gregword

I’ve signed Blogdigger up for Quantcast, an Alexa-like service that offers the option of directly contributing stats to their system via a Javascript tracker. Before adding their bits-o-Javascript to a few of our pages, we were languishing in the rankings around the 50K mark; after a few days we’re up in the 15Ks (although the monthly visitors and other stats haven’t visibly updated as of yet), and I suspect we’ll go a bit higher before all is said and done. I’m not sure how much the ranking will mean (as most other sites aren’t using their code directly), but at least it gives a better picture of monthly visitors and some basic demographic information that can be useful.

PC World has a really great article entitled Search Engine Shoot-Out. The article asks the question, “Does Google deserve all that traffic, or is it living off its reputation? Are people using it because they’re not aware of other, potentially better search engines?” What follows is some fairly comprehensive test of search engines across several verticals: web, videos, images, news, blogs, and local info.

I’m very happy and proud to report that Blogdigger finished third in the blog search category; of couse, I’d love to do better, but the fact that we finished where we did, to me, says a lot about what Mike and I have been working towards. I’ve written more of my thoughts on the Blogdigger blog, so hop on over and check it out.

The main take-away from the article is, of course: Google is king of search. Their web search results are probably the most frequently viewed single page on the web, and they have strong entries in all the other major categories as well. It would appear to be almost a fools-errand to even consider taking them on. On the other hand, as the article points out, only a few years ago Google didn’t exist and Alta Vista was the king of web search. And as YouTube has shown, it’s entirely possible to enter a market and create a community that can rival even Google’s offerings, and Wikipedia has, for many, replaced Google as the go-to resource for factual information. And remember, Google wouldn’t have a blog search if it weren’t for the fact that many of us showed how useful it could be.

I’ve got to think that JK Rowling checked Google before naming her final installment of the Harry Potter series. A search for “deathly hallows” on all the major search engines turns up nothing (I wrote this yesterday, however, as of now, both Yahoo and MSN have results; Google and Ask still yield nothing) . It will be very interesting to watch the spread of this meme, and how quickly and in what fashion it makes it’s way into search engines, both major and minor (the best place to go for info right now, of course, is your favorite blog search engine). Tracking a brand new phrase, especially one as ubiquitous as a this one, provides tremendous insight into the inner workings of a search engine and how it ranks and digests new content. In addition, domain names are already being snatched up (I imagine that the obvious ones were grabbed by the publisher’s even before the announcement was made; I tried to register deathlyhallows.com, but it and all other variants were gone) and advertisers are already bidding on keywords.

A couple of reference links:

• Yahoo search for “deathly hallows”
• Google search for “deathly hallows”
• MSN search for “deathly hallows”
• Ask search for “deathly hallows”
• Technorati search for “deathly hallows”
• Blogdigger search for “deathly hallows”

Also, Wikipedia was updated almost instantly.

Mike and I are heading out to Vegas in November for WebmasterWorld’s PubCon. Should be pretty cool, the lineup of speakers looks excellent. I slept on registering for the hotel (mental note: unlike a plane ticket, you can cancel a hotel up to the day before for no charge…so book early even if you’re not sure you’re going to go), so we’re staying a bit away from the conference center, but hopefully that shouldn’t be a big deal.

If you’re going and want to get together, let me know.

On my last trip out west, after the StartupCamp, I had the privilege to be interviewed by Vic from HotfromSiliconValley.com. Vic did a great job getting me to divulge my thoughts on Blogdigger and the general state of web search in general. Take a listen, I’ve even gone into some detail on what is underway here (you didn’t thinkwe’ve been sitting around doing nothing now, did you?).

HotFromSiliconValley is a great podcast, I’ve got it in iTunes; they’ve got great coverage of DemoFall as well as interviews with just about everyone who’s doing something interesting on the web (like the guys from Boompa, a site I like very much). Check it out. Thanks Vic!