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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“The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change”
Nice addition =)
also Watts Up With That is number one for a Google search of “watts u” and number 7 (not page 7 but number 7) for watts.
We have been through this before. Its not a conspiracy. If you search for specific terms that are story titles etc, wuwt appears on page one. You cannot expect to appear high up all broad search terms. Also, as I pointed out last time, google +1 is not relevant to organic search influence.
Page 24 for me while Real climate site was on page 22. — John M Reynolds
Page 38 again
I have been Googling the phrase “Global Warming” every day since 2007 and it was the skeptical stuff that came up first, even in the news section, we were kicking their butts. Then in March of 2011, Google announced it was hiring 21 “Fellows” to push the Global Warming agenda:
“[Google] has hand-picked a team of 21 fellows working in climate research to improve the way the science of global warming is communicated to the public and lawmakers through new media.”
Now when you Google “Global Warming” all of the propaganda comes up first and all of the skeptical links have been moved way down the list. Even if you Google “Global Warming Skeptics” or “Global Warming Hoax” the propaganda stuff still comes up first.
So much for “not doing evil”.
Google is mostly using the links pointing from and to a page to determine the rank of an individual keyword. If you search for “Global warming link:wattsupwiththat.com” you will see that no major site is pointing to WUWT.
Editing the Wikipedia article for global warming and placing a link to WUWT might do the trick.
for “global warming I found WUWT on page 41 with this link:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/svensmark-global-warming-stopped-and-a-cooling-is-beginning-enjoy-global-warming-while-it-lasts/
dr Roy Specer on page 38 with this link:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-natural-or-manmade/
Note the appearance of “global warming” in title.
Here my take aways:
If we want to beat professionals – don’t forget the warmists have high payed PR professionals working – then we need at least understand and follow the rules the search engines use. There are several points mentioned in the thread so far:
– use key words in titles – search engines are not so good in judging/interpreting content (do we want them to do it?)
– link to other sites on similar articles – dr Roy Spencer, Jo Nova, Tallbloke etc etc and back
– make a reference article/reference page on “global warming theory” or “climate change” that would be strong used/referenced
– do we want not to allow the “others” to increase their popularity on behalf on WUWT ( the “not follow” that was mentioned? – maybe tit for tat)
– take care and follow-up, legally if needed, on sites set up to decrease your popularity – I learned there may be tricks to setup sites with similar names and use languages or links that downgrade popularity – don’t forget sometime people thinking they are fighting for a good cause are ready to all kind of dirty tricks – how far their conscience and the set of rules allows
I’m reminded of the atheist who on his death bed confided to a close friend “Do you think God will punish me for not believing in Him?”
Its an extension of the wiki problem, where a single person rewrote over 5,000 articles deleting all sorts of contrary references.
Natural healthcare has the same problem, google not showing cutting edge natural remedies. This has been highlighted in the Doctors Data versus Quackwatch legal case. Discovery is planned to be used to find out how so many defaming articles re doctors data got on page one of google and who was behind it.
Strange allies indeed.
My blog “MinnesotansForGlobalWarming.com” was always on the front page when you searched “Global Warming” now it is on page 10. Just sayin.
You came out on page 26 this morning. Judging by the other comments it looks like you’re jumpimg all over the place.
Do you suppose Google keeps pushing you back down?
There is a false belief that time-proven principles for search engine optimization cannot be used with blog applications, because blog applications like WordPress do not permit editing of source code for blog pages. However, that is not quite the way things are with blogs.
WordPress, for example, is quite well-aware of the importance of search-engine optimization. That is why WordPress offers ideas on how to take those principles into account. More at Search Engine Optimization for WordPress, by WordPress.org , http://codex.wordpress.org/Search_Engine_Optimization_for_WordPress
About attempts to change the ranking of WUWT through taking various actions. Changes to web-site ranking due to whatever improvements have been made to optimize for search-engine ranking will not have any effect until a web-site has been re-indexed after such changes have been made. Depending on search engine, the cycle for re-indexing can take on average from three to a few more weeks before a search-engine crawls a web-site again on the next indexing run. That is when any improvements that were made to the website will become noticeable on search-return lists.
If you do a search for “Global Warming” on Yahoo Minnesotans For Global Warming is still on the first page.
On the front page with Bing too.
Here are some Google search results:
“watts” page 1 position 5 out of 33.7 million results
“science climate” page 1 position 6 out of 157 million results
“climate blog” page 1 position 3 out of 499 million results
“weather science blog” page 3 position 23 out of 503 million results
There are businesses out there charging serious money to people seeking rankings of this order.
Manifestly this website is not being suppressed by Google when you search using relevant terms. Anthony, if you are desperate to become a significant global warming alarmist site, you need to do something. If you do decide to become a global warming alarmist site, I suspect you will lose your present audience.
I doubt that wuwt is being intentionally down graded. My reasons are that there are several skeptical sites in the first several pages.
Just the ones I spotted and there may be more
http://www.globalwarming.org/ – page 1 (not to be confused with globalwarming.com)
http://www.accuweather.com – page 4
http://www.naturalnews.co – page 5
http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/Boon_To_Man.html – page 6
http://www.wnho.net/global_warming.htm – page 6
http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/ – page 7
http://www.globalwarminghysteria.com/ – page 7
and drum roll please ……
wattsupwiththat.com/ – page 26 ( a huge jump up from 35 ).
