QuadraCentifiable - SEO Challenger: QuadraCentifiable Articles

How long for Google to find article pages?

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 13:46:50 +1300

The QuadraCentifiable competition finished on the 28th November, and now 5 days later there are still competitors articles being found. How long for Google to find article pages? In the past 24 hours there have been 67 results found for the phrase, the majority of which have been other competitors links (and an article from here). A little too late for the competition.

As my closing action for the competition, I published around 450 new articles on Wed 24 November. By the end of the competition on the 28th, Google had found most of them. I continued to get Google alerts about the articles till the 28th.

I had left Google enough time to find the articles, and for it to then factor those new links into the rankings.

When you need rankings for a phrase, remember that if you are getting links from low PR websites, it can take up to a month or more for Google to find them. The higher the PR the homepages of the websites that you obtain links from, the more often they will be spidered, and your links found and credited into your sites rankings.

Source: How long for Google to find article pages?

Changing homepage title to SEO - what effect on rankings?

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 09:16:00 +1300

What is the effect of changing title on rankings on Google? Actually, changing from having "QuadraCentifiable" at the front of the homepage title should have no effect on the rankings for the phrase, as the homepage of this website is top due to inbound links, not so much to the title, nor necessarily the words on the page.

It will be interesting to see what effect changing the title of this site to more Search Engine Optimisation related will have on the rankings.

Now to get some more incoming links for SEO related phrases, so as to get this rather powerful website ranked and working at promoting SearchMasters in phrases that people are actually looking for.

For already powerful websites in not too competitive industries, merely doing the wording properly can result in large increases in rankings.

I do not consider this site will rank much higher for SEO related phrases merely by changing the title. But when combined with incoming links, it should get top ten fairly quickly. Lets start the clock.

Source: Changing homepage title to SEO - what effect on rankings?

Top for QuadraCentifiable, 68th for SEO

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 07:59:01 +1300

While this site won the competition, because I did not get links for "SEO", I am not ranking high for "SEO" - 68th. Now I have won the competition, I need to get links for "SEO" and "Search Engine Optimisation" so I can rank this now powerful site for those phrases. Days from now people will have forgotten about the competition, but if the site is ranked for SEO related phrases, it can forever publicise how well this site performed.

nzseochallenger.co.nz on the other hand was second for quadracentifiable, but is now also ranked 9th for SEO on Google.co.nz. They have got incoming links using the search phrase "SEO" and so are ranking for the phrase.

Lesson: If you want to rank for something, get incoming links for that phrase. If you don't get incoming links for that phrase, no matter how powerful your site is, you will not achieve your target.

Source: Top for QuadraCentifiable, 68th for SEO

Top on Google.co.nz and many other Google domains

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 07:49:51 +1300

NZSEOChallenge has won the New Zealand Search Engine Optimisation Challenge on Google.co.nz.

It is interesting to see the rankings on the other Google country domains.

- Yes, this website is top for all of Google.com, .com.au, .co.nz, .co.uk, .ca, and .co.za

But it is interesting to note the difference in rankings for the other websites.

google.co.nz
nzseochallenge.co.nz
seochallenger.co.nz
alike.co.nz
thewebcoseo.co.nz
firstbestalways.co.nz
optimisesocialmedia.co.nz
avatarchallenge.co.nz
searchmasters.co.nz/articles/quadracentifiable
seoone.co.nz
636825.co.nz

google.co.za
nzseochallenge.co.nz
alike.co.nz
searchmasters.co.nz/articles/quadracentifiable
636825.co.nz
thewebcoseo.co.nz
avatarchallenge.co.nz
seochallenger.co.nz
ragepank.com/quadracentifiable/
optimisesocialmedia.co.nz
website-builder.co.nz

