Postcards from the Funny Farm

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The past 3 days and today (7/26/08) my Google Page Rank appears to be back. I tried playing aloof and I didn’t write a gushing post since I have been wrong before. Sometimes the toolbar malfunctions, this is something I have verified by many sites and blogs out there. More often than not though, it’s correct. The long story made short is that yes, indeed my PageRank has gone back to the PR4 it was when it got spanked months ago. In this post, I tell you in a few sentences exactly what I did to get it back (I’ve been keeping a careful journal on everything!)

Fearing I might be jumping the gun, I emailed one of my blog mentors and friend Derek Semmler yesterday and asked him to verify the PR4 change for me. He’s seen me go through the PR0 ordeal with this blog and even written a few really cool articles about PageRank hits on his blogs. He said that sadly my new rank wasn’t registering on his toolbar. (Thanks again for checkin’ Derek) So, I kind of gave up and forgot about it. That’s why today after seeing it still in my toolbar and verifying the change with some 3rd party sources, I was elated to see it was indeed a true PR4.

My understanding via Matt Cutts’ blog is that Google has “expired” some of the prior penalties. In addition to that, here is what I have done. It’s nothing mysterious but it takes some effort. My attitude toward success has always been that I don’t mind work when I know it’s worth something. Some of you may have seen my fave Woody Allen quote come up once in a while here, “80% of success is showing up.” If you are doing the right things by Google to get PageRank success, I’d even make that an 85 instead of an 80:

1) Guestblog monthly: Set a specific number as a goal. Ask higher ranked blogs if you can guestblog and link back to your index in the post (usually a signature looks the least pompous). I’ve been averaging 5 guestblogs a month in the last 6 months. All my guestblogs are represented by an intro here and you can read them through this link: Those backlinks affect PageRank. You can also invite bloggers to guestblog on yours. You usually get a link from their blog announcing their work. A classic example of this is Chelle’s recent PageRank post on mine:

2) Every sponsored post/link on your blog needs to have the attribute: rel=”nofollow” in its relative links. I won’t bother explaining, just do it. It took me 4 days in between work, wife, and screaming kids to change all mine to this. I pity anyone who has more than say 100. But if you make it a practice, you will never have a problem with this issue. I could say more on this, please ask questions if you have them. My assumption is that most people get this already. Obviously I recently learned it :)

3) Write quality posts to a niche audience (as much as possible) that people read, link to, and comment on. (Reading and inking to parts are way more important but comment have ripple effects for lnkage, traffic, etc.) I’ve written extensively on the value of a blog post but this subject is a bit subjective. I doubt any SEO writers will be subscribing as a result. However, if what you do is kind of like my writing, please check out the series, it was written with you in mind: V.A.L.U.E. of a Blog.

4) Show your indefinable magic as a blogger! How could I leave that one out. Don’t forget to be yourself. Remember that the dead splash page of Firefox, for example, is a 6/10! Who reads that? Blogs started out as WEBLOGS where interesting people shared their research, later their thoughts and quotes, and finally they are now a place where anyone can self-publish anything. Let your light shine.

Folks, it’s been a long rocky road since they spanked my PageRank (man that sounds bad doesn’t it ;). I am enjoying the smoothness now that it’s back. Like it or not, Google PageRank is an issue of economics and you should have it. So I am officially not a hater of Google PageRank, they have done right by me. It seems like there are as many ranks out there as there are acne treatments, but Google has the most clout.

If you want to know more regarding this topic, just ask. I think I’m done for now. This is meant to be in fact a psychology niche blog most the time. Maybe you can persuade me to write some other stuff I’ve done to improve my blog’s rank. Now go jump in the pool (that’s where I’m headed). I’ve also reignited my other two blogs and it’s time to rev some speed. You might say I’ve had 3 car covers on in my blog garage and now they are coming off. Thanks for being a part of this ride.

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This post is another (I hope the last) rant about Google so feel free to jump ship before you go one. I don’t usually like to whine about stuff, I like to change things or shut up generally. After this post I plan to pretty much shut up about Google PageRank but I will respond to comments of course ;)

I’ve been setting goals for my blog and recording them here since December of 2007. It has been gratifying in almost every respect but I still am not where I’d like to be in other ranking systems such as Google and Technorati. Instead of getting frustrated or trying to game the system, I’ve decided to make my own ranking system based on the things that I value in my blog. I’m calling it the CAN. system My hope is that you, the regular reader, and anyone else who wants to will follow my progress and learn that serious writers can make legitimate money on their blogs without PageRank. My goal since December of 2006 has been to create, innovate, and intergrate quality content. I haven’t lost this goal, I’ve simply defined it more clearly and added “money” as a goal element. This blog does NOT deserve to have a zero PageRank.

Google seems to be highly puritanical when it comes to paid-links on a blog. It’s actually worse than “highly puritanical ” it’s near obscenely puritanical … it makes no rational sense. Who are they serving really? Do you care if a helpful blog post was paid or not? I know I don’t.

I have examined Google’s criteria for PageRank and frankly, I don’t think they even know what they are doing with it. Nonetheless, we have to suck it up as bloggers. It’s the industry guideline that advertisers and publishers use when hiring and taking blogs seriously. Thank goodness many influential bloggers are starting to come out against Google. IZEA is leading an effort against PageRank “.... As for me, watch for my first CAN. update in August. You can see my goals for July here. Maybe it will give you something you’ll find engaging to read by your espresso machines.

One thing, I will give away right now as I close: To make my logo and button for the CAN, Rank System was to use a tutorial for Photoshop. If you’d like to try something similar, it’s a lot of fun. The Google logo itself contains a font that costs $99. But this tutorial shows you how to make it with Ti.... It is cool. There are also tutorials there for companies like Hooters and O’Reilly … a lot more fun stuff. Enjoy and remember in whatever it is you blog about you CAN.