Still Think You Can Ignore Social Media, Blogs, YouTube and Blended Search
Posted on September 7th, 2008by Michael Gray in Social Media
Still think this whole social media, blog, youtube, universal search business isn’t here to stay or doesn’t effect you. I suggest you look at the SERP’s for Vice Presidential Candidate [Sarah Palin]. Not only will you see lots of blended and social media results but take note of the fact that a squidoo page for Sarah Palin is ranking above the New York Times … The New York Freekin Times is who has been the poster child for trusted and authoritative information since before I was born is being outranked by some videos and a squidoo page … get busy gettin busy people …
(click image to enlarge)
Popularity: 10% [?]
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September 7th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Can’t blame New York Times.. as Squidoo has outranked many other websites too for other top key terms. It’s squidoo which can be praised.
And Social media pages are very commonly on the top lately
Social media rocks.
September 7th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
these folks aint really saying nothing about the issues, Obma is a little tiny bit, but it seems like Palin and McCain just mantra stealing when they need to talk about N. Korea rebuilding nukes like North Korea has fallen off the map
September 7th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
(Michael, just so you know, this is the 2nd post recently where I couldn’t see the thumbnail - box with a question mark in it. Click through gives a viewable image though. I note people commenting not being able to see it on the Google Checkout post too, so it isn’t just me)
September 7th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
@Lea de Groot:
can you not see it here or in your feed reader?
September 7th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Same here. That’s two posts where I can’t see the image either. I’m talking about accessing the site, not the feed. Using Firefox 3.0.1 — and I even disabled AdBlock, thinking that maybe it was being flagged as an ad.
September 7th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I just viewed the source and I’m not sure if this would be the problem, within the image tag:
img class=”alignnone size-medium wp-image-1989″
Granted, I haven’t learned much more CSS than I’ve needed to, but that doesn’t look right.
September 7th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
The link should’ve been more objective like this: http://www.google.com/search?&q=sarah+palin
not like this: http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS291&aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=sarah+palin&num=20&pws=0
(you’re not Chrome affiliate, are you).
September 7th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
@igor:
you left the pws off and you only get ten with yours
September 7th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
OK, I mostly meant to remove the sourceid, I don’t like that :}
September 7th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
I’ve been doing some research into this kind of thing for a while. In one of my niches, there is a site with nothing but youtube video links that is outranking me. Those are literally the only links this guy has. His domain is a year older, but enough about that. Social Media is definitely powerful SEO juice. Good post.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:15 am
It’s high time that all developers and SEO’ers out there bite the bullet and embrace social media and all it brings to the table. It’s most definitely here to stay, but too many (of my peers at least) still dismiss it’s value.
September 8th, 2008 at 7:42 am
That’s a really awesome example. Nice work, Michael.
September 8th, 2008 at 11:37 am
VPILF.com in the top ten… Yeah, google, THAT’S relevant.
Cic
September 8th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Both the site and the feed.
And (in other news) a wikipedia data point you might like - when I search for
stiff upper list
which is a uk directory (not mine), I get wikipedia for stiff upper li*p* at #3, despite the word ‘list’ not showing in the snip or the page.
Oh my! Talk about overblown domain strength!
September 8th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Re: “when I search for stiff upper list”
Stiff & upper do match, though. If you search for “stiff upper list” in quotes, it only brings up relevant results.
The only time I leave off the quotes is if I’m not 100% sure of the phrase I’m looking for, or I’m not seeing results that I’d expect to see.
With that example, even plus signs get rid of the Wikipedia result: +stiff +upper +list
September 8th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Imagine if VPILF.com just changed the title tag to be more relevant for “sarah palin”. The search phrase “sarah palin” should be the closing argument for all Reputation Management pro’s
September 19th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
[...] Michael Gray provides a concise yet compelling argument as to why social media and blended search ain’t going anywhere any time soon. [...]