Jason’s Random Thoughts

There comes a time in our online writing careers when, after some time of using an alias, we decide to start using our real name in an effort to draw attention to ourselves. The advantages to doing this are about as numerous as the disadvantages, but it doesn’t stop many of us from making the leap and trying to accomplish a seemingly impossible task: being ranked #1 for our names from the major search engines.

In my case, the transition started earlier this year when I had decided to start submitting guest blogs using my full name, as well as having my name appear on several links that come to this site. A few months back I had even managed to get my hands on some extra domains in order to point people in the right direction, while simultaneously ensuring that nobody else would have my name in certain online arenas. What’s amazing here is that, after four months of minimal efforts, I’m in the top 5 for a few variations of my name on Yahoo! (Image), and numero uno on Ask.com (Image).

Unfortunately, it will take quite a bit more effort on my part to get into the top ranks of MSN’s Live Search (Image) and Google (which I’m not even in the first 50 pages of results for).

Yahoo! Says What?

If you clicked on the link to the Yahoo! screen shot, you probably noticed their suggestion to also try “Jason Irwin killed family”. Though I would never do such a thing, nor would I have even mentioned doing anything so horrific on this site, I decided to follow the link to see whether some other Jason Irwin had one day snapped and killed his entire family. Considering just how many people share the very same name, it wouldn’t be too surprising if one turned out to be a killer. That said, I show up second in the results, with an American DJ and musician taking top spot. Nowhere does it say that someone with my name had killed a family.

I won’t complain too much about this odd distinction, though, as any publicity can be good publicity
Why The Disconnect?

What interests me, though, is why I can rank so well on Ask and Yahoo! for my name, while being relatively invisible on Google and MSN. There are several other words and phrases that one could type into Google to see me right up at the top, so why not for my name, also?

For this, we need to examine the strengths and histories of these four big search engines.

We can say the following things about Yahoo!:

• they’ve been around forever
• they’re better than MSN at determining link relevancy, but nowhere near Google
• they have an incredible amount of internal material, and the search results show an obvious bias for this content
• viral link strategies still work

Google has the following strengths:

• they’ve been around for a long time
• they’re the online kings of determining link relevancy
• carries strong bias towards “information resources”
• trusts old sites without question
• viral strategies no longer work to build PR, and could actually hurt a site’s chances

MSN has very few strengths, but I must say something about them:

• relatively new to the search business
• really poor link quality determination
• has strong bias towards commercial sites
• new sites rank quickly on MSN, while being sandboxed on others
• viral link strategies still work

And finally, Ask’s strengths are as follows:

• look at communities
• due to their use of communities, they’re very slow to rank a new site unless they have John Cow like rising stamina
• has a small but loyal following

All in all, these engines aren’t too bad. The problem, of course, is knowing how to rank well in each of them.

Do You Yahoo!

Yahoo! has to be one of the easiest companies when it comes to earning a decent spot in their results page. So long as we follow standard SEO practices, we can expect to rank reasonably well after 60 to 90 days. That said, if your key market is heavily spammed by everyone trying to make a buck, don’t expect too much. For highly lucrative search results in the “Make Money Online” niche or other highly competitive corners, Yahoo! has been known to manually select the best five or ten results to show.

Although they’ve lost quite a bit of market share in the last 10 years, Yahoo! is still incredibly popular outside of North America. If your content is not specifically for a Canadian or American audience, it might be worthwhile to make sure your SEO practices are in order, and that you are ranking well on Yahoo!

Ask, and You Shall Receive

To tell you the truth, Ask has always had such a small market share that I’ve never paid much attention to them. However, with almost 3.9% of all search engine-based referral traffic coming from Ask, I figured I’d check out how well this site ranked. If I were in a niche where they drove significant traffic, then I might do a bit more to make sure that I kept my #1 ranking for my name, as well as a few other key phrases that I use to identify this site. That said, if you’re in a niche with a very narrow scope and subsequently tiny community, Ask will likely be one of the least important search engines for you.

MSN’s Live Does Not Live Up To Its Name

SEO for Live should be, if I’m reading their suggested optimization tactics correctly, just about the same as Yahoo’s. So long as a site follows standard textbook SEO practices and actively builds links within the online community, it’s reasonable to expect a decent ranking within a few months. Of course, if you’re goal is to enter into the highly-spammed keyword market, it will be quite a bit harder. One of the most promising benefits to site owners is MSN’s speed in ranking new pages with high inbound link bursts. This is likely done in an effort to capitalize on “the most important news on the web”, so that web surfers come to expect the most current and meaningful data to be found on MSN. Whether this is the case or not has yet to be seen, but it’s an interesting bit of information for anyone who’s trying to capitalize on their MSN visitors.

Another interesting note is Microsoft’s webmail market share. Hotmail is one of the world’s largest email providers, and anyone who conducts a search from their email screens will be using the Live search engine. While it may not be worth the time or effort for most of us, knowing that we can potentially capitalize on a user-base of several hundred million sets of eyes can be motivation enough to check our rankings.

All Hail The Mightly Google!

Google. The name means something different to everyone, but one thing is certain: they’re the most important company on the English-speaking corner of the internet. Without Google and their incredible search engine, most of us wouldn’t have a tenth of the traffic we’ve enjoyed for so many years.

That said, if your site is relatively new and you’re trying to get into a fiercely competitive market, it could take upwards of a year for your site to start ranking. Thousands of people have opted to buy older, more established sites in order to capitalize on their trusted credentials and domain age. That said, if you offer something better than the competition, are a strong online marketer (the more viral, the better), or can afford to mix SEO efforts with traditional marketing techniques, it’s much easier to force your way into the top index.

Google is always making changes to their ranking system, which makes it difficult to know how to please the ever-powerful G. But some constants are known to work for most: use an older domain name, write quality content (length is irrelevant), earn at least a few dozen links a month, keep the content “fresh”. By following these four simple points, many site owners have found themselves in Google’s good graces and rewarded with a top spot in their search results pages.

What’s This Mean For “Jason Irwin” and the Rest of Us?

Google is definately the search engine to please when it comes to building traffic through search engine results, but we shouldn’t forget the various alternatives on the market. Microsoft is making some inroads (slowly) by integrating MSN Live Search into Windows, Internet Explorer, Hotmail and the MSDN site. Yahoo! is pushing to be the sole search engine used on mobile phones around the world. Ask also seems to be a common source for educational institutions, with 87% of all Ask users visiting my various sites coming from a .edu. Because of this, it’s important to remember the little guys when planning to take over a specific key word online.

As for me, I have some ideas picked up from Ms. Danielle, Courtney Tuttle and Vic on how I can go about defeating my online doubles. Their suggestions have certainly helped me quickly rank and earn money on other sites, so it’s time I put the ideas to work here.

To that end, I’m going to go after the big guns on Google first:

• Jason Irwin, of Phillips Head and WEQX 102.7 FM in New York
• The Donelian Family
• The ICA Folkfest
• Jason Irwin (the artist)
• Jason Irwin (the author of Watering the Dead)

There shall be no mercy….

Bookmark To: