Better search results for your fictional blog

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My last post about search engines and blog fiction said not to rely on them if your entire website is a fictional blog. I had an idea that, if we all work together, could help blog fiction writers get some search engine traffic.

Before we get to my idea, let's get some background on how search engines work. When you do a search in yahoo or google for the phrase "cats", yahoo and google will give you about 30 billion results. The order that those results come is not random. They will try to give you the most relevant results possible. Most search engines do this based on a combination of the number of times the word "cats" appears on your website, and the number of other websites about "cats" links to your site.

It's that last point that's important. The words someone uses to link to your website is remembered by google (and, other search engines). So if a few hundred people link to your website using the word "cats", then google will think that your website is about "cats" even though the word may never appear on your website.

As I explained in my last post about search engines, the problem is that the words people use to find your fictional blog, may never appear on your website. They certainly never did on mine. No one ever found my fictional blog when doing a search for the words, "fictional blog". To solve this, we should exploit the part of google that takes note of our linking words. If you have a list of fictional blogs, don't link to them by name. Link to them using the words: "fiction", "blog fiction", or "fictional blog" etc...

Let's look at an example. I'll use Fluffy's blogroll, from The Professional Pet Blog Fiction as an example. (Not trying to pick on him, just the website I was reading when I got the idea)
Her Blogroll currently reads:

Linking to those websites using those words doesn't help them at all in the game of search engines. If you do a search for "Atyllah the Hen" or "Wilfs World" their websites already come out on top. However, if someone never heard of "Wilf's World" they wouldn't know to search for it. They would, instead, search for "Blog Fiction" or "Fictional Blog". Here is how I would propose Fluffy should change her blogroll:

Now, the next time google looks at fluffy's blog, it will note that "Blog Fiction" is used to link to all those other sites. Now, the next time somebody searches on "Blog Fiction" those sites will appear higher on the list. If we all do this for each other, it will be easier for new fans to find our Blog Fiction. I will soon be changing my feed titles to reflect this change.

If you have a fictional blog that I link to, Let me know in the comments if there's a different phrase you'd like me to use when I link to your site.

3 comments:

PassionateGrace said...

Hmm, just had a thought on this.

How about using both links. So that use for instance link using "blog fiction" and immediately follow that on the same line with the old link using the title.

Would make the list look less strange and give a double hit to the linked blog

As I said, just a thought

Dustin said...

Giving two links so close together with different words for the same site, I would be afraid of being penalized by google for link farming

I think either put just "blog fiction" or, if it looks too weird, put "blog fiction" and the name of the site into a single, combined link.

PassionateGrace said...

Well yes, Google may throw a wobbly and decide you are link farming but I wouldn't think so since both links are still in context as it were.

In fact if the Google Gods are going to object to anything it may well turn out to be the duplication of so many links with the exact same words but pointing to different sites.

>> if it looks too weird, put "blog fiction" and the name of the site into a single, combined link.

That may well be a better idea since what prompted my original comment was the look of the example link block in your post.

I guess what I am saying is that we mere mortals cannot win against such Gods as these. In the long run we just need to take our best shot and hope for the best.

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