If you search for the following “global warming watts” and you get 2+ million with this site in the first half dozen hits but when you search for “global warming wattsup” you get 1 (one and only one). So if you lengthen the search by 2 characters you get a lot less hits. If you search for “global warming wattsupwith” you get a lot more.
Why a site like this is down the search results when it gets more traffic than some of the above is weird but humans create the algorithms at google and I write it off to faulty code. So I’ll keep Plus1’ing the articles here just out of curiosity to see if it has an effect over the next year. I also suggest that instead of going to the site directly via bookmarks you use google to search for “wattsupwiththat” and then follow the link to the site. Maybe the number of searches and follows will help.
Oh yea Happy New Year to all!
Elmer says:
January 1, 2012 at 10:20 am
There is a simple reason why it is at the top of search return lists. Think about it: “Minnesotans For Global Warming” shows up in the URL for the website, http://www.minnesotansforglobalwarming.com/
But that is not the only reason. The phrase is not only part of the URL for the site but shows up in numerous instances of HTML tags in the source code for the page.
If you were to do a comparable search for WUWT, you would search for the phrase “Watts up with that?” Try that, and you will find that WUWT is then also at the top of the search-return lists that character string causes to be created.
I just checked, and WUWT’s first mention in a Global Warming search is now page 39, but I note something sinister- I am pasting the listing below:
Watts Up With That? | The world’s most viewed site on global …
wattsupwiththat.com/
Block all wattsupwiththat.com results
37 minutes ago – Global warming may go on a last minute rampage. Maybe best to just stay at home and lock your doors, bar your windows, and turn your air …
Note the new “Block all wattsupwiththat.com results” link Google has added!
[TIC] Thinking more deeply about this, the way to improve WUWT’s ranking on the search term “global warming” would be to do what (Un)RealClimate does. No substantive discussion of the science, no more posts from Willis Eschenbach, Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, David Archibald, Bob Tisdale etc. Editorial would need to be by Lazy Teenager, A Physic, R Gates etc. Comments from EM Smith, DirkH, Geoff Sherrington, Ferdinand Engelbeen, Lucy Skywalker etc ruthlessly suppressed. That oughta work. [/TIC]
Searched “global warming” and got this on page 22.
“Watts Up With That? The world’s most viewed site on global …
wattsupwiththat.com/
4 minutes ago – Global warming may go on a last minute rampage”
Page 24 – 1940 Z 1st January.
And it says the ‘most Viewed site on Global Warming’.
Smiles.
thepompousgit says:
January 1, 2012 at 10:51 am
Here are some Google search results:
“watts” page 1 position 5 out of 33.7 million results….
…Methinks the Git gits it…
thepompousgit says:
January 1, 2012 at 10:51 am
That is absolutely true.
You also stated:
That is also true, but only within reason, and I don’t think that the insinuation is warranted.
All things are fair in love and war. Anthony has love for the truth and for truth against the propaganda war that employs and exploits unnecessary fear of man-made global warming.
To make a dent in the persistent propaganda campaign, it will help to increase the already considerable popularity and visibility of WUWT. It will help that along if searches for specific terms lead people who are not yet aware of WUWT to this blog. “Global Warming” is a very prominent key-term. I don’t think that making it easy to find discussions that mention “global warning” at WUWT will in any way impact the editorial policies applied by Anthony.
The term “global warming” is now (as is the term “climate change”) contained in many HTML tags in the source code for the WUWT blog and will without a doubt increase the volume of traffic coming to this blog within about three weeks from now — without affecting editorial content or policy at all.
Anthony and all others involved in doing the required work, thank you for that and for making the effort.
I mean WUWT is on page 3 now if you google Mingo’s thong, lol…
Page 3 of about 1,470,000 results (0.19 seconds)
I am just saying….’Whats Up with that’?
TRM said @ur momisugly January 1, 2012 at 11:00 am
“Why a site like this is down the search results when it gets more traffic than some of the above is weird but humans create the algorithms at google and I write it off to faulty code.”
The “faulty code” evaluates search terms used and websites visited using those search terms. The results of these searches published in comments here suggest that most people who search on the terms “global warming” do not then become WUWT fans. People who search on the terms “watts”, or “science climate”, or “climate blog” are far more likely to become WUWT fans; and this is as it should be. Google’s success has come from evaluating people’s behaviour such that what they are looking for is more likely to be on the first page of a search than page 33, or 333.
The complaint about Google not placing WUWT on the first page when searching on “global warming” should more properly be made against people who search on those terms not becoming WUWT fans. Google’s search result says most of them prefer to go to WikiBloodyPedia. I don’t believe WUWT fans are going to change that behaviour by trying to game Google. Google has long deprecated websites where gaming is detected.
Google makes money, lots of it, from providing relevant search results. If they fail in the latter, they will fail in the former. The Internet is at this stage still a free market. If another search engine that is significantly better than Google arises, we will mostly change our allegiance to that search engine — quickly. Anybody else here remember Alta Vista, or Gopher even?