So Google is leaving it up to us. Anyone with a Google account can now customize their organic results any way they like. Google is calling this new found user freedom SearchWiki. This is interesting and important because, you’ve got to figure, Google is going to be keeping an eye on everyone’s votes. But whatsoever would they do with the data?

Feedback from Google:

“Dupont was noncommittal about whether the company planned to build in that feedback loop, either directly as a signal to influence search rankings or indirectly as extra data that could help the company judge the relevance of its search results. But he certainly didn’t rule the idea out. We don’t close any doors. We constantly evaluate signals” that are incorporated into the search results algorithm. Search is adapting to the Internet as it becomes a more participatory medium. Now you have people telling us specific things about how they’d like to see their search results.”

I guess it’s wait and see time. But seriously, how fun is it to mess with the organic results?!

I am looking forward to SES San Jose again this year. It should be a good time filled with ample opportunity to learn, network, and enjoy the company of other SEOs.

Let me know if any of you will be there. We will definitely have to try to meet up. I’m sure we will hit the Google Dance this year too. The t-shirts are too cool to miss.

Don’t look now, but the Google AdWords Keyword Tool is giving volume numbers and not the progress bar we have seen in the past. I’m not sure if this is a permanent change or not, so you had better get it while it lasts. The volume numbers are coming through in the downloads too.

The change can be seen below.

Here is a closer look.

Thanks Google!

Wanted to take a minute and say a quick hello. I am currently at the Geo Domain Expo conference in Chicago and am enjoying it greatly. SEO and domains are right up my alley. Then again, I am sure most of you know that.

One more thing. I have been working on a new website to sell hog shirts (Harley T-Shirts) online. As you can see from my previous link, “hog shirts” is my primary keyword target. Keep an eye on that site and we will see what an SEO can do with eCommerce. As though of you who are familiar with SEO know, eCommerce sites can present an interesting set of circumstances to an SEO.

Have a good one. Catch you all later!

Well it appears I am going to have to concede defeat on this napkin pirates challenge. I learned so much that my head is spinning. The best I could do was my napkin pirates Twitter page. It appears to be #3 right now, so it is close, but not close enough.

I will try to provide some feedback in the coming weeks for anyone who is interested. Thanks for following along.

Have you ever noticed how well PDFs tend to rank for some specific targeted terms? Well I have. As many of my regular readers know, I am in the middle of an SEO contest right now so I thought I would see how well I could get a PDF to rank.

We will give it a little dash of link juice from KansasCitySEO.com by mentioning the sweet new napkin pirates PDF that I found on ScoutTechnology.com.

Go ahead and take a look at the file. Notice I have it saved in a directory called napkin-pirates. The file has a name with “napkin pirates” in the prominent starting position. If you download the file and take a closer look you will see napkin pirates mentioned in the title, author, subject, and keywords fields. The file resides on a domain with good PageRank.

Looks like this file should rank. Now it is time for the famous wait and see game. We will see how it goes.

As many of you have already seen, I am in the middle of an SEO challenge on the term “napkin pirates”. This particular post is a test at the success of header tags in the boosting of rankings. Let’s begin.

Napkin Pirates and Header Tags

<-- Our H1 tag with a nice generic napkin pirates title.

Napkin Pirates Favorite Things

<-- An H2 tag in all its glory.

• Napkins
• Pirates

Napkin Pirates Disclaimer

<-- We would be remiss to overlook the H3 tag, so here it is.
There were no napkin pirates harmed in the writing of this post. It was simply an exercise in SEO and a test in the effectiveness of header tags on the ranking of a napkin pirates page.

No Comments

---

Just as an FYI, my domaining site (NameBait.com) has finally started reporting a Google PageRank (2). The website came online October 8, 2008 and today is the first day I have noticed the PageRank. It is three months later.

Just a note, although I have not had a PageRank on NameBait.com up until today Google has still crawled the site several times each day.

I wrote another post on NameBait.com that gives a couple examples as to what I am seeing with the weight domain names appear to be providing now in the Google SERPs. There is no need to repeat the post over here, so drop over there and take a look if you are interested.

Someone wrote an excellent blog post over at NameBait.com regarding the weight that domain names appear to be adding to a website’s search engine rankings. You may want to run over there and take a look!