I was browsing my blog stats this evening and I noticed that lots of people were coming to my site having searched for the term Caoimhe blog. Caoimhe is a very well known Irish blogger and she was recently interviewed on a daytime TV program called The Big Bite along with several other Irish bloggers of renown.
This program raised Caoimhe’s already high profile and so more people are searching for her blog. Currently when you search for Caoimhe blog in Google.ie, this site comes up as result no 1!
Why is this site coming up as result no. 1? Well there are several reasons, first off I have a link to Caoimhe’s blog in my list of blogs I read using the term “Caoimhe’s blog”.
Furthermore, the searchers are restricting the search to Ireland on Google.ie and my blog is hosted in Ireland. Caoimhe’s blog on the other hand, although Irish, is a Blogger blog hosted by blogspot.com in the US.
Finally, this blog is run out of WordPress, so the blog it produces is web standards compliant - this is not the case for Blogger blogs. Why is this important? Well, search engines love standards compliant sites and generally, standards compliant sites rank higher then non-compliant sites in searches (this is ironic considering Blogger is owned by Google).
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No thought to the possible pure popularity of the gal herself then!!
On the contrary Caoimhe - my point is that despite your popularity, my site comes up when people search for your blog, so the rest of the post I go on to try to explain why I think that is.
If you’re American, you cannot spell or say the word “Caoimhe” and that makes finding “Caoimhe’s blog” even more difficult. A further problem arises when Google does not give any clues on a search for “The blog and I” although “The blog and I Burke” gives a pointer to Caoimhe via FMK.
Hey Tom,
I think I know what you mean about Blogger, but you might consider clarifying a bit more… I know you’re not a huge Blogger fan, but it is possible to have a standards compliant Blogger Blog….! BifSniff.com usually validates - it doesn’t right this second but that’s not bloggers fault as it happens - a renegade ampersand in a url not generated by blogger is causing the trouble!
Frankp
You are correct Frank, it is possible to have a standards compliant Blogger blog, if you design your own standards compliant template - however, if you use the templates provided, as the vast majority of Blogger users do, then your blog won’t be standards compliant
im the real caoimhe XxX