So we all know that Google loves dynamic content no surprise there.
However, I think I have really under estimated the search moguls lust for fresh content—specially for social media.
So awhile back a colleague and I wanted to test how quickly we could change our search ranking with Google. This was because we had many pages we were handling on University pages (750,000+) and redundancy was really hurting our search results and confounding our clients. We have all gotten that frustrating phone call from a a client who is alarmed that their newly created site falls well below a very outdated page from years ago. My colleague and I were simply attempting to unveil the Google code.
Well we found something alarming, WordPress, and Social Media content literally over night would bump you in the result. The experiment went like this, he went home and blogged about his band on his newly created WP site. We had checked his rankings the day before and they were dismal, however to our surprise after just one day he had moved up alarmingly fast by any Google standard I had seen. We both were amazed but still assumed it was some freak Google algorithm and moved on with our day.
Skip many months forward. I have a Google nemesis. And I would guess I am not alone. You know, the other person with your same name who seems to always rank higher then you. Mine happened to be in the form of two people, a professional paintballer and a biologist from Virginia Tech. I was beyond frustrated with this situation after it was a matter of pride I live, breathe web. I wanted the favored position from Google. So I made it my life work to eclipse the other “Jessica Sparks” and place first on the rankings. I struggled for months, changed my site, and tried nearly all the SEO tips I could find, I am ashamed to admit I even consider ad words. I eventually gave up and resigned myself to a sad state the Jessica Sparks of the internet would be forever buried by Google.
Then last night it happened! My husband came home elated to tell me I was in the number three spot! I immediately I ran to my computer and checked my results and true enough number three –LinkedIn considered me the “alpha” Jessica Sparks. Then it hit me, I had been heavily using LinkedIn over the past two months. I had made a point to make my connections broader and reply to my network. Was this the golden ticket? I still don’t know but you can be sure that night I polished off my WordPress blog and started writing. I’m sure my position will wane but it was obvious to me the connections my colleague, Nick Kizirins and I had made over a year ago had some staying power. Maybe this is long sense been news to the blogosphere, but to me it was a little piece of Goggle heaven.
This makes me ponder, is social media Google’s secret mistress, or has she been Google’s partner all along?
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