google.com.au
nzseochallenge.co.nz
ragepank.com/quadracentifiable/
seochallenger.co.nz
alike.co.nz/quadracentifiable
quadracentifiable.com
searchmasters.co.nz/articles/quadracentifiable/
thewebcoseo.co.nz/quadracentifiable/
unlockit.co.nz/unlockit/?tag=quadracentifiable
optimisesocialmedia.co.nz
636825.co.nz

google.ca
nzseochallenge.co.nz
alike.co.nz/quadracentifiable
searchmasters.co.nz/articles/quadracentifiable/
seochallenger.co.nz
thewebcoseo.co.nz
636825.co.nz
ragepank.com/quadracentifiable/
avatarchallenge.co.nz
optimisesocialmedia.co.nz
firstbestalways.co.nz

google.co.uk
nzseochallenge.co.nz
ragepank.com/quadracentifiable/
seochallenger.co.nz
quadracentifiable.com
alike.co.nz/quadracentifiable
searchmasters.co.nz/articles/quadracentifiable
firstbestalways.co.nz
thewebcoseo.co.nz/quadracentifiable/
optimisesocialmedia.co.nz
seoone.co.nz

google.ie
nzseochallenge.co.nz
ragepank
seochallenger
alike
quadracentifiable.com
searchmasters
thewebcoseo.co.nz/quadracentifiable
unlockit.co.nz
optimisesocialmedia.co.nz
636825.co.nz

google.com
nzseochallenge.co.nz
ragepank
seochallenger.co.nz
quadracentifiable.com
searchmasters
alike
firstbestalways
optimisesocialmedia.co.nz
thewebcoseo
seoone.co.nz

The above difference in rankings shows how hard it is to be able to understand the inner workings of Google, and how hard it is to consistently get ranked high across multiple country Google searches.

Source: Top on Google.co.nz and many other Google domains

Last days QuadraCentifiable link building

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 08:57:00 +1300

Who has been the most active in link building for the QuadraCentifiable competition in the last 2 days?

I Googled for the last two days of QuadraCentifiable mentions and found about 610 results. Quite a few for the last two days!

I looked through the first two hundred results, and found about 13 for seochallenger, and several for seoone, w9 and 636825. In fact, Google only shows around 232 of the 610 results, the rest it considers are too similar.

The links to w9 and 636825 were from whole of site links that are not considered the best by Google, since being on every page, they are by definition not surrounded by unique text on each page, therefore not an editorial link. I have found that by changing from whole of site, to just one page linking through, targeted websites start to rank better on Google.

The remainder of the mentions were for my nzseochallenge.co.nz website. Many of these were from website homepages that had Google PR showing on them. They were all unique spinned versions of the same article. Yes, my last effort to make sure that I remained top. Since I was already top, and since I have got the most incoming links in the last two days by a large factor, it will take a large effort by the other competitors to be able to take my top position.

We have around 32 more hours till the end of the competition. I will be keeping an eye on the Google search for most recent mentions of quadracentifiable to make sure that someone does not do a last minute blitz. But in my experience, it can take a day or so for the value of links to filter through into the rankings. Lets see how it all pans out.

Source: Last days QuadraCentifiable link building

Last days of the QuadraCentifiable competition

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:55:00 +1300

As the QuadraCentifiable competition draws near to the end, the finishing touches of the links strategy need to be made in order to remain at the top.

Now is not a time for complacency.

With Google reporting over 1 million pages mentioning the competition search phrase, the leaders need to know their strategy or risk being left behind.

Something happened, and my SearchMasters.co.nz non competition blog page got left in the dust from 2nd to 8th. Yes, I could get it back up again, but that in itself has signalled how its not wise to be complacent at the top, and you need to be careful with link strategy.

All the best fellow competitors.

My aim for this competition was to learn more about linking strategy, and that I have, whatever the final outcome is. I trust that other competitors have also learned from their efforts. All the best for your businesses.

Source: Last days of the QuadraCentifiable competition

Round about ways to the top?

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 23:43:00 +1300

How about in order to get to the top, you get links to sites that link to you? Is it a good strategy? Why not experiment in the midst of this Quadracentifiable competition.

