The new algorithm looks to give Google a much-needed jolt by delivering more results, and better results. The engine seems better at removing, or not indexing, spam and hence shows more good Web sites. So there should be less instances where the top results for what you want are simply parked domains or the now ubiquitous price comparison site (how I hate those sites!)

A simple search for Toshiba 37″ in the current Google engine brings two comparison sites in the top 10, one in the number 1 position; however, on the new Caffeine engine no comparison sites appear in the top 10. For me that is progress. Often I will search for a product, to look for information on it before buying the item. The current engine is cluttered with these comparison sites, many of which are useless in the first place (often the cheapest seller has a fake price…) So I am happy this this change.

Other changes are much more subtle, typical searches keep the same site/page in the top rank and just shuffle the rest of the top 10 around. So whilst no-ones SEO looks like it is going to be shafted, the changes seem to be less dramatic than all the hype would suggest.

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1. Caffeine

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Post tags: caffeine, google

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If your just starting out with your blog, getting your site on these lists is one essential move. Of course, content and relevant links are still important; but posting a few useful comments on other blogs, that aren’t spammy will help get visitors to your site. So first you will want to get your site on such a list of blogs, getting your site on one will probably mean your site will appear on a number of concatenated lists on other sites — that’s a few nice free links! Then use them to post a few useful and informative comments on relevant sites to your own. The search engines will give relevant links more weight; and users are more likely to visit a relevant page to the one they are on.

Only one more exam left too

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1. Google Debuts New Caffeine Search Engine
2. Goodbye Dreamhost, I've moved to Linode

© jim for 406 Not Acceptable, 2008. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: comments, do follow, no follow, SEO, spam

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I know you can calibrate the adverts to make them more relevant, but isn’t targeted adverts the point of Adsense? I could understand adverts for window installation (you know the ones you look out of,) when you post about Microsoft Windows, but this is silly.

Buying the googlebot some glasses (aka calibrating the adverts) is probably good idea, especially when you make peanuts.

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1. Google Debuts New Caffeine Search Engine

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Post tags: adsene, advertising, illiteracy

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Anyway shall we get back on topic? If you’ve tried link exchanges and posted a decent amount of good content and still struggle to get many hits, then this post is for you. Driving unique hits can be difficult, especially when autosurfs violate the Terms of Service you agreed to when you joined Google Adsense. This is where StumbleUpon comes in, it can bring you some free traffic; however, you will find it only gives you a small amount of targeted traffic. You may be content with this, but don’t be! There is a way to get more targeted traffic from StumbleUpon — through StumbleUdon, emphasis on the d! If you’re interested there is an invitation link at the bottom of this post, the only way in to StumbleUdon is via invitation!

StumbleUdon helps drive more targeted traffic to your site through SumbleUpon, thus the traffic is legitimate traffic. You don’t have to rely on StumbleUdon as the users it brings to your site may vote ‘I like it!’ on StumbleUpon, thus bringing more traffic to your site. Don’t worry if Stumblers spend little time on your site, as that is just their nature. We would all be swimming in cash if every Stumbler read the entirity of our blogs and even clicked and advertisement, things just aren’t that easy.

If just ten users come back, that is ten more returning visitors to your site. If you were to get ten returning visitors every day from this, then in one year you will be getting 3,560 (or 3570 if it’s a leap year,) extra unique hits to your site. Once your at those levels, or even at half those levels, you can rest easy as content alone should keep your site alive.

 Invitation to StumbleUdon

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© jim for 406 Not Acceptable, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: content, SEO, StumbleUdon, StumbleUpon

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If you’re reading this I presume you have a relatively new blog (I’d say less than 4 months old,) and it has little traffic. At this point you are at the bottom of the site ladder and it is a hard ladder to climb. You see you have a problem hits, links, and content are all related in success. Take it that you have a successful site, if you keep produce good content you will always get hits and links; if you keep getting links from past visitors you will still get links; if you keep getting hits (from past SEO) you will keep on getting links. From this breakdown you might be thinking that content is king, well to some degree it is. Content does drive links and hits, but this is not the full story.

For a new site content is not king, it does not matter if you are producing the best content in the world if you have no regular visitors or aren’t picked up by the search engines because you have no links. You see beginning a new site is the hardest part of being a webmaster, especially when you have no successful sites to leach links, visitors, and page rank from.

Consider you have a new site (less than a month old,) and the following three scenarios:

1. You focus on getting links

I’d presume you would go round commenting on’ do follow’ blogs, adding the site to directories, and making forum posts with your link in the signature.You will get a few visitors and will probably get decent indexing, but you have no content. So visitors will not stay and the traffic will die. Effectively leaving the site back at square one.

2. You focus on getting hits

So an alternative would be to spam some social networking sites. Perhaps getting your site on StumbleUpon, MySpace friend spamming, even use some autosurf programs. Yes these methods will get you hits, but again with no content the hits won’t stay. Secondly, you won’t get any links made for you from these visitors as there is little for them to link to.

3. You focus on content

After a few weeks of writing long, quality posts you may have a nice site; however, with no promotion the site is not going to grow. Perhaps the search engine bots will pick up your site, but all that content is going to waste. Secondly, as content makes its way to your archives it is effectively dead, as no-one saw it and no-one linked to hit.

I hope this has demonstrated that there is no golden solution, and that there is no easy path. To build your site successfully you need to focus on all tree of these factors in the early stages, effectively building a good foundation for your site. You will need to post good content at least 2 times a week and promote your site at the same time. You should be attempting to comment on other blogs that do not use the ‘no follow’ tag, this will build both good links and some small traffic. This is especially effective if the blogs are relevant to yours, or are personal blogs by people in the same field or with similar interests to you. Finally use the social networks, StumbleUpon can drive traffic that may never think about clicking a link to your site, the RSS feeds can bring good traffic that can become regular.

I hope this post has highlighted the difficult task a new site has. If it was easy everyone would have a successful site.

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© jim for 406 Not Acceptable, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: content, Internets, links, popularity, SEO

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