CrankBerry Blog » SEO http://www.crankberryblog.com Sharing ideas on web design, development and the internet economy Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:46:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 No more Google pagerank, no more worries? http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/no-more-google-pagerank-no-more-worries http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/no-more-google-pagerank-no-more-worries#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:17:23 +0000 Jerry Low http://www.crankberryblog.com/?p=229 Ever since Google and SEO exploded web developers overly obsessed over page ranks. As time passed people became more and more insane over "WHAT'S YOUR PR?", "WHEN'S THE NEXT PR UPDATE?", and "I ACHIEVED x PR IN x MONTHS". Regardless of how you try to convince people not to dwell on it, people did. It was impossible, it's like trying to tell people Diet Coke is not for losing weight. Over the weekend something miraculous happened, the official dropping of PageRanks by Google. Now, no longer would you have to worry about delegating SEO time to this treachery.

The Proof

I really don't have to explain this, its straight from the donkey's mouth right here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6a1d6250e26e9e48&hl=en (I'm not calling Google a donkey BTW).

Why did I care for PageRanks?

As some readers may have noticed that in the past I have given a crap for PR, if it had so little significance in SEO why did I care. The reason I cared was because it was a niche traffic driver. There are some web developers out there who travels to blogs like mine or any other blogs looking for high PR pages to link back to their pages. It turns out these people are the people that my blog is catered to. This became a win-win situation as they may get some backlinking and I get traffic from the right target market. This was the only reason why I cared.

Where do we go from here?

The word hasn't been spread around yet but in a few more months this whole PR craze will be dropped and once again we can start anew, find something new to obsessed and kill time over.

]]> http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/no-more-google-pagerank-no-more-worries/feed 4 Importance of Alexa Ranking http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/importance-of-alexa-ranking http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/importance-of-alexa-ranking#comments Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:06:22 +0000 Jerry Low http://www.crankberryblog.com/?p=204 I know a couple webmasters myself and they've always been obsessed with their "Alexa Ranking", and to some degree has used it to measure their success on the world wide web. Is this accurate? The short answer - No! The long answer, is possibly but based on how you use it. I'm going to break down what Alexa measures, how is it relevant for you and how you should use it.]]> I know a couple webmasters myself and they've always been obsessed with their "Alexa Ranking", and to some degree has used it to measure their success on the world wide web. Is this accurate? The short answer – No! The long answer, is possibly but based on how you use it. I'm going to break down what Alexa measures, how is it relevant for you and how you should use it.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Alexa here's a little background. Alexa is a tool available online to measure the ranking of websites based on traffic. So for Google who's one of the tops in traffic they're ranked number 1, and Yahoo who has a bit less is ranked number 2 and so on. Over the years web developers has been obsessed with their ranking as a measurement of how well their website is doing and to be honest this is not a good way of doing so, to a certain degree.

Inaccurate Measurements

First thing's first, lets understand measurement of traffic. If say right now I want to find out your website's traffic I can't, obviously because you own the website and you don't want to share it with me. Now if I was to place a tracker code in your site then I can see the statistics without your consent, but I need your approval and admin access to do so. With that in mind, think about how Alexa is able to measure your website statistics, they can't without your consent! So that's the "trick', they actually gather statistics from their Alexa toolbar. I'm not sure if you're using one right now, but people have installed a tool made by Alexa to quickly get statistics of websites they visit but what they aren't aware of is that Alexa is doing the same thing. They're tracking user visits to websites and accumulating a data of their own. This is why the Alexa ranking is not accurate and not a precise measurement of your success.

Shouldn't It Still Work?

Ok, so somebody was to say, its not accurate but if so many people use it, shouldn't it still work? Well here's my take on it. As far as I know the Alexa toolbar is only available for Firefox (correct me if I'm wrong), and FireFox users only account for 46.6% (1) of browsers online. That means that a majority of users are still neglected in the statistics. I don't have the stats but I have a feeling there are demographic segments that does not install the Alexa toolbar so depending on which target market/niche your website is catered to you may be higher or lower on the charts.

The Proof

Based on the theory I have above I've decided to test it out. The company I work for is a B2B company but their target market is senior level IT people which a majority is in the 39+ category. Our website visitors are mainly on IE6.7. Now the sites have on average a few hundreds of unique visits on a daily basis, but their rankings are between 1 million to 2 million. I

On the contrary I have a personal site which has 20+ unique visitors a day on average, but my ranking for that site is in the 400 000 category. It goes to show, its all based on the users that visits your site; therefore, skewed and inaccurate.