There are two parts to such linking:

Its another hurdle for competitors to beat - that of the friends sites
More Google PR to them, and them then linking into you. Powerful pages linking to you, meaning that Google considers you that much more powerful, irrespective of whether those pages actually rank for the phrase.

and the third...
Why not experiment...

Rankings of friends sites

I have been obtaining links to ragepank and nzs, and it has been interesting to see the rankings of those pages over time.

http://www.ragepank.com/quadracentifiable/
http://www.nzs.com/site-profile/nzseochallenge.co.nz/

The ragepank page was its top page for the phrase, and its rankings increased from 23 to 14th for quadracentifiable. The NZS rankings on the other hand remained the same - 22nd from 29 Oct to 8 Nov. Why???

The NZS page was their blog post about the competition. I was linking into my Quadracentifiable profile page. While that page is cached properly, and is in fact now the second page for the phrase on a site search site:nzs.com quadracentifiable, the nzs blog page is the most powerful for the phrase because of many links they have made into that page. My inbound links into the page have had no effect on the rankings of their page - or at least not changed the rankings.

Hypothesis

I am a little surprised!

I would have thought that a powerful second page (my profile page on NZS), would have pushed up the rankings for the first page(nzs blog page). Apparently not enough to make a difference. Yet the ragepank page that was one below nzs jumped from 23rd to 14th! Both were receiving exactly the same number and power of inbound links.

While it is always proper to try experiments many times, I draw the following hypothesis:

If you want to rank higher for a phrase, make sure you target a page that is already the most powerful for the phrase. Work with Google, not against it.
Links into another page are effectively wasted links (in getting that target page ranked). NZS at 22nd did not budge. Ragepank increased a lot more.
I had always thought that getting links for a second page with the same link text as the first would benefit and get the first higher. Yes, you can get an indented result using this strategy, but for competitive phrases where there are no indented's showing, a second page seems little use.
Better to pick an alternate phrase for the second page, and get links for that alternate phrase.
If I had linked to the NZS blog page with the same links, I bet it would have improved to be higher than ragepanks

Haiming's SEOChallenger website moves up to second

Yes, I did use this strategy to link to my SearchMasters blog post about the competition, and it moved remarkably up to second. I had been hoping for the same effect for the NZS and ragepank pages... Just today Haiming's SEOChallenge entry has taken over my second spot, and about time too!

Just as well my linking strategy for this main website has been that much more than I put into trying to get the SearchMasters blog post ranked. But it is another warning that Haiming is hot on my heels. My being top is risky business, you don't know how far you are ahead till you are passed, but at least I have put a marker in the way.

Higher PR and power of pages linking to you

Yes, this post has been more on how the friends pages rank for the Quadracentifiable phrase. Certainly any link that goes to a page, increases the value it then has to onlink to another site. My rankings for the phrase would certainly have been helped, although to what extent it would have been better to instead just link directly to this site is yet another unknown in the ever continuing hunt for the golden egg of ranking in competitive fields.

Wider effect of new links into Ragepank?

Since the 29 Oct, Ragepank's homepage has increased several places for some SEO related phrases. It would seem that the increased power coming into that one page has improved rankings of other pages with unrelated phrases on the website.

So while the inbound links have not specifically got the NZS page ranking higher, additional incoming links certainly do have an effect, just a little more subtle.

Source: Round about ways to the top?

Number of mentions of QuadraCentifiable on Google

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:19:00 +1300

Its rather interesting to see the increase in mentions of QuadraCentifiable on Google over time.

Sudden dips, and an underlying steady increase - Google's glitches in reporting being the dips

I consider the initial big jump to around 750,000 was due to many people having whole of site inbound links. Not something that I have based my campaign on.

For the whole of October, there has only been an increase from 750k to 850k.

I wonder what the increase will be over November coming to the end of the competition.

I might put in say another 1000 incoming links from 1000 separate websites? But who knows, depends on whether anyone pips me at any moment of the next month, or pips the SearchMasters page.

