January 13th, 2004 by Jemaleddin Cole
You know, I’m sure that if you all were a bunch of slimy internet marketers you’d already know this stuff, but I’ve recently gotten myself to the number one Google search result for "Jemal", "Jemaleddin" and "Jemal Cole." Why? Well, so people who know me can find me. The better question is how.
I wondered for a while why I was so far down in the listings. The only searches that would turn up my site were for my email address, and that gave a bugzilla post as the first result. So I thought about what I’d read about how Google worked.
For those who don’t know, Google uses pigeons. Okay, that was a joke. I think. Anyway, Google uses this amazing technology called PageRank. The way it works is that they rate the quality of a site based on how many links are pointing to it and they rate the quality of the links by the quality of the site doing the linking. Confused yet?
The upshot is that if a page that gets linked to a lot links to you, your page rank goes up. But that’s not the important bit. The important bit is that they link search terms not just to the content of the site, but to the text that people use to link to the site. This is why Dick Gephart was able to link the words "a miserable failure" to George Bush. (Read more about that here.)
So all you have to do to get your Google search ranking up is get really high quality pages to link to you with your name. See, the good sites will have lots of incoming links, so their rank will go up, and if they link to you, your rank will go up, and if they link to you with your name as the link text, your rank will go up even higher.
Which isn’t as easy as it sound:
"Yes, Mr. Cole, I’m sure it’s a wonderful site, but eBay doesn’t do that sort of thing."
This is where I had my stroke of genius. What’s a great way to get your link on somebody else’s site (that doesn’t involve sharing guest accomodations with Adrian Lamo)? Comments.
See, most blogging software (like MovableType here) will link whatever URL you put into the comment box around whatever text you left as your name. And luckily, there are a ton of blogs out there with really high page ranks.
So, what I did was go to the sites I was already going to and leave comments with my url and different variations of my name. Within a month, I was top dog.
Admittedly, this was easier for a guy named "Jemaleddin" than it will be for "Jenny" or "Tom", but go search for Jenny. Today, the top link is for a blogger. Not Jenny Craig, not Jenny McCarthy. Jenny Levine. And no, she doesn’t have a webcam.
(Another key factor is that web designer blogs seem to have god-like PageRank scores, so those sites I linked to are always a good start - just stay on topic and spell your name right.)
So get out there and increase those scores! Oh, and Dad? I don’t think you’ve got a shot in hell of beating Harvey Birdman.
I wondered for a while why I was so far down in the listings. The only searches that would turn up my site were for my email address, and that gave a bugzilla post as the first result. So I thought about what I’d read about how Google worked.
For those who don’t know, Google uses pigeons. Okay, that was a joke. I think. Anyway, Google uses this amazing technology called PageRank. The way it works is that they rate the quality of a site based on how many links are pointing to it and they rate the quality of the links by the quality of the site doing the linking. Confused yet?
The upshot is that if a page that gets linked to a lot links to you, your page rank goes up. But that’s not the important bit. The important bit is that they link search terms not just to the content of the site, but to the text that people use to link to the site. This is why Dick Gephart was able to link the words "a miserable failure" to George Bush. (Read more about that here.)
So all you have to do to get your Google search ranking up is get really high quality pages to link to you with your name. See, the good sites will have lots of incoming links, so their rank will go up, and if they link to you, your rank will go up, and if they link to you with your name as the link text, your rank will go up even higher.
Which isn’t as easy as it sound:
"Yes, Mr. Cole, I’m sure it’s a wonderful site, but eBay doesn’t do that sort of thing."
This is where I had my stroke of genius. What’s a great way to get your link on somebody else’s site (that doesn’t involve sharing guest accomodations with Adrian Lamo)? Comments.
See, most blogging software (like MovableType here) will link whatever URL you put into the comment box around whatever text you left as your name. And luckily, there are a ton of blogs out there with really high page ranks.
So, what I did was go to the sites I was already going to and leave comments with my url and different variations of my name. Within a month, I was top dog.
Admittedly, this was easier for a guy named "Jemaleddin" than it will be for "Jenny" or "Tom", but go search for Jenny. Today, the top link is for a blogger. Not Jenny Craig, not Jenny McCarthy. Jenny Levine. And no, she doesn’t have a webcam.
(Another key factor is that web designer blogs seem to have god-like PageRank scores, so those sites I linked to are always a good start - just stay on topic and spell your name right.)
So get out there and increase those scores! Oh, and Dad? I don’t think you’ve got a shot in hell of beating Harvey Birdman.