Blogs doing better than standard sites post Jagger

[dburdon]

I was prompted to articulate this conclusion having read Nipplecharms post. I find it very odd, that given all the effort I put into optimising my main site, and the main sites of my clients, that some of the least optimised parts of my web portfolio are largely unaffected by the depredations of Jagger. Namely, a couple of blogs that I run.

These blogs appear to have weathered the Jagger storm remarkably well. In fact their vastly better performing than the main site. The blogs appear in a number of valuable top 10 positions - but they are certainly not optimised. I barely give a moments thought to the content that's entered.

See:
http://uksearch.blogspot.com and http://travelthinking.blogspot.com

Any thoughts on why these blogs should be faring so well?

[aaron2005]

Blogs are just so damn cool, that's why and who is it who hosts your blogs? ;-)

[nipplecharms1]

Originally Posted by dburdon

I was prompted to articulate this conclusion having read Nipplecharms post. I find it very odd, that given all the effort I put into optimising my main site, and the main sites of my clients, that some of the least optimised parts of my web portfolio are largely unaffected by the depredations of Jagger. Namely, a couple of blogs that I run.

These blogs appear to have weathered the Jagger storm remarkably well. In fact their vastly better performing than the main site. The blogs appear in a number of valuable top 10 positions - but they are certainly not optimised. I barely give a moments thought to the content that's entered.

See:
http://uksearch.blogspot.com and http://travelthinking.blogspot.com

Any thoughts on why these blogs should be faring so well?

dburdon -

I am not sure how I came about it but it makes you wonder. I use Bloggerzizzle.com/blogspotSKY.com and just found out today, they are Googlzizzle bedfellows. I am sure that is not news to all of your advanced SEO/SERP/Star Trek fans but it is news to me.

But how does that explain such high ranking for this domain on Yahoozizzle and MSNsky?

If you can figure that one out, the best box of Cubans I can find for you. (Ok, I cannot send anyone Cubans, as they are illegal to obtain here. So there State Department!)

[cz]

Question for dburden?

I looked at your blogs, nice job btw, and noticed that you link to your main site via the profile page and on the side navigation.

I noticed that on your main site (I think) there is only one link back to a blog (in the footer) but not the other blog. I also noticed that the blogs are interlinked as well. (Isn't that bad? I'm a noob and I thought the links had to be one ways..the old A links to B then B links to....scenario?)

Is that for a reason? (I ask since I have two sites but thought linking out to the other site would be bad news)

I'm not being as clear as I'd like but I like your "linking fearlessly" like that but am afraid to try it and get my blog wasted by Google. http://safetyenforcement.blogspot.com

I'd love to hear any thoughts you'd care to share about linking and blogs. Especially since they didn't get touched by Google YET, my fears of my e-commerce site being adversely affected by my blog posts with links to the product page, may be unfounded. Like the cooler heads have said "Wait a week until it calms down and we'll have a lot more answers"....it's been a long week!!

[dburdon]

Nipplecharms, CZ,

thanks for the comments.

Reasons why blogs may be doing so well:

1. Yes, they're with Blogger (owned by Google).
2. However, they both do extremely well on both MSN and Yahoo. For example:
2A.UK Search is ranked No.1 on MSN for the term "UK Search".See: http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q...NH&srch_type=0
2B. Travel Thinking is ranked No.1 on MSN for the term "UK Travel Developments". See:
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q...nts+&FORM=QBRE
2C. There are literally dozens of other terms where these blogs appear ranked 1-5 in the SERPs.
2D. And I am definitely not optimising to achieve these results.
2E. What's disconcerting, is that the blogs often beat client sites in the SERPs for keywords and expressions I'm optimising the client sites for!!
3. The blogs are crawled very frequently.
4. I tend to update with short snappy content.
5. There may be a bias towards blogs built into Google, Yahoo and MSN.
6. The sites are reasonably well linked. Essentially Blogspot creates its own internal linking. But I'm conscientious when it comes to the external linking as well.

Any other thoughts as to why blogs are doing so well?[/b]

[aaron2005]

dburdon,

How about focusing your blogs? There is no reason why you couldn't do it all from a blog, blogs kick ass, let's face this fact eh?

[dburdon]

Aaron,

I agree with the "kick ass" (or "arse" as we prefer to crudely say in the UK)sentiments.

They are so easy to turn round. The new Google Blog Search picks up postings within minutes if not seconds.

An example where this has worked is on the travel thinking blog. A UK travel portal had mistakenly reported that a certain travel company had gone bust. They had mixed up two companies with similar names. I spotted the error almost immediately and e-mailed the portal with a correction. My e-mail was ignored for 3 hours. However the Google Blog Search had picked up my blog post. It then went mainstream on Google. See:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourc...ses+trading%22

I'm now getting several visits a day directed from consumer sites following up the story.

The downside with blogs is their ephemeral nature. There are so many and they're updated so rapidly its easy to lose track of good content.

[onlinetv]

Blogs are the best thing since sliced bread.

Every client should have one, each web site needs one or six.

I dont know why you all should be the last to figure it out, but the landrush is almost over there too. If you have not captured your keyword blog, you will be in the same position as you were with your iwishihdagotthatdomainintime.com a few years back.

Addtionally, the gentleman who told you they update in minutes is correct. Matter of fact, you tell them when you have updated and they get it right away. I find MSN an G**gle pick them up within a few minutes, even if you are talking and linking to banned sites. They will pick up ANYTHING with an RSS feed if you know how to implement really simple syndication.

My suggestion is to get yourname.blogspot.com and yourname at msnspaces before some spammer takes over your space. These are just as free now as domain names were when I got most of mine, absolutely free for the registration.