Having the SearchMasters page ranking second gives me a gauge at how competitive the competition is. Once the page gets pipped, I know I need to work at getting this website ranking higher.

Source: Number of mentions of QuadraCentifiable on Google

QuadraCentifiable SearchMasters page ranking top 5!

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 13:31:00 +1300

Unbelievable. I could not believe my eyes this morning when I checked the rankings. My SearchMasters QuadraCentifiable article page was ranking 2nd for the phrase, and its not even a competitor! Later in the day and its now third.

Yes, I have got the SearchMasters page a few incoming links, but I only expected the page to rank around the 8th or so position that it has for the last week.

How competitive is this competition meant to be!!! Please, send some competition my way.

My objective in being part of this competition has been that I learn more about the art of linking. And learn I have been doing (and spend). Just spent a lot of this morning reading up about new strategies, and I have new and even better faster ways to get clients and my challenge website ranking even more securely at the top.

Yes, it is definitely still very hard to get sites ranked for competitive phrases, and you have to know how to play the slow and sure game. But when you have good linking methods, ... well they must be fairly good to be able to get both this website ranked top for now almost two months of the three month competition, and now the SearchMasters article ranked so high.

New Zealand needs a number of competent SEO Consultants, as there are many websites out there that need to get ranked better. So competitors... please learn from studying backlinks how to get ranked high, and use the knowledge for your clients.

Whole of site backlinks - not a good way

Will we see the QuadraCentifiable Google alert filled with anyone else apart from the backlinks that I am getting?

Source: QuadraCentifiable SearchMasters page ranking top 5!

QuadraCentifiable Black Hat SEO not tolerated!

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 02:35:00 +1300

When you log into Google's webmaster tools, you're able to "report websites for hidden links" and other black hat methods of linking. Google can remove sites from the search results when they have been found to include hidden links.

Hiding text or links in your content can cause your site to be perceived as untrustworthy since it presents information to search engines differently than to visitors. Google - Hidden text and links

Unfortunately QuadraCentifiable Black Hat SEO has happened again. Another high ranking competitor has just been discovered using hidden links (another..., yes you heard it right.)

Please be warned. An SEO competition is very public and there are lots of people researching the strategies competitors use. We need to, as it is part of the continual learning process.

If you are found to be going against the SEO Challenge rules, you may be potentially publicly outed and risk having the website that contains hidden links removed from Google (your client would not be pleased), or you might decide to remove yourself from the competition rather than being publicly exposed.

I didn't happen to be looking for hidden links, they just popped out as obvious after seeing a Google alert for QuadraCentifiable.

Getting links is risky enough without using blatant black hat methods that could harm websites. The competition should be showcasing the best SEO New Zealand has to offer, something that helps each of us improve our linking methodologies. Not a platform to showcase black hat SEO!

This post and a similar one on the main SearchMasters website are likely to stay as a reminder to others so we don't get a third or more engaging in such risky tactics.

Source: QuadraCentifiable Black Hat SEO not tolerated!

NZ SEO Challenge ranks Top

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:23:41 +1200

Yippee!!! Top for QuadraCentifiable, but for how long. I have not been working the competition that hard. For the Nigritude Ultramarine competition, I was a rabid link getter, getting 10's of thousands of incoming links.

The competition is not too intense as yet. I don't see contestants with thousands of incoming links. My reported 160 incoming links per Yahoo has been able to beat thewebcoseo's 1020, and seochallenger's 1160. A+ SEO's SEO Challenger is the one that I consider will give me the most run for the top. There must be a definition of quality that I have been able to get from the incoming links that I have.

I certainly have a group of websites that I have been getting high Google PR for over many years, and links from such websites seems to have some value. Plus other links that I am using, similar to what I get my clients.

