How Google Works
September 16, 2003 | View Comments (0) | WebMastering
I use MovableType for this blog and after every entry I write it pings two sites by default, weblogs.com and blo.gs. This creates two new incoming links to my site every time I share my wisdom to the world. It is even more helpful to have another site already indexed in Google add a link to your site. This will cause Googlebot to come to your site and spider it. When it is done spidering your site, it will put your site into Google's index under whatever keywords it deems as relevant.
Fresh produce, aisle 5
I like to try and add a new entry everyday. One thing I have learned is that the Googlebot loves fresh content and there has been nothing to disprove that point. The Googlebot comes to my site at least 5-7 times a day going through my archives and whatnot. It is important however to make sure that Google does not index your homepage if it constantly changes, but all the pages below it. A key that I learned from Scribbling.net has to do with the meta tags. Read it, learn it, and apply it.
Now that I have the Googlebot coming to my site everyday I have been finding new users visiting through searches on Google. There hasn't really been any strange keyword searches like "fuzzy elephant" or anything like that, but I am glad to see I am in the top 10 for a couple of different search phrases I did not even try to be in.
Link exchanges should not be used because they may not offer the same content you do. For example, Google is aware (don't ask me how) that mezzoblue is a design blog and therefore when linked to me the significance of design on my site is increased. I don't know if that makes sense, but it does to me.
The secret weapon
One of the secret weapons that most people overlook, but it seems to have heavy influence on where you place in the search rankings is the title of each page. Hopefully, the title represents the content on the page. The title of this page will include "how google works" and within time you will see it jump into the top ten for "how google works". Headings are also very important so make sure to use your keywords.
Okay, okay, why blogs really rule
Blogs rule search engines because they are compromised of links. Google searches your site and follows the links. Do not link to people hoping or expecting them to link back to you. If they like you they will they will link to you, if they don't work harder on what you are offering on your site. The more links coming to you the better. To me pagerank means nothing. This site has a pagerank of 0. Last time I checked Amazon was at 3.
So the only real advice I can give you to achieve great rankings in Google is to offer something worthwhile for people to link to on their sites. Google provides great results because it listens to the web community. If they don't believe in what you are saying or selling them then why should Google? Once again this shows us why content is king.