The Power Of Google Juice
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When you type fred wilson into google, you get this blog as the first result. It’s been that way for the past three or four years. You also get my bio on the Union Square Ventures weblog, the wikipedia entry on me, my tumblog, and my twitter feed, all on the first google result page. I am getting a ton of "organic" value out of google. I haven’t really tried to achieve this. I’ve just been an active social media participant and this is the result.
I’ve thought about moving my blog from this lousy URL (avc.blogs.com) to something better. But I can never get past the google juice issue. If you type scoble blog into google, you still get his old blog that he moved from in 2005 as the top link. Google doesn’t forget so easily.
And google juice is important for all sorts of reasons. Take my post yesterday about Zemanta. If you type zemanta into google, that post is already the seventh link on the first page of google’s results. That’s largely because [avc.blogs.com] has some serious google juice.
It’s not like this blog relies on google for traffic. Here’s the stats on the most recent 30 days:
When you factor out the other search engines, google is responsible for about 30 percent of the visits to this blog. That’s pretty low compared to most web services I’ve seen over the years.
But back to the Zemanta search. People who are searching on Zemanta are the kind of people I’d like to visit this blog. I want placement on those serps and the google juice this blog has gets them for me.
So I think I am stuck at avc.blogs.com for the long haul. I’ve come to accept it and I don’t fret too much about it anymore. I’ve got my personal URL at fredwilson.vc and the traffic there is growing. I use it for different things and this blog has gotten to be more about business and that blog has gotten to be more personal. And if this blog is about business, then google juice is an incredibly important business asset.
Comments (Archived):
Its pretty straightforward, especially with wordpress, to get the google juice flowing to a new url. I started off blogging trying to get my Geoff Jones number 1 in google and ended up being number 1 or 2 for just Geoff. Thanks for the heads up on Zemanta looks pretty interesting.
Yep blogs seem to be key to getting a good position on google. I always create a blog for any domain I want to promote.As long as there isn’t too much competition for your keywords you can get to the front page of google in a few weeks with just a little work.SEO is just a racket.
There’s been a lot of chatter about blog portability. I think part of this would have to be Google Juice portability… not just data.
Nate, I think your comment is going to get lost in the mix of 301 redirect suggestions from all the helpful SEO types.The truth is that a blog is more than just the content as you mention. Its the brand, its the search engine visibility, its the comments, its all of it. Even if Fred was able to move his blog to a new url with 301 redirect, it doesnt take affect immediately, and depending on his ability to do it, may never take affect. For example, what about folks on a blogging platform like tumblr or blogger?The recent discussions around comment ownership is yet another example of the discussion around what are components of a blog and who owns them.
what about folks on a blogging platform like tumblr or blogger? Apparently it can be done with blogger. There are still plenty of host services that don’t offer this service, either because users don’t care to ask or because there’s no need for it.Btw, people have been talking about 301s… don’t know about TypePad but the way it was done in wordpress.com the last time I’ve checked, a few months ago, was with 302 (Temporary redirects that do not pass google juice). That means that Google sees the original URL as the one carrying all the juice and the latter one as a temporary solution. But that is ok if everyone starts linking the new url for posts published after the change of address (and they will if you do Domain Mapping).
3+2s are never ok. The new URL will probably never get indexed and its just not the correct way to do it.
Fred,It’s pretty simple to transfer google juice from one url to another. It’s called a 301 redirect.If your goal is to have your fredwilson.vc url come up first instead of avc.blogs.com, just 301 avc.blogs.com to fredwilson.vcand wait a week or so
The question is whether you’re going to leave TypePad or not. If not, and you’re just going to keep your own domain at TypePad, pretty sure they can do a permanent redirect on your subdomain to your new domain, which should keep your Google Juice intact. If you’re going to leave TypePad for another blogging service, they might demand a bribe, or might not be able to/want to do it at all.
Indeed, TypePad does offer domain mapping for some of their subscriptions (Plus or Pro), see here http://www.sixapart.com/typ…You can move anywhere you want (see the examples on that page), and as long as you stay with TypePad, you will keep your google juice (I see Google adding this option to its webmasters tools console that allow people to move away from third parties’ subdomains sometime in the future).
i really don’t feel the need to leave typepad, even though i do like the “openness” of wordpressso what i really need to do is get avc.com which is not happening.as someone said, the AVC brand is pretty strong and i certainly want to keep that
hmm, maybe avc.com is gettable. i’ll work on that
My ideal domain is jo.hn. It’s Honduras. We’ll see if the guy will ever sell.
That’s awesome
You can move your Google Juice as long as you do the transfer appropriately and implement 301 redirects correctly. Essentially, you’re telling Google that you’ve permanently moved (including your Google Juice) from the old URL to the new URL.
I haven’t actually visited your blog in a while (usually just read it in my reader), but you’re on hosted Typepad. You can use their Domain Mapping (http://www.sixapart.com/typ… service and not have to move.
Is this — “this” being the power of Google juice — a good thing, or a bad thing? Your write up seems agnostic, which it probably should be, as you were making more of an observation than a critique. But I’m interested in your take anyway.I’m biased — I work on the Wikia Search project — but I see it as a bad thing. The result you highlight re: “scoble blog” seems incorrectly out of order (Indeed, if you google “scobleizer”, the current blog comes out first.), and there is really nothing one can do to fix Google’s error. Instead, you rightfully conclude, the solution is to let Google set the rules, with the webmasters charged with figuring out how to abide by these rules to optimize results. Indeed, the comments before mine are doing exactly that — suggesting how *you* can pick up the slack where Google fails. What’s downright scaryI wonder what happens when someone is not SEO-literate. Why do we find it acceptable that someone who sees “301” and thinks “area code” is punished in favor of one who sees it as an HTTP code? This problem may very well increase as the SEO industry matures and as the net native population becomes an increasingly larger percentage, because the latter will turn to the web for their information, while the former will be the gatekeepers to that information. But that gate is unnecessary.
