Oh man... I think I better start a REAL SEO Seminar series.

Earlier this year I made a tongue in cheek post on my Blog about ' TheGypsy's Not-So-Elite Retreat ' a ficticous SEO Seminar (woops.. targeted link drop - he he)

Strangely, I left it at that, but it is now ranking..... I didn't do any link building for that page or anything else.....

I am now getting refferrers for folks searching ' SEO seminar Canada' - I am ranking #3

Also of interest is that there is only a single mention about Canada in it. This hints at the usage of not only Phrase Based Optimization, but potentially ' agent rank' as well. Agent rank is essentially relating certain people with certain terms ....

So anyways, it seems I better get a seminar series going and capitalize on this traffic huh? bwaaaa ha ha ha ha....

Dats a good one......

But isnt it just a variation on Spamdexing

I was doing some blog testing of my own and it wasn’t hard to rank for items contained in my posts, no links no nada.

waveshoppe wrote:

But isnt it just a variation on Spamdexing

I was doing some blog testing of my own and it wasn’t hard to rank for items contained in my posts, no links no nada.

It is certainly interesting and backs-up some things you and I have been looking at. Once again though, it is hard to say what effect 'aggregate' site links have, not simply ones targeted to a given page. Other obvious ones are;

a. page naming conventions - my page name has a tighter targeting.

b. outbound links - there are some outbound links to various 'authority' sites of popular SEO seminars.

I won't prolly take to the time analyze it, but there is something there I bet.... mostly, I just felt bad for the putz that came to the site for that search term..... he he

I agree with not spending much time on it. I just ran off some fast tests to see if any of the things we have been discussing have any merit and moved on. Probably the only thing that still peaks my interest is that it appears to become somewhat sticky. I stuck one of my tests in #3. I know Jim so thats why I chose his web.

tighter targeting works

waveshoppe wrote:

I agree with not spending much time on it. I just ran off some fast tests to see if any of the things we have been discussing have any merit and moved on. Probably the only thing that still peaks my interest is that it appears to become somewhat sticky. I stuck one of my tests in #3. I know Jim so thats why I chose his web.

tighter targeting works

Yeah that is interesting (sticky part). As U know it is often temprorary.... I shall be interested in seeing how it lasts with no efforts to maintain it.....

So I don’t forget I set an Outlook reminder for December 3rd 07

This is an interesting topic. Would the results be different if this wasn't done on a blog?

unlikely as most of the other results aren't Blogs and there is no logical reason (nor technical one I have ever seen) for G to put a blog above any other result

I can't say for sure as I haven't researched this little tidbit, and likely won't. It could simply be a non-competitive phrase. Look at the allintitle - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en& … nar+canada

No one is really targeting that phrase

I have a sneaking suspicion it is the outbound links to other popular SEO seminars that gave it a bit of a boost as well.

I can't truly say for sure at this point without digging into it......

Interesting David.

In addition to your allintitle: search, a search for an exact phrase match, and an allinurl: turns up nothing as well.

Without title, exact phrase, exact anchor text, and URL matches to go on, all the other mechanisms are taking precedence such as the aggregate etc.

Also take a look at some of the exact phrase pairings...

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=n … +canada%22

Not much to go on there.

Or the plural...

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=n … 2canada%22

Is it possible that the page has always ranked well and this is just the first time you've been alerted to it because of the refferrers?

Dave

CrankyDave wrote:

Interesting David.

In addition to your allintitle: search, a search for an exact phrase match, and an allinurl: turns up nothing as well.

Without title, exact phrase, exact anchor text, and URL matches to go on, all the other mechanisms are taking precedence such as the aggregate etc.

Is it possible that the page has always ranked well and this is just the first time you've been alerted to it because of the refferrers?

Dave

Ha ha ha... so look what the cat dragged in.. Brother Cranky!!!

Actually, Jan (incredible) and WebNutz (he he) are also members here and have dropped by from time to time. I hang here as it was one of the first boards I came to and ..well.... they put up with me.... he he....


Anyways, I have no idea how long it has actually been ranking for that term.. so it's possible that it's been there for a while. Obviously I wasn't targeting it, it was a silly post for fun.....

Aggregate - I really don't have a ton of IBLs to my blog... so not sure if that is doing much...

Geo-targeting - my site is actually hosted in the US... so that didn't bring the love for 'Canada' ... none of the outbounds are Canadian (to SEO seminars)

Page naming convention – granted this is tighter than most of the other results, but I never thought it was THAT strong a factor… hmmmm

SMM – I am pretty sure I didn’t post it to any social media sites… prolly not it.

AgentRank – I rank for ‘theGypsy’ and my name, which could be related to ‘Canada’ but most forums I don’t put my location and there really isn’t enough of me out there to be related to that.

Authority - I have a bunch of links to various seminars in my ' How to learn SEO ' post ..... that may have possibly weighted the over-all site theme some.... unlikely though

So in the end I have to think it is a combination of the above and simply a non-competitive term. As you mentioned, I could have had that rank for a while and this is the ONLY referrer that has come in.. so it’s just not that popular.

I must have a brew later and look more closely I suppose….