Whilst I have continued to post on MTF I have also been doing more in depth posts on my photo blog. Well if you search any of the post titles for MTF in that period, even in inverted commas you won't find them in Google serps, you might find them courtesy of you guys that are kind enough to have a link in a blog roll though. Now if you do the same with the titles of posts from MTPB you will find them all within the first five pages of serps on Google.com.
This morning I posted an article on "Kite Flying in Thailand." Guess what, 2 hours later its at number 8 of 50,000 or so results from Google.com!
Now I know getting pages indexed is not every ones priority but it does bring in additional readers and some funds to pay for my hosting etc. So what have I done to upset the mighty G? Well nothing as far as I am concerned, but commenter's on a previous post on this subject mentioned duplicate content a lot. But what can you do if some idiot is scraping your feed and they get listed and you don't. I have even set something up in Feedburner to try and stop this happening.
I actually seriously though about switching my main content to MTPB but that seems grossly unfair to my loyal readers who, unlike Google, I actually value.
PS. Sorry for the same old rant
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15 comments:
Mike being the SEO novice that I am what does scraping your feed mean.
Mike, more than likely if it were a duplicate content issue it would be coming from your site not scrapers, ie categories, archives and post pages.
What did webmaster tools say about what posts are and aren't indexed?
I can't remember if you said you had a site map or not but it might be a good idea if you do have a sitemap to re-submit it and if you don't have one make one and submit it so google knows exactly what should be on your site.
I had a a site map error recently that was causing a small problem but it all worked out once I re-submitted.
Martyn me too but it means where people take your RSS feed content and republish it.
It often ranks better than the original or in the current case with MTF replaces it.
Since I publish a full feed there is no need for any reader to actually visit my site.
Talen I have robot txt file to cover categories/archives its default in Blogger, so it can't be that.
Web master tools reports most pages indexed-they just don't show in search results anymore. (supplemental?)
Like I said before this started in September. Looking at the three months before this there were over 100 pages that ranked between 1-10 in search results and most of these were being clicked on.
I have up to date site maps and they are working.
Thanks for the suggestions anyway.
Mike, don't apologise. Firstly, you're not the only one going through this and many people don't even realise they are. My London blog never features in searches but all I have to do is label one little photo "David Tennant is The Doctor" and google goes crazy for the images on my tiny little media blog which no one reads.
My PR is 4 on the London blog but those image searches have pushed my media blog up to 3!
So on the one hand, I'm closely following your situation to check whether I've not made the same mistake on Emm in London.
But on the other hand, I think that image searches operate differently and my London blog will never feature among the millions of people searching about London. But if you image search "Warwick North", I am number 8 on London but I don't appear on the front page.
So, all I can suggest is use lots of images and make sure you use both the title and alt fields on them but unfortunately, I don't know how to get your main content on the first page.
Mike - sorry to spam. Two more questions - do you use Google Webmaster Tools and are you using your Feedburner feed as a site map? I'd recommend it.
Also, what did you do at Feedburner to minimise people stealing your feed?
I have honestly considered stopping and restarting that feed just to stop the scrapers but I just know it would affect my readers, as would reducing my feed to preview only.
Emm its always a pleasure to hear from you. I'll answer in reverse order if I may as best I understand it-there are some more knowledgeable commenter's than me on here so they might chip in too.
Feeds.
Google say they can tell a feed from the original content but I have a lot of evidence to the contrary.
In answer to your question it is yes in both cases. To stop your feed being indexed you go to Feedburner-Publise with a Z! and click on the NOINDEX tag left side at the bottom of the list. Tick the boxes including for Yahoo pipes as well and activate. In theory it stops scrapers getting YOUR content indexed-we will see-let you know in a few weeks.
I have also added the tag rel= 'nofollow' to the RSS feed on my front page in the FB widget and the embedded link in each post. (more for PR than the scrapers). This is recommended by Matt Cutts at Google!!
I'd be interested to know if any of your content appears in serps under a scrapers url and not Emm in London
OK now to your first comment. Actually I discovered the image thing a week ago and am working my way through my photographs adding ALT text---it works you are right. I already have some image referrals from this.
I have also started to insert a caption into each new image along with a file name other than e.g. 1234.jpg. Clearly you could use your keywords in both Alt and file name without stuffing them.
Since Google bot can't see the image it reads the text obviously if there is nothing there it relates it to any text it finds in the post. I also read it a good idea to make your ALT text descriptive, imagine you were describing the image without the ability to see it.
Incidentally I use Google Picasa as my image store and photo editor but I am experimenting with Photobucket on my test blog Canon Captures.
Being a novice, I am completely ignorant on this.
Hiya! Okay, I did the NOINDEX tab. Not sure how to do the nofollow thing though...
I use Windows Live Writer to compose my posts and it automatically uses the file name as the alt and it leaves off the extension. So yes, I have started using interesting file names now.
I'll keep in touch for news of your photobucket adventure. I haven't noticed any preference in the search results between my self-hosted image files and the picasa ones. I am considering moving over to photobucket though as my free 1 or 2gbs at picasa is almost up!! (And I reduce my image sizes!)
Hi Mike, being busy in the blogosphere may have meant you missed this story on the BBC yesterday:
Marmite kept hidden after thefts Last updated: 1 day ago
A shop at a petrol station in Northamptonshire keeps Marmite behind the counter after repeated thefts of the spread.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/northamptonshire/8377955.stm
Well, you and I have pretty sound alibis, I reckon.
Emm I added the nofollow tag to the feedburner widget code and the same of the post footer that you find under settings in blogger.
I have now started using nofollow on selected links in posts too by adding the tag to the hyperlink code in compose view.
If you right click on my feedburner icon and look under properties you will see the tag.
I am not sure how windows live writer works so I will have a look when I get a minute.
Hi Lawrence no I didn't miss it-check out the post I included a link to the Marmite thefts in a comment.
Made me laugh though!!
Mike as far as google images go I have noticed that hovering the mouse over your latest photos doesn't bring up a text title of the photo. Any reason for that. Every little helps.
Martyn where were you viewing the photograph?
In a post if you right click you can see the ALT text I added.
PS. don't hover your mouse over "Fowler" you might tip him over the edge!
With it, obviously different dashboards do different things. On my Wordpress you hover over the photo and the text shows up.
If 'Fowler' goes over the edge you'll be tipping someone a good few baht.
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