKING.
Interesting trends applicable to all searches
Video in regular search results
Video listings, especially on Google Video and the Internet Archive are showing up for regular keyword searches that don’t use the word video, movie, etc. It appears all the search engines consider topic specific videos (at least the video listing pages) to be as relevant as regular information / text rich websites. A great example is search google for Helicopter fire California. Thinking the “old way” I would guess this search to bring up news articles using those keywords, and it does for some of the results.
In the first 15 entires there are 3 separate references to a video file I uploaded showing a helicopter drop over a fire in California. 2 separate entries for various listing on archive.org and another listing for the google video listing.
This is very powerful and although it may have been prominent in the past, I don’t remember bringing up very many video listings on my normal searches, but things are changing, video is becoming the new sought-after relevant content in the online arena.
My space is a very powerfully free resource(other social networks are too) Even without any additional promotion (outside links for example) my myspace account ranked among the top sites in for my name in both MSN and Google. That’s huge. If you want to put some information on the top spots for a name search and don’t have a lot of time/budget/knowledge to undergo an SEO campaign, consider joining myspace and using your real first and last name.
You could have your personal page among the top spots in a matter of weeks. Of course if your name is extremely common, this tactic probably won’t work.
No luck for John Smith.
Wikipedia is a great place to contribute information
As an extra bonus you may receive some Search Engine Recognition for it
Articles are still a great way to promote yourself and there are some great places that will even pay you for your published articles and still link to your site.
Article keywords: search engine optimization, website promotion, name search, search engine rankings
Article Source: http://www.articles32.com
Solomon Rothman is a web designer, filmmaker, and writer. A modern day renaissance man, he directed, shot, and starred in a full length movie. See link above and watch the free movie Boy Who Never Slept
.: New Search Engine Optimization Articles
1). How to Improve Search Engine Ranking
Powerful 4-step process to improve search engine ranking
2). How to Make Websites that Search Engines Love
How you can apply the fundamental basics to create a website that the search engines will love to spider.
3). Articles Are Seeds of Knowledge - A Biblical Look at Duplicate Content
Article Marketing compared to the successful distributon of the Christian Bible.
The Christian Bible is the Worlds most successful publication, with over 6 billion copies printed, similar to the total World Population.
4). Content Management Systems Equal Business Suicide!
One of the fastest way to minimise your chances of web business success is to use a Content Management System (CMS).
5). Importance of Search Engine Marketing Firms
Literally speaking, there is no business in todays world of World Wide Web, which doesnt have online business. To reach ever growing population of internet all across the world it is mandatory to have a good online presence for any business. Moreover, meeting customers online is the cheapest possible way.
6). Internet Search Engines, Important Details Everybody Should Know
Internet Search Engines see something totally different than what we see when we look at a webpage. It is all in the webpage code. Have you ever seen webpage code? Place one of your webpages into your browser.
7). Why Websites Get Banned From Search Engines
These are methods and techniques that end up getting websites banned from Google and other search engines.
.: Top Search Engine Optimization Articles
1). SEO Contests: Good or Bad?
As a webmaster you probably already know what a SEO Contest is or you surely came across some of them or even participated in. Some of the major SEO contests organized are the v7ndotcom elursrebmem (by v7n.com), Ambachdotcom, Carcasherdotcom, and more recently the Cpayscom2 Online Casino where the winner gets $10,000 for ranking number one on MSN. Now the big question is whether it is good or bad to organize SEO Contests.
2). High Paying Lateral Keywords
If you run AdSense on your site you know that some words pay more than others, much more in fact. More than likely you have also learned that terms like "structured settlements" and "mesothelioma" can produce incredibly high PPC revenue, if they show up on your site at all. Unfortunately hundreds of thousands of other webmasters are "on" to this practice judging by the number of sites created regularly to capitalize on the phenomenom.
3). Is Your Website Invisible? The Google Sandbox Solution
What is the Google Sandbox? How Do You Know if You’re Stuck in the Sandbox? Does the Sandbox Really Exist, or is it Just the Google Algorithm? Why Do You Get Sandboxed? Is There a Way to Trick the Sandbox Filter?
4). An SEO Glossary - Common SEO Terms Defined
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become an essential weapon in the arsenal of every online business. Unfortunately, for most business owners and marketing managers (and even many webmasters), it's also somewhat of an enigma. This is partly due to the fact that it's such a new and rapidly changing field, and partly due to the fact that SEO practitioners tend to speak in a language all of their own which, without translation, is virtually impenetrable to the layperson.
5). Creating Sitemaps For Google, MSN AND Yahoo! - The Easy Way
If you own or maintain a website or intend to own one, wouldn’t it be great if you get frequent visitors who find satisfaction in getting exactly the information they need from your page?
While that satisfaction largely depends on the contents of your website, how you get to be accessed by website users is the most critical factor of website development.
6). How to Make a Sitemap For Your Website In Five Steps.
A website's sitemap can be compared to the table of contents of a book. The sitemap is important because it guides visitors to the parts of the website in which they are interested. The sitemap allows surfers to reach their destination without wasting time.
Sitemaps are also important from the point of view of search engines. If the search engine finds a sitemap it is much more likely that your page will be fully visited (spidered) and indexed; allowing web surfers to find your pages in their searches.
7). 301 Redirect - The SEO way to rename or move files or folders
In this article I will discuss page redirection techniques, what works and what to avoid.
What is page redirection and why would you want to use it?
Let’s say you rename a page on your website, for whatever reason. Perhaps you decided to revamp your entire naming convention, perhaps you decided to restructure your site and need to move pages into different folders, or you just realized that you are missing valuable keywords.