Blog Tag Subdomains and Slurpy SERPs
Do your subdomains sparkle like mine? Subdomains are cool now:
- June 17, 2006: Digital Point forum thread started by user “Nintendo” reveals random generated sites that manage to get billions of pages indexed in Google, using subdomains.
- June 17, 2006: Alex, the blogger behind Monetize breaks the story into the blogosphere with a step-by-step explanation.
- June 18, 2006: Digital Point diggs Monetize up to #1 at TechMeme, my favorite news site.
What does this tell your average blogger? Clicking a tag usually takes you to a new page, with real content. From an SEO standpoint, the URL of this new page should tell the search engine something useful. Years ago, we knew that search engines read the names of subdirectories. Is this as important today? Probably not. But at the very least, show the bot (and the engineer behind the bot) that you are thinking about URL structure. Organize your pages on the disk, or at least fake it with permalinks. Do search engines still appreciate the URL structure of your website? This latest subdomain scandal seems to suggest: Yes.
After reading all of the latest “bad data push” hoopla surrounding Google’s crazy indexing, my gut is telling me that subdomain category tags will allow bloggers to reach a wider audience from a single registered domain.
Getting into subdomains: there’s a barrier to entry obviously. You might need to know how to operate your webserver’s control panel. You might need to install a custom plugin. You might even need to edit your .htaccess or write some custom code. If you already know how to use subdomains, you’re one step ahead of most bloggers out there. Search engines tend to reward ingenuity and penalize mediocrity. It’s like the stock market really–contrarians win.
Why are subdomains more important now? It might have something to do with the latest trends. Social networking and “community” portals hand out subdomains like candy to attract users. So you have many people writing about various unrelated things, and they’re all on the same domain. The search engines probably figured, “We should index all of these subdomains on their own merit, not as a group.” Why? Because each of these subdomains represents a unique person, with unique interests, etc.
Back to tagging. As far as I can tell, Google doesn’t care much about tags within a particular website. I think Google looks at the website as a whole, factoring in a number of indicators. Tags get drowned in the noise that SE’s really listen to: inbound links and past performance in the SERPs. Maybe subdomains can help tagging. If a blogger gives each tag its own subdomain, then it should be possible to reach a larger audience. Each tag/category/topic hypothetically gets its own little pond to survive or die in, with less dependence on the domain. I’m hoping that subdomains will give my tagged ideas the independence that they need to break free from the noise pigeonholing my SE performance.
Like many other bloggers, I jumped on the tagging bandwagon. At first I resisted. Then I realized that Technorati would index my WordPress categories as tags. So I tagged everything I had–took a while too.
Before launching KnowingArt.com, I knew what else was out there. I looked at other blogs, like TechCrunch, and noticed that many of them focused on one topic. One domain, one theme, one topic. Do one-dimensional people really exist? Maybe just in one dimension. But seriously, this format bothered me. It’s dull. The one-topic-per-domain format seems to betray the spirit of blogging. Who doesn’t appreciate a good “random musings” post now and then?
I reasoned, “With tagged categories, can’t I write about anything, then neatly file everything away with subdirectories and permalinks?” And WordPress would help me too: tagging functionality was built in. Nirvana! I figured that the search engines would judiciously dig into each tag/category on my website, index everything, then send me all sorts of interesting readers looking for info on a variety of topics.
Wrong. Google decided what KnowingArt.com was about. Anything that I wrote that wasn’t about Myspace was mostly ignored. (Last night I noticed BusinessWeek buying Myspace traffic on my page through AdSense. Could they be in the same boat?) The AdSense ads updated quickly, to keep up with my new topics, but the traffic patterns seemed more steady, predictable, with little breadth. I touched a nerve somewhere in Google’s brain, sending me thousands of readers. But they all want the same thing: Myspace information.
How did this happen? I wrote a few comments in some news blogs that discussed social networking, Myspace traffic numbers and things of that nature. Simultaneously I had been writing about traffic tracking, metrics, and other subjects that interest me, not all that interested in Myspace tracking. Somehow Google figured “Social networking” plus “traffic tracking” equals “Myspace tracker”. Surprise! Google’s algorithm said, “You’re now the Myspace tracking expert!” I never considered coding a Myspace tracker myself, but Google’s algorithm figured I’d be a good candidate. I saw the search terms flowing in, thousands of them. Stubbornly, I ignored these keyword searches for weeks. Finally I gave in. I had lemons, I made lemonade. I wrote a simple article on the feasibility of a Myspace tracker. The response was instant. Thousands of visitors/day, programmers calling me for tips, newspaper reporters looking for a scoop.
The traffic still rolls in, months later, but it’s just not enough. I need more traffic. Who doesn’t? Thousands of paranoid Myspace girls tracking their ex-boyfriends’ IP numbers–this AdSense income barely covers my bandwidth costs. So the traffic keeps coming, because everyone still wants a Myspace tracker and nobody can provide one. I’d move on, but the Myspace tracking paparazzi is still following me. If Myspace would just launch its own internal tracking system this would all be over, but methinks they lack the resources to pull it off. So Myspace is caught in a catch-22 situation. Either they need to open the floodgates to 3rd-party hackers that can add value to the service, or they need to get the job done themselves to satisfy the demands of their users. Either way, it’s going to cost them big bucks. Myspace sits on its hands and does nothing, as if the walled garden approach ever held water.
How long does it take to realize that you’re permanently stuck in a boring Google neighborhood? Weeks? Months? I’m not waiting any longer. I’ve installed a WordPress subdomain plugin and we’ll see if that works, and wait. It’s up to Google. So far it sounds like this subdomain technique is safe, and legit when not abused. But if this doesn’t do the trick, the solution will be for me to give up tagging and categories altogether. Instead I’ll be registering domains, one at a time, writing one narrow-minded article at a time, one topic at a time. Drudgery. But what’s the alternative? No traffic.
