Business Logs

Google Loves Weblogs

Wednesday, July 21st, 2004 by MR

Since this past Saturday, more than 70% of the traffic coming to my personal website has been from Googlers searching for terms like “hPod” or “blue hPod”. Apple announced new iPods on Monday, and then verified that they were producing an HP-branded blue iPod based on the 4th generation model they just came out with. So why is this so amazing?

Weblogs are chock full of archived information, and when I wrote about the HP iPod (or hPod for short) rumor, I wrote about it back in January (my site is currently being redesigned live, so please forgive me!). That little page has been dormant for 7 months, but just sprang to life upon the thousands of Googlers who clicked on the link in the search results.

The Googlebot visits my site dozens of times per day because I update it very frequently. It may visit your site once or twice a week, or it may visit your site 20 times per hour – it all depends on your PageRank figure and how often you update it. Some have said that weblogs are ruining Google search results, but I feel the opposite is true. If breaking news just happened 30 minutes ago, and you want the latest news, it’s not going to be a full-blown New York Times article yet. If it’s not national news, then CNN won’t be covering it. So you turn to Google, and find that a few bloggers have already written down the facts, added their $ .02, and packaged it nicely on their website. Instant gratification.

If a weblog pops up on the first page of Google results, there’s a reason for it. It’s not just there because they happen to have written about your query, it’s there because of the hundreds or thousands of people who have linked to that weblog in the past, thus validating its credibility and reliability. If a thousand people link to a weblog and think that it is a worthwhile resource for news, then guess what? In my opinion, it is a valid news source.

Reader Comments

8 Responses to “Google Loves Weblogs”

Tris Hussey Says:

Google does love blogs. My own blog started off slowly, but then (with an iPod posting as well, ironically) it took off. Blogs are certainly great places for searchers to land. Often the content is not only relavent, but also commentary and more links.
If you want to get indexed by search engines, blogs are certainly a great option.

July 21st, 2004 at 2:13 pm

Darren Rowse Says:

I adore Google! I can’t begin to tell you adequately how much it has changed my blogging and therefore my life. It gives me content, it brings me readers and it gives me a way to earn a living from that content and those readers! What a great tool!

I love how it loves blogs - especially blogs which are set up well (like yours is) to attract google.

Nice post…and nice blog by the way - will be interested to follow what you’re doing here.

July 23rd, 2004 at 5:50 am

iProceed.com Says:

Absolutely true. We have seen the same happen on our website. Not only are blog posts indexed right away, sometimes the main website does not even pop up in the search results. But again, we also update our blog several times a day while the main website gets updated maybe only once or twice a day.

We agree that blogs are redefining the Web.

July 24th, 2004 at 9:43 pm

Wayne Hurlbert Says:

Google loves blogs. There is no other way to describe it.

In fact, blogs so closely follow, what the Google algorithm (the computer program that calculates those search results you seek) looks for in a site, it’s almost as if blogs were custom designed for Google.

Google loves fresh content. Frequebtly updated sites always rank higher in Google. Blogs are built on fresh posts. Check.

Google is the most biased search engines in favour of incoming links. Bloggers link freely and generously to other blogs they like and recommend. Check.

Those links often contain the most important site keywords in the link itself. Link anchor text is very important to Google. Check.

Google looks for sites that have links from related “themed” sites. Bloggers often link to blogs that are written on similar topics to their own blogs. Check.

Post titles give each blog entry a unique keyword rich identity. That is very powerful in Google. Check.

July 26th, 2004 at 3:09 am

ITIL Says:

Google loves weblogs, but its all going to change when they introduce BLOOGLE! the new google search engine for blogs…and no im not lying.

_______________
Help Desk Software Consultant

July 26th, 2004 at 12:01 pm

Ganesh Says:

Thanks for your info. Your suggestions really helps. I need Google to index my websites so i am putting my site links along with this post. Hope you guys don’t mind

Hotel Mowbrays Inn Alwarpet chennai. http://www.mowbraysinn.com

June 3rd, 2005 at 10:21 am