BobAtkins website visibility - how to

[nycandre]

I was looking for this website earlier today* and found it hard to find via Google - tried Canon DSLR reviews, DSLR photography Canon tips etc.  .. without much success, reading pages after pages - the *successful* search was " Canon lens selection " when G got this site mentioned on page 3 or 4 ..
This is sort of understandable considering the huge amount of photo blogging going on - but still I remember the old times (!) when this site was tops for technical information.  Anyway .. just mentioning since the author states mail directly addressed is not the best way to communicate re amount of junkmail.

Wanted to share some ideas/ notes - but maybe not best way to do here... and gotta leave to do some "real" work (c'ed later)

(*) cleaning up my cookies prior to ordering things @ BHvideo ..

[Bob Atkins]

Thanks for the report. If there was something I could do about that, I'd certainly do it but I don't have any control over what Google indexes or where in their listings my site appears. I guess it's a question of competition. 10 years ago or even 5 years ago there were not so many websites covering the topics that I cover so I was often on the first page in Google searches.

Unfortunately the Google indexing algorithm makes no judgement about a site or its contents. It's simply a popularity contest. The more sites that link to you, the better Google thinks you must be and so the higher you are in their listings. Doesn't matter if all you post is junk or if it's all accurate an useful information. All that really counts is who links to you. Every link is a vote for the site, and links from popular pages count more than links from obscure personal sites.

If dozens of popular sites posted lots of links saying "Bob Atkins' Website is Really Awful", my Google rank would go up and I'd move up in their listings. The worst thing in the world as far as Google is concerned is to be not noticed.

I guess I could try going through the whole site and optimizing things for search engines. I already try to do that, but maybe I should get better at it!

The other way is to post sensational articles (true or not) with controversial opinions (Nikon about to go bankrupt???) and hope that stirs up traffic and links. I haven't tried that one yet...

Anyway, many thanks for the feedback