There have been some changes that I’ve noticed lately in my site’s rankings (no, not this blog) on both Google and Yahoo with regard to my little experiment about the Power of the Keyword-In-the-Domain-Name, that it prompted me to draft up an update post about it. Veteran bloggers need not read further because I know you have been there and proven this time and time again.
The following is a summary of the previous actions and events surrounding the experiment:
- August 1, 2009
- launched the site.
- August 5, 2009
- Google indexed the main page only. There were 3 initial pages.
- August 5, 2009
- Slipped through Google’s fingers. “site:mykeyprase.tld” produced ‘no results…’ as if Google has never seen it yesterday.
- “cache:mykeyphrase.tld” however says google has taken a snapshot as early as 8/2/2009.
- 4 hours later, “site:mykeyphrase.tld” showed main page again as indexed.
- 10 seconds later, disappeared again. What the…
- August 6, 2009
- Did a little backlinking work.
- August 7, 2009
- Google showed again that it has indexed the main page. A search for its main keyphrase showed it at number #7!
- Yahoo showed that it has not indexed any page yet, but has detected 4 backlinks.
- Bing has not indexed site yet. I submitted the site url to bing.
- Did some more backlinking work.
- August 8, 2009
- Yahoo, no indexed pages yet but has detected 7 backlinks.
- Bing, no index.
- Google indexed 2 pages now: the main page and the sitemap.
- August 9, 2009
- Yahoo: #1!
- Google: still #7
- August 10, 2009
- A few more backlinking work.
- August 11, 2009
- No changes to status.
- August 12, 2009
- Google: demoted the site from #7 to #632! An hour later, to #273.
- August 13, 2009
- Google:- still nowhere. Didn’t care to check specific location.
- August 14, 2009
- Google: still nowhere. Didn’t care to check specific location.
- Bing: showed signs of having indexed main page, but fluctuates every now and then.
- Editted the Meta(descriptions) content in all pages, because previously, 80% are redundant in all pages.
- Editted the Meta(keywords) content in all pages, to make sure no phrases are redundant.
- August 15, 2009
- Google: indexed 6 pages. Site was # 246.
- August 18, 2009- Google: #280.
- Yahoo: slid to #2. #1 was occupied by a yahoo.com subdomain! Oh well, it’s there search engine.
- Bing: #1!
- Editted the main page to correct some Google rules violations. The adsense block was directly below the title and some other adsense links have left-floated images right below them. So, I inserted a line of text to separate them.
- Editted the main page to increase main keyphrase density from 2.05% to 4%.
- August 19, 2009
- Yahoo: #2
- Bing: #1
- Google: #3!
- August 20, 2009
- Yahoo: #1
- Bing: #1
- Google: #3!
Notice that after 5 days of simmering under the depths of the Google abyss, it resurfaced to #3. I still am not sure what really happened when from its perch at #7, it plunged down to nowhere and stayed submerged for a whole week, only to resurface at #3. My guess is either:
- It simply is part of the ‘Google dance’. Or,
- It dropped because Google noticed the violations. So when it was rectified, Google immediately brought it back up where it rightfully belonged. (However, I see a lot of ranking websites which shamelessly violate Google’s rules up front and yet get away with it. Somehow adds more to my confusion).
Prior to the plunge, I was neck-deep in backlinking work and so when it dived the day after, I somehow subconsciously related the plunge to my backlinking work. Thus, now although I know better, I still am slightly link-phobic and have momentarily minimized all backlinking activities. I’ll resume as soon as the phobia disperses.
I’ll be monitoring it to make sure it is stable in its position. Note that the target here is free traffic. That means that I never submitted any material to article directories for the purpose of driving in traffic. I only did 2 things:
- On site optimization (e.g. optimizing tags, increasing keyphrase density), and
- Backlinking.
Again, I’ll be closely monitoring it for signs of stability. Once stable, I’ll see if I can drive it to the top.
One more thing: Yeah, it’s indeed true that what counts is being within the top 5 spots. When the site was at number 7, it garnered considerable traffic. But when it went to number 3, traffic spiked up five-fold.