Manic Melon

I’ve always said that the sites with the most content about a given topic ultimately win the ranking. Sure there’s more to it than that when optimizing your web site, but the content is the most important thing. Recently I searched for Kevin Barber and realized Manic Melon is not found. I can’t think of a better opportunity to prove my point than showing you how I can become highly ranked with Kevin Barber.

Current search results for Kevin Barber - Not Found!

This project is NOT about improving one’s ranking. I’m setting out to obtain a high ranking for a key phrase with which I’m not currently even indexed. Improving an existing ranking is really about search engine optimization. This entry is about specific content

Here are the stats in my Search for Kevin Barber (as of 6-4-2007)

• ManicMelon.com is not ranked under “Kevin Barber” in the first 100 listings for Google, Yahoo! and MSN.
• Page Rank: currently “unavailable” - is that actually LESS than zero!?
• I have only one page ranked (indexed) with Google.
• My site is only about 2 weeks old at the time of writing this entry.
• There’s only one site relevant to “Kevin Barber” that links to Manic Melon.

But it says “Kevin Barber” on every page.. why am I not ranked?

Understand this: Merely sprinkling in a keyword or keyphrase one or multiple times on a page (or every page) of your site will do little or nothing towards getting a top ranking for the term. My blog says “Kevin Barber” at the top of every page of the site as it is in the header, but that has not delivered me a listing even in the top 200! If you want your content to receive a high ranking, you need to publish specific content that search engines can index, not toss in words here and there and hope for the best.

How to be found in search engines

In order to have one’s site listed under “Kevin Barber” or any other search phrase, you must establish your site as having relevant content to that topic, and specific content to that keyword or phrase. Yes, the first step really is that simple. It’s so simple that lots of sites try to skip this step entirely, hiring SEO companies and paying serious money to be told this lesson. If you do not want to publish targeted and specific content for a certain keyword or keyphrase, I suggest giving up all hope for any noteworthy rankings or traffic immediately.

What about Search Engine Optimization?

Optimization of your site and content must with a site with content! Relevant and specific content is a mandatory first step to search engine optimizaton.

No really… What about Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optmization is really a topic for another day. Today’s entry is simply an excersize to show you how proper content is the most important part of obtaining high search engine placements.

What this “Searching for Kevin Barber” entry will show

This post will show that search engine rankings begin with relevant and specific content. There is certainly no guarantee that it will be this simple, especially on highly competitive keywords. But, having specific content is always the first step.

What about the results?

1. June 4th, 8pm - I’ll update this entry after I observe initial search engine results.
2. June 5th - it took only 24 hours for MSN and Yahoo to index and rank this page… currently #65 and #56, respectively. Horrible initial ranking, but that’s okay.
3. June 6th, 8am - Now just 36 hours into this project I’m #19 at Google, #14 at MSN, and #32 in Yahoo
4. June 7th, 11pm - Up to #11 at Google, #14 in MSN, and temporarily down to #62 Yahoo… not to worry though
5. June 10th, 9pm - Down to #72 at Yahoo, but #14 at Google and up to #6 at MSN! This is getting interesting!
6. June 26th - Funny… inverted to #27 at Yahoo, still #14 at Google, and ranked #8 at MSN! Not bad considering no new content or links.
7. July 11th - In 1 month and 1 week, we have arrived at a #12 ranking at Google, #24 with Yahoo, and now hold #6 & #7 at MSN! Not bad considering we posted only ONE page and have posted no new content or links.
8. October 15th - #13 at Google. #9 & #11 at Yahoo!, and #3 & #4 at MSN. Still, we’ve never updated the content of this page.
9. December 5th - #11 at Google. #8 at Yahoo!, and #1 at MSN. Remember, this is without any META tags or external linking. These results were achieved purely with content (which is by far the most important ingredient).
10. Google PageRank started at “unavailable”, and went all the way to “0″ after about 3 months. My PR is now 4 for the Manic Melon homepage, and PR 3 for the page you’re reading now :)
11. February 22nd - #10 at Google. #3 at Yahoo!, and #1 at MSN. You mean my ranking got BETTER even though I’ve done NOTHING to this page? Keep in mind: 0 Search Engine Optimization. Nadda. I don’t even have meta keywords or descriptions in place. This just happens to be one page (out of millions on the web) that is pretty relevant to people looking for Kevin Barber.

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One Response to “Searching for Kevin Barber”

1. 1

   loops June 6th, 2007 at 6:00 am

   Google has you on page 2 already, 19th spot. Not bad!

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