So It Doesn't Work – Why Use It?

Even though it doesn't give you an accurate ranking in the world wide web you can use it in a different way. Based on the first part of this article you aren't able to see other people/company's website statistics so by using Alexa ranking to compare again competitors in the same segment is a method to measure yourself against your competitors, but even then its not very accurate.

The true method to measure your success is to mark a goal and try to achieve it. If its 100 unique visits a day or $100 dollars in revenue a day, just set it and aim for it. When you have achieved it, you are successful.

1. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

]]> http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/importance-of-alexa-ranking/feed 0 15 Free blog directories to get you started http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/15-free-blog-directories-to-get-you-started http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/15-free-blog-directories-to-get-you-started#comments Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:39:09 +0000 Jerry Low http://www.crankberryblog.com/?p=130 So you just started a blog? Where do you go from here? How do you drive traffic? You need to do some SEO work on your blog and one of those items on the checklist is having some quality backlinks to your site. Here I've compiled a list of 15 free blog directories where you can quickly submit to, somewhat of a starting point. Now what I say free links I mean zero dollars spent but some of them may require a link back to them. Scan through and see if there's anything good for you.

1. Blogged

This was a very good directory site. They claim to only take 1 – 3 days to review, possibly an average timing. An account is required to submit anything and they have this Twitter thingy going on in there. I haven't been around but looks crazy. PR 6

2. On Top List

On Top List requires a link back to their website. Now, they have two options either to have a text link back or have an image link back. The image link is a badge they provide you with, which is not too bad since they have a variety of color combinations for you to choose from. The posting on their live site was almost instant which was a plus. Oh, and an account is required for posting. PR 1

3. http://www.blogadr.com/

Very simple. Its free and requires no backlink, no account, and no hassle. Very easy to use, submit and go type of thing. Recommend you to stop by at this one. PR 4

4. Globe of Blogs

This was not the most appealing directory I have ever seen but a directory is still a directory. The most appealing part of this blog is that its a PR 7 site. A backlink image is required, they have a couple to choose from and you must choose from that list. PR 7

5. Spill Bean

This website reminded me of something from "The Ugly Truth", but lets not go there… at least not right now. Spill Bean is more of a directory site but they have a blog section. No account is required but you do need to have a reciprocal link. PR 2

6. Blog Flux

Blog Flux requires you to have an account to submit your blog. Not only that, they require your blog to be at least 7 days old and have a minimum of 5 postings already. Their reasoning is that there has been too many spam postings. I suppose its for everybody's good. PR 2

7. Blog Listing

Nothing much to say about this one except the layout's a little bit messy. Its free with your own choice of having a reciprocal link. PR 5

8. Super Blog Directory

The name says it all… it's SUPER. For its awesome superness this directory requires your blog to have at least 3 months worth of consecutive postings. There were more conditions too but I got a bit sleepy after the second paragraph (sarcasm). This one's not for everybody but if you meet the requirements, go for it! PR 5

9. Blog Top List

Blog Top List requires you to have an account and at least one of two image backlinks. They let you choose which of the two you want on your site and if you put both you score higher on their "good list". PR 1

10. BlogGernity

This site is a bit confusing, but I was able to find the submit button. Its at the very bottom. There's not many categories to choose from when submitting but its sufficient. You do need an account to submit though. PR 6

11. DMEGS

This is another directory site with a blogging section available for us bloggers. Its got a very clean layout for sure. Reciprocal link is required for submission. PR 3

12. Blog Directory.WS

The site was definately easy on the eyes. No account was required and they have a lot of categories for you to choose from. Very easy to use. PR 1

13. Blog Site List

Blog Site List requires you to sign up for an account to submit your blog. The problem was, I couldn't find the login page after I signed up. You'll have to type in the page yourself – login.php. Once you figure that out then you can submit. The categories were hard to see so highlight the page to ease straining your eyes too much. PR 1

14. Blog Dirs

The site was very empty as if there was nothing there, but sometimes this is a good thing. Reciprocal link was required for submissions. PR 3

15. Droool

Very easy to submit to Droool. There wasn't much to it. It requires you to have your RSS and Atom link ready though. PR 1

Here you have it, a list of some blog directories to get you going. I may have missed some valuable ones. Share yours or whatever you have and I'll recompile the list. Note: the PR measuring tools I use has not guarantee of accuracy.

Edit – Added another one:

16. Blog Catalog

Thanks to Renee for giving me a heads up on this one. Large community of blogs and users. An account is required for posting and requires no backlink to them. Definately worth the sign up and checking back often to. PR 6

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