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Google Page Rank / Backlinks

by jamiedolan
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello,

I apologize in advance if similar concepts were recently covered, but I was unable to find a on point answer.

I was trying to find out what a reasonable amount of time is to get to PR1.

This is my situation: I put a blog up on my personal domain jamiedolan.com about 6 weeks ago. The blog is kind of a test / refresher project for me (it is not very focused, it does jump around to a number of different topics). I had used my name in many internet forums over the years, and thought that my Blog would be fairly simple to promote. The domain is 10 years old. I've never had any other content that amounted to anything on the domain. I'm not sure if I had unrealistic expectations or if something is off with Google.

I have 15+ original articles, plus videos on the site. I have been active on twitter, facebook, DP, WHT, Askville, and many internet forums, many of which I have made very substantial contributions to (most list my web site in my profile, use it in the sig, and use my real name). I have legitimate comments on dozens of blogs. I've done nothing even remotely scamy or spamy. I've spent at least 100 hours writing in forums, social networking sites, blogs, and indexed mailing lists just in the past 6 weeks.

I've flat out focused providing valuable content on all sites I am a member of and on my Blog. That's what Google says to do right(provide original content)? I just wanted to make it clear, I did not post any fluff anywhere, it was all very helpful legitimate content.

Yahoo shows 7,880 results for jamiedolan.com

Today for the first time, I found that google shows I have a whole 2 back links (it shows many more than that in web master tools). Still no PR.

I'd like to know if I am doing something wrong or if Google has me on some ignore list. It seems like a whole lot of work to only have 2 back links and a PR0 in google.

Thanks very much;

Jamie Dolan
p.s. sorry about posting in the wrong section, I saw adsense, but missed the SEO part of this section. Thanks.
#backlinks #google #page #rank
  • Profile picture of the author aakayb
    The google page rank algorithm is obviously a closely guarded secret, but it said backlinks is a major component and the backlinks need to be discovered. Also consider:

    - Use SEO Techniques
    - Write Great Content, so that people are more likely to want to link to it.
    - Get Incoming Links from High Quality Related Sites
    - Write Original Content: Google's algorithm cannot tell the difference and will either give the original site the credit and downgrade the others or downgrade all of the sites that publish the duplicated content.
    - Don't Go Link Crazy - quality not quantity.
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    • Profile picture of the author jamiedolan
      Originally Posted by aakayb View Post

      - Use SEO Techniques
      Anything specific that I should consider? I've read Google webmaster guidelines and try to follow it as closely as possible.

      Originally Posted by aakayb View Post

      - Get Incoming Links from High Quality Related Sites
      Any suggestion as to how, beyond what I am already doing?

      Originally Posted by aakayb View Post

      - Don't Go Link Crazy - quality not quantity.
      Since all the links I have published have been with valuable content and real comments, I don't think that would be considered "link crazy". I assume there is no upper limit to how many links you post, if they are real links with valuable content?

      Thanks very much for your help.
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      Jamie Dolan
      My Forums:
      Willys Jeep Paw Dogs
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      • Profile picture of the author vema123
        Hello,

        I think you've missed something here. If you've done the blog commenting correctly, your domain should have showed PR within 2 months. I have a domain myself which I bought in May 1, 2009. And I've posted regularly at that time, and around 50% of my posts were NOT even original posts (I got it from ezinearticles.com, etc). And the only backlinking I did was only blog commenting and forums (not too many, as far as I remember, less than 70).

        Then around end of June (June 20s), my blog has shown PR=3, and a few months later, around 10 of the inner pages have shown PR=2 and PR=3 as well. But since I rarely update my blog, now it's PR=2. But that has at least taught me a good lesson and told me that I've done the right thing.

        My suggestion is:
        1. Try not to do blog commenting randomly. I mean, when you do blog commenting, try to look for blogs which have the same concept as yours (if your blog is about laptop, try to do blog commenting in computer related blogs)

        2. Always leave your message in a DoFollow blogs, never NoFollow blogs.

        3. If possible, leave your comment in a high ranked blog as well.

        Good luck!

