Search Engine Optimization

		Search Engine Optimization
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A #1 Hero!

October 13, 2003

I'm pleased that we've been able to honor World War I hero Benjamin Handley Geary with the #1 spot out of 34,800 in a Google search for WWI hero. Less surprising is John White Geary at #1 out of 68,400 in a search for john white geary.

Donna Geary is #1 of 71,200 in a search for merchandising consultants, and Geary Buxton is #1 of 666,000 for performing arts marketing.

David Geary's Marilyn Monroe photos continue to be popular, and even made the #1 spot when people searched for marilyn monroe expressions, marilyn monroe last year photos, and marilyn monroe police photos. (No, we don't have police photos!) We're way down at #132 out of 1,560,000 in a search for just marilyn monroe, but a surprising amount of traffic comes from that search phrase. Monroe fans are nothing if not persistent.

-- Mike

To Google, and beyond!

October 11, 2003

Sometimes I forget that Google is not the only search engine. In fact, MSN is very popular too, because it's the default search engine when you type a phrase directly into Internet Explorer's address bar.

I was trying to figure out why one of the most popular pages here is Help on Smileys. In fact, for this month so far, the most popular search phrase is "smiley central". What do we have to do with smileys?

Well, it's all those Internet Explorer users.

If you do a Google search for smiley central, our Help on Smileys page is down at #41 out of 104,000--and #1 on the list is Smiley Central, which is probably what you want.

But if you do an MSN search for smiley central, our Help on Smileys page is #3 out of 48,352, and the first two matches are definitely not what you were looking for. smileycentral.com doesn't even show up on the list.

Plus, I added a link to Smiley Central in the Help on Smileys page, and MSN displays this text in the search results:

If you're looking for help on using smileys here at Geary Central, this is the right place. If you got here through a web search and you're wondering "Geary who?", perhaps you were looking for Smiley Central.

So, all those Internet Explorer users come here and find their way to Smiley Central--which they wouldn't have found otherwise--and everyone is happy. But it is humbling to learn that 20% of our search engine visitors are here by mistake.

What I can't figure out is why Geary Central is way down at #23 in an MSN search for geary, with the #1 spot going to Tim Geary's Geary and Company Limited, a financial counseling firm. The funny part is that Tim's page here at Geary Central is #4 out of 1,030,000 on a Google search for financial counselors, but his own site doesn't even show up in the results!

-- Mike

How to succeed in Google without really trying

October 9, 2003

Everyone wants their site to come up at the top of the Google search results for their favorite keywords and phrases. There's a whole industry devoted to Search Engine Optimization.

I've been delighted, and a bit puzzled, to see that pages here at Geary Central have been getting consistently high rankings in Google search results. We've always had the #1 spot for geary, of course. What's more surprising are the pages that link to other Geary companies, where the page here outranks the company's own page. For example:

Gardner Geary Coll Inc. used to be named Gardner Geary Coll & Young, and many people still search for them under their former name. That search won't find their site at all, except through their page here at Geary Central. Even if you search for their current name, gardner geary coll, you'll land on a Geary Central page, not their page.

The nice folks at Geary Company Advertising are in a similar boat. If you search for geary company advertising, the first match will be a page here, which of course links to their site.

Friends, I'm not trying to steal your traffic--honest! All the pages here link to your pages--that's the whole purpose of a directory site like this.

One of the most popular pages here is David Geary's Marilyn Monroe photos, which is #7 out of 633,000 in a search for marilyn monroe photos. Change that to monroe photos and David's at #4 out of 1,400,000.

Actress Cynthia Geary is also popular, although we missed the Top Ten at #18 out of 24,100 for cynthia geary. Our page about actor Tony Geary is #3 out of 47,100 in a search for tony geary.

Leigh Geary made #8 out of 3,970,000 in a search for internet engineer.

Some pages are real surprises. If you search for electric bell, the #3 result out of 1,890,000 is The Shaw and Geary Electric Bell, a newspaper article from 1887.

A few people seem to be looking for the editor of TIME Magazine. I hope they won't mind that our page about TIME Europe editor James Geary is #1 out of 6,170,000 in a search for editor time magazine.

I'm not sure if people searching for black architects are really looking for Geary and Black, but they're at #1 out of 499,000. And the musicians and music fans searching for electric viola will probably be disappointed that the #1 result out of 110,000 is Geary Electric of Viola, Wisconsin.

Trying to understand this phenomenon, I went around reading some of the Search Engine Optimization sites. I noticed one piece of advice that kept coming up, which boiled down to, "Get everyone to link to you, but don't link to anyone else if you can avoid it--you'll be giving away your PageRank." Well, that just the opposite of what we do here: There are only a few other sites that link to Geary Central, but just about every page here has links to other sites.

So why do we do so well on these Google searches? If I could bottle this and sell it, I'd be rich!

-- Mike

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