This post over on Scottish Sceptic’s website (below) points to a problem that WUWT has with search engines. One big issue he raises is that I can’t edit meta tags in the website header, but then again, I’ve had a clue that hasn’t mattered for a couple of years now, from the WordPress forum:
It’s not possible to edit meta tags on WordPress.com blogs.
…
Moreover Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking – Monday, September 21, 2009
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html
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WUWT – page 35 when searching for “global warming”
Following some comments on WUWT about the “+1″ scheme to boost ratings, I first joined the scheme, then decided to do it the old fashioned way and click on the WUWT link when searching for “global warming”.
So, imagine my surprise when I found WUWT on …
PAGE 35
Yes, that is right! WUWT was on page 35 … I had to double check to make sure it was right because it was behind the GWPF, behind climate audit, behind unrealclimate, behind the IPCC behind sites that none of us have ever heard of.
- So, why was it on page 35 of the google results?
- Why having clicked on it just once, did it move (via another PC on another URL) to page 34?
- And, why when I checked the page, was there not a single meta-tag telling the google search engine this site had anything or wanted anything to do with global warming?
The simple answer given the ease by which I escalated the ranking by a single click is that no one ever clicks on a WUWT page when they search for global warming. And before everyone starts point to google bias, obviously, no one trusts the top ranking sites (they are mostly paid for … or promoted due to google’s own politics) but whilst it is quite possible WUWT has a lower ranking than it should, I think there is much more to this and quite a lot has nothing to do with Google and so I have a few suggestions:
- I have to be honest, and say that I don’t think Anthony Watts has a clue about publicising his site particularly for search engines. E.g. he doesn’t even mention global warming as a search term in the meta tabs telling search engines which words and phrases characterise the site. That just screams out that he doesn’t exactly make his site google friendly and it’s not surprising that it is so lowly rated.
- Sceptics most probably do not use Google to find the site. If we don’t search on google, how is google supposed to know that people want to find that site when they search?
- And yes, Google hates WUWT … and more than likely is actively trying to repress the site. OK, we have to accept that, so we have to work together to try to reverse this.
What can be done
1. Search for global warming and click on the WUWT site.
Go to google and enter “global warming”. Then click the last number at the bottom to go to pages 10, then 19, etc. until you reach page 35 3435.
(Addendum: the next WUWT page is around page 70 of google results!!)
Then start going backwards until you find an entry for any page linked to wattsupwiththat.com and then click it.
Repeat prescription every day!
2. Add a link to wattsupwiththat.com
Where ever and when ever add a link.
3. Join the “+1 scheme“
Join the scheme and then find the WUWT pages and press the +1 button
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He makes some good points that would make a good new year’s resolution – help spread the word. There is one thing I can do, and that is make a change to the header image to remove the masthead statement and place it into the first lines of text. I’ve made that change today to see if it helps.
As always, my sincerest thanks in advance to everyone who helps support this website in words and deeds.
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I stopped using gogle because of their bias, but if it’s in a good cause I’ll head off there right now.
I usually just type it out.
Page 33 when I just checked.
Global Warming and Walnut Trees post was on pg 27 of google search results a few minutes ago.
It’s now on Page 5.
A page with the slug matching the search term also does well. Look at all the news sites with global warming in their page titles.
It’s even worse on Bing. I could not find Watts Up With that in the first 60 pages returned when searching on “global warming”
WUWT showed up on pg33, browser Safari, for me.
What’s funny, and ironic, is that it pointed to this article!
I didn’t find a link until page 39. An Onion article was in the teens!
Page 30. Dec. 30, 11:30 AM
I can’t find it anywhere from pages 28 to 36, so I gave up.
Anthony, I discovered this site (WUWT) a couple of years ago after the ‘ClimateGate 1.0’ release. I spent a long time (couple of months) following RC before I found you. It was like the difference between night and day. I, like most at the time, believed ‘the scientists’. It took a long time for your site to gain my trust as I’m skeptical. Sir you have it now!
Thank you for all that you have done. I sincerely thought and hoped that we would see the 100,000,000 (one hundred million) views by the end of 2011. As of this post it stands at 99,353,728 million (ninety nine million,three hundred fifty three thousand, seven hundred and twenty eight) views . That is an accomplishment and more so with the audience that you attract!