        I just did all these 3 things above, and if you've also followed my footsteps, your blog should have shown PR very soon.
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        • Profile picture of the author jamiedolan
          Originally Posted by vema123 View Post

          1. Try not to do blog commenting randomly. I mean, when you do blog commenting, try to look for blogs which have the same concept as yours (if your blog is about laptop, try to do blog commenting in computer related blogs)

          2. Always leave your message in a DoFollow blogs, never NoFollow blogs.

          3. If possible, leave your comment in a high ranked blog as well.
          Thank you for your suggestions. When you say "never NoFollow blogs" do you mean to make sure to avoid them or just that they are not worth your time?

          Do you think I should avoid using my web address if I am just making a comment on a blog I am interested in, but is not related to my topics?

          Thanks again.
          Signature
          Jamie Dolan
          My Forums:
          Willys Jeep Paw Dogs
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          • Profile picture of the author vema123
            Originally Posted by jamiedolan View Post

            Thank you for your suggestions. When you say "never NoFollow blogs" do you mean to make sure to avoid them or just that they are not worth your time?

            Do you think I should avoid using my web address if I am just making a comment on a blog I am interested in, but is not related to my topics?

            Thanks again.
            Some people say that NoFollow blogs still give you link juice, just not as much as the NoFollow ones, but my personal opinion is that I'd rather not do blog commenting in a nofollow blogs at all as I'm not sure how small the percentage is you'd get (if ever) from such nofollow blogs.

            Also, another tip from me, avoid blog commenting in any dofollow blogs (let alone nofollow blogs) which ALREADY HAVE more than 50 comments before you as it is NOT worth your time and energy at all.

            And regarding blog commenting on the ones which are off topic, I'm not really sure how little the link juice your site would get, so I don't know the answer as I always put comment on any blogs which are related to my site. Really sorry about it. Also, put your keyword as the anchor text. that's another important thing.

            Good luck!
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      • Profile picture of the author aakayb
        Originally Posted by jamiedolan View Post

        Anything specific that I should consider? I've read Google webmaster guidelines and try to follow it as closely as possible.
        You could fill a forum and also start a war with the conflicting SEO tips. Basics are:

        - Have the keywords you are targetting as the page title
        - Make sure that the text within the title tag is also within the body of the page.
        - Do not use the exact same title tag on every page on your website.
        - Do not spam the description or keyword meta tag by stuffing meaningless keywords
        - Describe your images with the use of the alt tag.

        Originally Posted by jamiedolan View Post

        Any suggestion as to how, beyond what I am already doing?
        One way is to copy your competitors. Check their backlinks using yahoo and "link:siteurl.com" See what they are using and see if you can use some of the same sites they do.

        Originally Posted by jamiedolan View Post

        Since all the links I have published have been with valuable content and real comments, I don't think that would be considered "link crazy". I assume there is no upper limit to how many links you post, if they are real links with valuable content?
        Some say 1000 a week, but the upper limit could be debated for days on end by different people.
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  • Profile picture of the author palms
    The good news is that in spite of having a PR0, you rank #1 in Google for your home page title.

    The bad news is that your title is "Blog for Jamie Dolan form(sic) Neenah, Wi." If that's the phrase you want to rank for, then your work is done! But, my guess is, that's not the case.

    To answer your question, it can take anywhere from 1 month to 6 months to show PR --sometimes quicker, sometimes longer.

    The reason you are still PR0 *may* be the time factor, or it may be that the links you do have don't have enough link juice themselves to give you a boost.

    Are the forum sigs and blog comments you posted, "nofollowed" maybe? Are they blocked via robots.txt? I don't do sigs and/or profile links, but lots of people here are experts on them, so maybe one of them could advise you better.

