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Help:Search Engine Optimization (view source)
Revision as of 03:09, 21 February 2007
, 03:09, 21 February 2007→The future: --> Two test cases
The [[stone crab]] article in Centiare took its author about 10 minutes to create, and it now comes up first out of 121,000 Google search results. Imagine what careful, dedicated authors of encyclopedic content on Centiare could achieve.
The [[stone crab]] article in Centiare took its author about 10 minutes to create, and it now comes up first out of 121,000 Google search results. Imagine what careful, dedicated authors of encyclopedic content on Centiare could achieve.
==The future==
==Two test cases==
Centiare developers are currently working on two new "test cases" to explore the dynamic impact of Centiare on Google search engine rankings for small businesses. We will report those results here around the end of January.
At the end of the first week of [[January]] [[2007]], Centiare developers created two new "test cases" to explore the dynamic impact of Centiare on Google search engine rankings for small businesses. We selected two real-life businesses in competitive trades -- [[plumber|plumbing]] and [[real estate]] -- and settled on [[Directory:Superior Plumbing & Heating|Superior Plumbing & Heating]] of Rochester, [[Directory:Minnesota|Minnesota]], and [[Directory:Pinnacle Realty Services|Pinnacle Realty Services]] of New Bedford, [[Directory:Massachusetts|Massachusetts]].
We drew up what we thought might be some common search engine queries that potential customers of these businesses might input on Google. We checked where each of the companies' own web sites ([http://www.superior-plumbing.com/ Superior] and [http://www.pinrs.com/ Pinnacle]) emerged on these hypothetical Google searches. Then, we created Centiare [[Centiare:Directory Space|Directory]] pages for each company, including no more data or information than could be derived from these companies' existing web sites. Finally, we waited a little more than a month for Google's spiders to crawl Centiare and appropriately rank these new Directory pages.
Honestly, some of the results were enticingly good, while others were a bit of a disappointment for our very high expectations. Here is the data from the '''Superior Plumbing & Heating''' test:
{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
!width="275"|GOOGLE SEARCH TERMS
!width="100"|Rank of [http://www.superior-plumbing.com/ corporate web site] before Centiare
!width="100"|Rank of [[Directory:Superior Plumbing & Heating|Centiare Directory page]] after 5 weeks
|-
|plumber zip 55901 ||align="center"| None of 152 results ||align="center"| 2nd
|-
|plumber 55901 ||align="center"| 11th ||align="center"| 8th
|-
|"hot water" company Rochester MN ||align="center"| 175th ||align="center"| 41st
|-
|"drain cleaning" Rochester MN ||align="center"| 16th ||align="center"| 20th
|-
|superior plumbing ||align="center"| 4th ||align="center"| 9th
|-
|superior plumber ||align="center"| 2nd ||align="center"| 6th
|-
|superior plumbing & heating ||align="center"| 2nd ||align="center"| 11th
|}
<br>
And here is the data from the '''Pinnacle Realty Services''' test:
{| border="1" cellpadding="2"
!width="275"|GOOGLE SEARCH TERMS
!width="100"|Rank of [http://www.pinrs.com/ corporate web site] before Centiare
!width="100"|Rank of [[Directory:Pinnacle Realty Services|Centiare Directory page]] after 5 weeks
|-
|realtors 02740||align="center"| 69th ||align="center"| 6th
|-
|realtors zip 02740||align="center"| Not in top 300 results ||align="center"| 13th
|-
|"se habla espanol" "real estate" "New Bedford" ||align="center"| 15th ||align="center"| 2nd
|-
|pinnacle realty services ||align="center"| 3rd ||align="center"| 13th
|-
|realty Bristol Plymouth counties ||align="center"| 53rd ||align="center"| 160th
|}
<br>
As one can see from these tables, Centiare (even in its formative stages of content-building) has the capability of giving small businesses another "chance" within Google searches to be found by prospective customers. This is '''especially''' true if one carefully targets some highly-specialized searches that might be taking place (as in the "se habla espanol" example). Why would [http://www.pinrs.com/ Pinnacle Realty Services] settle for a 15th-place ranking of their home page on that search, when they could achieve a 2nd place ranking with an equivalent [[Directory:Pinnacle Realty Services|Centiare listing]]?