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September 14, 2003

Good "Blogs Messing Up Search Results" Example

My blog is now 2nd result for "Get A New Screenname" in Google (and AOL Search, which is powered by google). Its before aim.com, which is the offical aim site. All because of one entry about how I had to get a new one. I found out after seeing that query as a referrer to this blog.

I wonder if "normal users" need blog results in their search, or if its diluting an already diluted web more (Google results are getting worse by the day).

Posted by doron at September 14, 2003 9:30 AM

Comments

I wonder how many people searching for Paul Simon's song find my site instead. I'm number 2, probably from all these comments I keep leaving on blogs.

Posted by: alanjstr at September 14, 2003 9:53 AM

doron:
"My blog is now 2nd result for "Get A New Screename" in Google (and AOL Search, which is powered by google)."

That is not true, at least it wasn´t when i googled. "get" (a) "new screename" gave many results, but not doron's blaahg.
However, a Google search on the words "get" (a) "new screenname" gave "doron's blaahg" as second.

Posted by: paulbeasd at September 14, 2003 2:21 PM

I meant screenname, not screename :) Fixed that in the blog, sorry about that.

Posted by: Doron at September 14, 2003 5:49 PM

When useless blog entries show up in Google search results, it's usually because there are no good results, not because blogs are crowding out good results.

The best result, http://my.screenname.aol.com/_cqr/login/login.psp?siteId=aimregistrationPROD&authLev=1&mcState=initialized&createSn=1&triedAimAuth=y, doesn't show up because:

1. It has too many URL parameters to be indexed by Google at all.

2. Every page that links to it uses a different "siteId" parameter, so Google doesn't know they're the same page.

4. The page title is "Screen Name Service" when it should be "Create a Screen Name" or "Get a new ScreenName".

Your blog shows up high in search results because

1. You misspelled "Screen name" the same way as the searcher.

2. Your association with the Mozilla project inflates your PageRank.

Posted by: Jesse Ruderman at September 14, 2003 8:44 PM