Higher SEO Rankings With LMNHP
The LMNHP approach is now being applied in all four SMM blogs and the keyword query SEO rankings are being monitored. Higher rankings are being seen and are maintained even after individual posts are no longer on the blog ‘front page.
As an additional test, blog posts on somewhat competitive topics are being issued to see how well the posts can outshine their competition. As an example, Google Maps is finally showing the Golden Ears Bridge in British Columbia, which is extremely tardy performance. A post was written on The Other Bloke’s Blog entitled Golden Ears Bridge BC now on Google Maps.
At the time of the launch, a search for ‘Golden Ears Bridge BC’ showed the following results:
This includes some real heavyweight opposition. Wikipedia seems to have a special Google relationship, Translink the owner of the Golden Ears Bridge has a PR7 website and Google has a PR10 website.
Some 36 hours after the post had been launched, here is what was appearing in the SERPs.
Thus we see that relatively quickly only the Wikipedia item is topping the new post item. The blog has two entries with the first shown as the domain URL but with the Title and the snippet reflecting the new individual blog post.
Now a new post has been added to the blog and is now the new ‘front page’. Again a relatively competitive topic is being covered: Online Business Coaches. It will be interesting to see how this post does against its own competition. At the same time we will observe how the post on the Golden Ears Bridge maintains its rankings in the SERPs once it is off the ‘front page’.
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May 3rd, 2010 at 6:59 am
Hmm this is indeed very interesting. I’m a bit scared about the idea though. It all seems too volatile and fragile. If you have 1000 links towards your homepage with a specific keyword in the anchor text, and the search engines see that every time they crawl the website the “homepage” shows new content which is not related to those keywords… you get penalized. Right?
May 3rd, 2010 at 8:20 am
Let’s be clear, Jason. What you have described is the problem with the standard, default way of creating Home Pages for blogs. Your concern is a valid one. The LMNHP approach removes this concern since the only web page the search engines index always has the same content.
May 9th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
I have heard others mention similar thoughts about the homepage. I’m still a little skeptical on this but I’m going to do my own research and check it out. In some ways the LMNHP makes sense but I wonder how well it will work in the search engines.
May 10th, 2010 at 8:33 am
My concern with doing this is that it might adversely affect the PR of my home page.
May 10th, 2010 at 8:45 am
That is unclear as yet in my researches. However what effect do you think it will have?
May 16th, 2010 at 1:04 am
I do a lot of playing around with SEO myself. I have a question… You are doing the perma 301 redirect to the latest post (not a fixed post) alone. In my opinion, if you post not so regularly this may add to some amount of search traffic/position increase as your original homepage backlinks now get to the new post. However, regularly updated blogs may not get much benefit, I feel.
Also, how about the keyword optimization you did for the homepage… It may not be any relevant to the redirected page right?
May 16th, 2010 at 8:38 am
On your first point, Ajith, we cannot know how the search engines will index all this, but it is likely that all those inlinks get assigned to the post while it is on the front page. Since I believe such links are persistent in the indexes, this does mean that the same inlink may be assigned to multiple web pages.
On your second point, I’m not sure what keyword optimization you can do for a changing Home Page on a blog. You really have only the title. If that is important you can make sure you use the same keywords in all post titles. However I believe that would be less effective. Your question points out the sub-optimal nature of a traditional blog Home Page.
May 17th, 2010 at 2:47 am
It will be interesting to see how this post does against its own competition.
May 17th, 2010 at 7:32 am
It was within the top 20 in a 3 million item search for ‘higher SEO rankings’ within 12 hours and within the top 10 within 36 hours. It is now at #8 which is probably its long term position given the competition.
May 17th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Thanks for the clarifications Barry. How long are you planning to run this experiment? I would really love to know the outcome for long term..
May 17th, 2010 at 10:54 am
This is no longer an experiment, Ajith, since the results are favorable and all logic suggests this is a much better way of handling blogs than the default way. As I have written now in a variety of other places, the default way of handling blogs produces problems with the search engines. I am therefore not expecting any problems in the future, but that must be kept under review.
May 19th, 2010 at 9:15 am
Semi-related question: I have a site that is a mix of static pages and a blog. The static pages are only showing service adds, possibly because of lack of content. But the blog is still showing regular adds. Some of the static pages have good rankings. Would it be safe to 301 redirect the static pages to the blog or if there is some sort of penalty would that then be “directed” at the blog as well.
Thank you,
cd :O)
May 19th, 2010 at 9:25 am
It is wise to check out such issues in the Google Webmaster Central Forum, where you may even get a Googler responding. That is obviously much better information than anyone outside Google can give.
For the issue you raise, Chris, provided the static pages have no issues (e.g. inbound links from bad neighbourhoods), then there should be no problem with 301 redirects.
May 19th, 2010 at 9:38 am
I did try the forums and worked on the issues that were suggested. The left over glaring problem is “lack of content”. I could add content, but at this point would almost just rather maintain the blog. I just don’t want to risk the blog.
I’ll try the forums again. It has been a few months. Will the Ad crawler automatically remove “penalties” or do I have to seek a “re-inclusion”. The pages still rank fairly well, so they aren’t banned.
Thank you. BTW, I saw your note on WebProWorld and came over here. I think the LMNHP will be a good experiment for some of my blogs.
May 19th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Good to see you here, Chris. If the pages rank well, then I don’t think you need to worry about penalties.
I would always add the content as blog pages, since static pages do not have a news feed associated with them. In a sense, news feeds double up your visibility in the search engines, particularly through social media such as FriendFeed.
May 21st, 2010 at 2:46 am
interesting but I think you are taking a risk. Why would you go for a non-static home page which is changing all the time. I think you are pushing the problem forward with a redirect, instead of getting a total solution.
May 21st, 2010 at 6:49 am
The only risk I am aware of is the risk of the unknown. I think this approach allows the search engines to produce more relevant items in SERPs and it is not against the TOS so I do not expect any problems.
As for the alternates of a static page or a blog home page where the content is always changing, I find this approach performs better for visitors and in search engine rankings. While the Title and the description meta tag are so important in creating the item in the SERP, I think this is the only way to go.
May 27th, 2010 at 10:02 am
This is very interesting. I can actually see where it could have positive effects for your website. Blog style websites are constantly achieving more authority in the SERPS, so this may just be a natural progression.
The long term results of this will be very interesting.