Having a good incoming links strategy is essential for the SEO of any business's website. With more competent Search Engine Optimisers out there getting incoming links for their clients, the winner ought to be the Consultant with the best incoming links strategy. In the purest sense, it ought to be the biggest, and most worthy business, as they ought to have the most market penetration and brand recognition to be able to attract natural incoming links.

I have certainly harvested a little of this goodwill given my high ranking on Google for Search Engine Optimisation (SearchMasters), and how I continue to train web developers.

The competition is still young. There is room at the top for a young upstart who has nothing better to do than get incoming links from around the world. It will be interesting to see who has the most stickability to see it through to the end, and how many thousands of incoming links it takes to rank top.

Hope you are having fun guys.

Source: NZ SEO Challenge ranks Top

Homepage recached and ranking 3rd

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:51:18 +1200

SearchMasters ranking 3rd. The long wait for the homepage to get recached is over, this nzseochallenge entry is ranking 3rd on Google.co.nz for QuadraCentifiable.

On some data centers, the old page is still showing the old 29 August 2010 GMT cached content. From 29 Aug GMT till today is 6 days for a homepage to get recached. Patience is not easy.

If it takes that long for a homepage to get recached, then it can take that long for new incoming links to get found. And even more so for inner pages that have new links on them. Patience is certainly the key. And it means that at any one time the competition could be many steps ahead with new links not yet found by Google. It shows the importance of keeping up the linking work.

I have been taking it easy over the past several days while waiting for the homepage to get recached. Not keen on overdoing the links on a newish domain, and there have been a good number of links from friends that have kicked in.

Source: Homepage recached and ranking 3rd

The long wait to get recached

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +1200

RSS feeds get new pages cached fast, new pages can get cached relatively fast, but pages that are already cached on low PR sites can take a while to get recached.

Such is the case with this website's homepage, and a number of other competitors homepages.

website-builder.co.nz
thewebcoseo.co.nz
alike.co.nz
etc

This compares to the almost instantaneous time it took for new content on my SearchMasters.co.nz homepage to get recached with its Google PR5. And the number one ranking that the SearchMasters.co.nz inner page still maintains without any external links into the page for the competition search phrase.

Patience is key in Search Engine Optimisation. Good things can take time.

It will be interesting to see how the rankings change once the competitors home pages are recached, and once the first round of linking is factored into the Google indexes over the next few days.

We are in for a tumultuous ride in the yoyo of the rankings with so many new incoming links.

Source: The long wait to get recached

PWS = 0 Personalised Search Parameter

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +1200

When I Google for QuadraCentifiable without the &pws=0 personalised search parameter at the end of the Google search url, I get the website showing top that I have visited the most often - namely this website.

Google records visits to websites based on cookies set after clicking through on Google Search Results both when you are logged in, and also when you are not logged into a Google account.

It is is important to check rankings with the &pws=0 parameter showing at the end of the Google url
ie

http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=quadracentifiable&pws=0

I personally use the Google Global firefox plugin to make this process easier.

Without the pws=0, my NZSEOChallenge website shows top - not what the general public would see

But then when I add the pws=0 to the end of the Google search url, I see what the general public would see, not skewed by my own browsing habits.

It is important when SEO'ing someones website to let them know about the pws=0 parameter otherwise they will have issues with the low traffic that their supposed high placing on Google is getting.

Source: PWS = 0 Personalised Search Parameter

QuadraCentifiable - 4 times Certified

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +1200

I think that one needs to be 4 times "Certified" insane to be part of the QuadraCentifiable SEO Competition. Think of all the work! Ahhh. He he. FUN!!!

I say:

Think of the publicity that will be received across the whole business community for how websites should be Search Engine Optimised better.
Think of all the new business that it will create for all of us, and how websites across New Zealand will benefit from being QuadraCentifiably better Search Engine Optimised.

Bring it on New Zealand. Through this QuadraCentifiable competition, lets together build the awareness of better Search Engine Optimisation and the benefits that it can bring to businesses.

Source: QuadraCentifiable - 4 times Certified