Happy new year and best wishes for the future from the bottom of my heart.
P.S. You should be given a sizable government grant for doing the job of the mainstream press, climate science, academia, etc., and the many other topics covered here. Your contribution exceeds that of all those mentioned and more!
up to page 38 – don’t see WUWT
I’ll try again later.
Google is becoming more evil by the day. It has joint the ranks of tobacco stocks, liquor stocks, gambling stocks and some specific names that I will never own in my portfolio due to their ethics.
“As always, my sincerest thanks in advance to everyone who helps support this website in words and deeds.”
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Google supposedly favours websites having dense interconnectivity with other websites, so to help your ranking I put WUWT on the Links page of my personal website:
http://www.markbuckles.com/links.html
Warmunist apparatchiks at Google are prolly manually down-ranking you – rather like what William Connolley did to you during his reign as Wikipaedia global warming editor (not that things have changed since he left).
You da man , Anthony. Happy New Year to you and yours. Keep up the good fight.
Hi! It is the first time I write in the comments here but I’m a regular reader of WUWT though. I’m an Spanish skeptic who runs some websites, one of them being about the climate hysteria, unpretentious, you know, I only write from time to time there (in Spanish). Anyway I made a google search engine some time ago and your blog appears usually on the first page, Maybe It isn’t relevant, but it seems that they can not manipulate results on customized search engines. Just for you to know it.
http://climesksearch.blogspot.com/
On the other hand, given the day, I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your wonderful blog and also wish you a happy and warm 2012.
Eclectikus
Enter this search in Google: global warming site:wattsupwiththat.com
Then +1 all the results.
I found the first WUWT hit on page 43 of Google and it was a link to this page.
The first WUWT hit on Bing was on page 19.
Houston we have a problem.
Anthony: Happy New Year. I understand the point about the Google search engine. I think that you site is no very obscure at implied by being found on page 35, Most people interested in climate change due to AGW know at WUWT already. How many sites devoted to the topics found at WUWT are approaching 100,000,000 hits? I predict that WUWT will reach this level in eight days at the current rate of 110,000 hits per day. Most people know about the site and type in WUWT in a browser. There are 334,000,000 sites under the meta tag, Page 35 is not at the bottom. People visit sites that are they know about.
Wow, that’s pretty amazing, though, never search for |”global warming”| (I like to use vertical bars to delimit the search strings I show.)
Google didn’t get to WUWT until page 22 – but I have it configured to return 20 references per page, so it’s really page 35.
Hmm, searching without quotes, |global warming| I didn’t get to WUWT until page 28 (X2 would be 56). I think Google is also including some personal preferences. I never search for global warming!
I frequently successfully use Google to find some comment I remember from a past post, but that usually entails something like |”abiotic oil” site:wattsupwiththat.com| and that’s clearly “leading the witness.”
It will be interesting to see what your change to the title does, I do think Google puts a lot of weight on that. You may be getting derated in part for the size of the home page – the reference to “global warming” makes up a small percentatage of the total page.
Anecdotal, years old notes: After I was astonished to see my Pam Smart page become one of the top pages on the web about that murder case. Lessee, I’m at #9 for |pamela smart|, #8 for |pam smart|, and #2 using her nickname, |pame smart|. As I added more material to it, my ranking dropped for a while, whereas the Hampton Library’s page, little more than a collection of links, rose. My guess is that Google concluded I wasn’t as focused on Smart as much as the library site.
Since then, there’s more “competition” from the official Pamela Smart site, other accounts like “trutv.com” and of course Wikipedia. One thing I’ve done to stand out a bit is to put the date in the title, “… last updated 2011 Dec 13”.
Oh well, I think I understand why some skeptic sites that really want readers pay for advertising. There are just far too many people creating web content on global warming.
Bing-page 28, icecap-page 19.
Seems most unexpected.
Anyway, a good New Year to one and all here.
Oh dear. I have NEVER entered ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’ on any search engine.
I am biased against google and use Bing.
I started looking on page 30, and didn’t get a hit until page 40…. Honestly, if you’re not on page 1 you’re going to be overlooked by many viewers.