Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Ranking Blog Posts - How Long Does It Take?
So over a year and a half ago I began working on some blog research geared towards determining how long it takes for a blog entry to rank well in the SERPS [search engine results pages]. At the time the technical definition of a blog was even less clear than it is today so I abandoned my research figuring I´d revisit it at some later date. Well I decided to peak into some of that again and thought I´d give you a real world example from right here on mshift.You´ll remember that last week I posted an interview I had with SVP of Jingle Networks [Free 411] Tom Latinovich. I thought I´d share a little bit of data with him about what terms his post was getting traffic for from natural search results. So I did a little digging using a proprietary tool [can´t touch this] that gives me the traffic from natural results as well as the page / position each visitor clicked on. So I did a little digging and here´s what I uncovered.
When Did The Post Page Get Natural Traffic?
The post was put up midday October 20th and natural search rankings for the topics covered in the Free411 post began coming in around noon of the following day.
“It´s important to note that the traffic from natural search results were being sent to the homepage of mshift and not to the post page itself.”
The specific Free411 Interview post didn´t begin receiving traffic until today. That's a little less than 6 days from the day the post was actually published on the site. So basically the mshift homepage began ranking for the targeted terms within 24 hours but the post page didn´t begin ranking for approximately 6 days after the date the post was originally put up.
Are Blogs Found In Google News Different?
My guess is that they are indeed different. Mshift is not listed in Google News or any other news site for that matter so we're not given the "instant credibility" that sites like SERoundtable enjoy. However, we´re not complaining either. Because our homepage ranks for the topics of our posts even though none of those keywords are found in the title, keyword or description of the mshift homepage. I believe Google is throwing us a little bit of traffic to the homepage instead of the post page because it´s just part of their core algorithm. Google returns more homepages rather than subpages because it adds credibility to their index and when entrepreneurs and CEOs search for their name they're interested in seeing the main site they're found on, rather than just the subpage.
Blog Ranking Time Conclusion
Basically if you´re not in the sandbox, you´re not employing sneaky deaky tactics to outfox Google or the other engines, then you should see something similar to the amount of time it takes a typical mshift blog post to rank well.
If you have feedback feel free to ping us with your data. One quick sidenote, the floodgates will be open soon and this model of taking time to rank a particular blog will move to realtime. Some people I know will probably be the first and only ones to release anything like it for some time :) Man I love what I do!
Posted By Jason Dowdell at 01:46 PM
Permanent Link: Ranking Blog Posts - How Long Does It Take?
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