    Just remember that PR is not an indication of the quality of your content, etc. It's strictly a simplified numerical indication of the raw power of the links pointing to your page. In theory, good content should attract good links, but in my experience, that's rarely the case.

    Good luck with your site!
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    • Profile picture of the author jamiedolan
      Originally Posted by palms View Post

      The good news is that in spite of having a PR0, you rank #1 in Google for your home page title.

      The bad news is that your title is "Blog for Jamie Dolan form(sic) Neenah, Wi." If that's the phrase you want to rank for, then your work is done! But, my guess is, that's not the case.
      I did see that, and agree that I need a better title. I'm a bit unfocused with my blog at the moment, as I am exploring a number of IM projects, so I have not decided what to focus my blog on. Also, Honestly, what I learn from creating and promoting this blog is what is most important to me (i.e. to be able to apply that information to other sites I am creating).

      I just looked at Google from a clean browser (no cookies) and I am listed 5 times on the first page of google for jamie dolan. I suspect this is really pretty good, because there are many links to a famous (recently deceased) soccer player with the same name. The photo of myself and the dogs that I took about 3 weeks ago also made it into the top 10 photo results on a image search.

      Originally Posted by palms View Post

      To answer your question, it can take anywhere from 1 month to 6 months to show PR --sometimes quicker, sometimes longer.
      The reason you are still PR0 *may* be the time factor, or it may be that the links you do have don't have enough link juice themselves to give you a boost.
      Are the forum sigs and blog comments you posted, "nofollowed" maybe? Are they blocked via robots.txt? I don't do sigs and/or profile links, but lots of people here are experts on them, so maybe one of them could advise you better.
      Is there a way to tell if a site / blog is no follow or not? I honestly don't know other than for perhaps one or two sites that had articles about nofollow, I have not idea if others follow. I wonder if many of them are blocked, because I often find them listed in search results, but they are not showing up as back links. I do know many I posted on have high PR.

      Originally Posted by palms View Post

      Just remember that PR is not an indication of the quality of your content, etc. It's strictly a simplified numerical indication of the raw power of the links pointing to your page. In theory, good content should attract good links, but in my experience, that's rarely the case.
      Good luck with your site!
      Thanks very much for your help and suggestions.

      In terms of obtaining more links, are there any of these back link services that are legitimate or will they all come back to haunt you in the long haul? Especially with this non-replaceable domain (i.e. my real name.com), I want to make sure Google is happy with me.

      Thanks again,

      Jamie Dolan
      Signature
      Jamie Dolan
      My Forums:
      Willys Jeep Paw Dogs
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by jamiedolan View Post

        I did see that, and agree that I need a better title. I'm a bit unfocused with my blog at the moment, as I am exploring a number of IM projects,
        Yeah noticed it was divided between IM/dog care and your personal life. Look, it all depends on what your goals are. If this is just a personal site then I wouldn't sweat the PR business or backlinks. I think personal websites grow better with social network participation anyway.

        Now if you have income goals or want to make a business of it start another site with a keyword rich and business like domain name and put the appropriate content there and then do the whole backlinking thing. You can have both sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author palms
    You can look at each link in the page's source code (View Source) and see if it has [rel="nofollow"] within the link's "a href." There's also an add-on for Firefox that turns all nofollowed links red so you can easily spot them.

    To see if they're roboted out, look at the site's robots.txt file (example.c0m/robots.txt) and see if the dir where your link is located is "disallowed."

    Remember that Google only shows a small sample of your backlinks --not all of them, and the ones they do show are randomized, meaning not necessarily the most or least valuable or the highest PR. Use Yahoo for backlink checking.

    If a domain is "non-replaceable," or even if it's one that you intent to make something out of, I would be very careful of what I did to it.

    One other thing to remember: While all links will help a little, there is a wide range of values for links, and you can't always tell a link's value with respect to YOUR PARTICULAR KEYWORD by using PR alone.
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