A couple of weeks ago I noticed a Google UK search for “Peter Mahoney” no longer had me in fourth place. I wasn’t even on the first page.
Second page, fifth down. This sort of thing is normally an absolute disaster for an SEO expert, the sort of thing that gets them mocked on Twitter and thrown out into the void that exists somewhere between success and scrambling about in the pit of people who pretend they know what they’re talking about, but really don’t.
It’s a very full pit.
But since I’d done it on purpose, I wasn’t too worried.
There is so much information online about search engine optimisation (SEO); what works, what doesn’t, what used to but some people still does, what you get penalised for now that most people haven’t cottoned on to—basically a lot of misinformation that can harm your ranking.
This site is my sandpit. It’s where I play with things to find what works, and what doesn’t.
I can now confirm:
- You’re best to have you’re tags on a WordPress site set to “nofollow”.
- Have categories scanned sparingly, and certainly not by all pages.
- Your Twitter feed is better off in your footer than your sidebar (right/left hand column).
I managed to get my ranking back of course, but not just by undoing all the tests I’d tried—I applied an optimised set of tweaks I’ve been working on, and got back the very next time Google spidered my site.
Let me know if you want me to send you up the rankings to, regardless of where you are right now.