Its a good thing for those who know how to play the game and a bad thing for those who don’tSadly some of our portfolio companies don’t even know how to play the search game as well as they shouldIts an area we intend to be more agressive with them going forwardFred
It’s a somewhat unpredictable thing though. I thought that my Google Juice was pretty good (covered most of the front page of Google when my name was searched for), but then someone with the same name decided to run for Congress.Now I only have my main blog on the first page of results and even that is falling fast.
That’s why the original naming of Internet companies is increasingly important.
I’d pick a domain that serves as your permanent home on the web (avc.com, fredwilson.vc, or some other domain). Then, use subdomains to host your various services (ex. blog.avc.com, tumblelog.avc.com, music.avc.com, future_service.avc.com). When you make the switch, 301 redirect your blog (which it sounds like Typepad can accommodate per the comments above). That way, you carry your current Google juice over to the new domain and you also share PageRank benefits across your various sites.
hmmmThat’s interestingIf I get avc.com, then fredwilson.vc becomes tumblog.avc.comSounds rightFred
I am in a totally different spot. For years I had danbuell.com. I enjoyed when friends, family and web contacts came by but then I started to see competitors, employees, clients and business peers come to my site and I felt “invaded”. I never intended my blogging for that group of people, it started to impact what I wrote and I began to edit myself more than I wanted to. At the moment I am trying to move all of my content to Vox where all of my posts are only viewable by neighbors and friends.I don’t really care for this overall. I think Vox is a great tool and I’ve met some great people there but I am not generally available to the public. I’m not sure if there is a happy middle ground or not but I find that I’ll get excited about building up Vox and then I stop for a couple of days because I know it’s not what I’m really looking for.I suppose it will come to me eventually but I’ve been in a state of limbo for a long time = no fun!
Try tumblr.comIt’s a better version of voxfred
I LOVE Tumblr! I have several blogs over there that I’ve played with over time (danbuell.net) (bigpapablog.com), etc. I like how easy it is and would love nothing more to keep it but that was the blog that a recent co-worker googled me to and it creeped me out :(My fear is that a completely unprotected blog might hurt my career… Going to continue to think about it and in the interim at least use Vox to capture the day-to-day so it doesn’t get lost…
“Its a good thing for those who know how to play the game and a bad thing for those who don’t.”That leaves out a huge portion of the population — those who search but are otherwise not producing much content (if any). It’s probably much higher than those of us in our industry think. Even net natives like my college student brother are not included in your sentence; his content generation is shelved on search-sheltered areas like facebook and gmail. His content consumption, however, is nearly 100% new media; that is, he doesn’t use a radio or read the newspaper, and even tends to use a slingbox and Hulu more than a standard TV. I’d bet that your sentence captures 5-10% of the searcher market, if that.It is a good thing for them?
Sorry for the un-nested reply. I must have erred in my use of Disqus.
Google and others need to do a better job for themThat’s why there is still a ton of room for innovation in searchfred
SEO isn’t some dark art and at the end of the day search engines are trying to match the best content to a user request. There are some pretty basic ways that folks creating content on the Internet should follow to ensure they’re gaining exposure to the world of search.I’d liken this to good writing in some ways. How many people actually know how to write a good essay? Or even what a topic sentence should be? Or understand that the last sentence of a paragraph should connect (in some way) to the first sentence in the next paragraph.I know I’m on the fringe because I practice SEO (both at my ‘full time’ job and as a consultant) but the framework is actually pretty straight forward.
From a people search perspective, I think google does a horrible job. try http://www.pipl.com
Scoble moved his blog in the wrong way.Here’s how to do it the right way: http://blogoscoped.com/arch…
If you’re in this for 2 more years, ok, but for the long haul? Get control of your domain! Can’t blogs.com 301 redirect to your new site? (Which would efficiently transfer the Google juice)?
It’s too bad you don’t own you own name on Google or the juice associated, but it makes sense not to leave. Building an online brand takes a lot of effort and you’ve done a great job with your blog. You bring a lot humanity and intelligence to the VC world.All the same, if you were starting today what domain would you use?
thanks
One thing I wonder about….with much of the conversation moving to Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. (Services that no-follow links) Will individual voices stop getting the link juice they deserve?
Fred, transferring google juice is not so easy. We have done what all the search gurus have told us (redirects etc), and we are four months climbing back to our previous position after a name/domain change. Will probably take a total of 6-9 months on the terms we care about to reclaim our page one status. Of course, the longer you wait, the harder it gets.
If it ain’t already been said, the url is an irrelevance – the links are way more important. To move is to disrupt the network of trust you’ve created and that’s a hugely complex web. Not much fun trying to restore all the connections either. I started with a blogspot address precisely because I figured google would look favourably on its own. Now I dare not change it – and clearly not because anyone types the address into the browser.See you next week at http://widgetwebexpo.combest dc
that 34.2 can be a lot more, your losing a lot of juice because disqus comments are not indexed look at how much content your readers have created for you. Hopefully disqus gets that going soon.
They are working on it