Google, Google, Why Hast Thou Forsaken the Manolo?
Manolo says, please excuse the Manolo while he complains about something that has been bothering him for the many months now: the peculiar search results returned by the Google search engine, which has seemed to take the inexplicable disliking to the blog of the Manolo.
To illustrate this problem, the Manolo has done three searches on the title of one of his most recent blog postings, Manolosphere: The Tumblr of the Manolo, from earlier this afternoon.
Here is the search from the new Blekko search engine…
The Manolo’s recent post is returned, as it should be, in the first position.
And now, another of the Manolo’s favorite search engines, the results of the Bing…
Again, the Manolo’s recent posting is in the first position.
And now the Google results….
On the first page of ten results, you will notice that the Manolo’ s humble shoe blog is in the sixth position, below Shozsociety, Shoepimps, MyShoeAngels, Tweetmeme, and the Jumping Anaconda, all sites which simply repost part or all of the Manolo’s RSS feed.
Finally at number six, the front page of the Manolo’s Shoe Blog appears… No sign of the specific post yet.
Ah, here is the specific post, on the second page….
In the sixteenth position, well below the Eyeballs Macedonia!
Clearly, Google does not like the blog of the Manolo.
The Manolo must apologize to his internet friends for complaining about this, as it detracts from the light-hearted spirit that the Manolo wishes to maintain here. However, complain he must, for he feels that the injustice is being done to him by the Google.
Query: Is the Google search system failing?
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Comments
@tiffany 14 years ago
It’s that Google mostly ignores Tumblr, partially because Tumblr is poorly-designed for SEO purposes, and partially because of the number of spam blogs hosted on the service. I enjoy using Tumblr, but it is not a serious option for anyone trying to get what they write there to show up in search engines.
Manolo the Shoeblogger 14 years ago
This is not the specific tumblr problem of which you speak. This problem is affecting all of the content on the shoeblogs.com domain.
For the example, the search on the phrase “Super Fantastic Last Minute Stuffers of the Stocking“, the title of the recent post, puts the Manolo’s original content six or seven places below the blogs which are reposting the RSS feed of this post.
Yes, the Manolo could limit his RSS feed, but there are many peoples who read the Manolo’s blog in the newsreaders.
This is the very annoying problem.
Klee 14 years ago
I share your pain, Manolo. I pay the Google ads for my restaurant’s site, only to find it numer 18 when I research it. Perhaps one of the fine follwers of this blog can tell us how to appease the GoogleGod? Sacrifical lamb?
larkspur 14 years ago
Dear Manolo,
I do not know the details or the intricacies of the workings of Google. But some time ago, when its workings were less mysterious, the sites that had the most links pointing to it were the ones on top. You could do an experiment by having lots of sites point to one particular posting and see what happens (call in the favors to all your other blogger friends). More likely, however, the Google has decided to be more mysterious and arcane. Perhaps the lamb is the best approach (but where to find one in December??).
But we that know you, we always start here at the shoeblogs!
Erik Nabler 14 years ago
Perhaps The Manolo should start some mirror site that simply reposts The Manolo’s posts. Perhaps Google would sanctify that.
Jane2 14 years ago
The Google has nothing personal against the Manolo. Rather, it’s allowed annoying aggregators to hijack the results of searches in general. Most annoying!
gamma 14 years ago
Mr gamma tells me that you should hire an expert to look at your tagging to make sure your keywords are keeping you where you belong in the Google hierarchy. It would seem that because of the well-deserved success of the Manolo, sites who wish to attract the eyes of persons interested in shoes are using “Manolo,” and perhaps other related words’ as tags, to stay as close to the top as possible. These tags are prioritized above the actual content of the site.
raincoaster 14 years ago
Google decided to break it off with WordPress some time ago, probably in order to promote its shoddy Blogspot blogs (300+ HTML errors right out of the box in every blog!) and downgraded all WordPress blogs. Of Tumblr’s SEO we shall not even speak: I have nine thousand posts in mine, and the posts there do not even show up properly when you do a Google search for them BY TITLE, only on the domain Tumblr.com. In fact, they don’t show up properly when you search the domain raincoaster.tumblr.com either.
Hendra Uzia 14 years ago
IMHO, perhaps that’s because google thinks that the other first sites are more popular than your site, it’s not that google didn’t like your site.
Doings Of Manolo! | Manolo's Shoe Blog 14 years ago
There, some anchor text links will do the trick to boost him up.
Less complaining more helping good bloggers will suffice.
14 years ago
Maybe it’s Google gentle hint “want to always be found – pay for Google ads”
henk 14 years ago
The correct result has sunk to page 3 :(