Blogs Alan Curtis

Considerations on the latest SEO contest Italians

The SEO contest in Italy have become very frequent and followed, as the symptom of search engine optimization is a subject of study and discussion in our country. Undoubtedly the Italian reference site for SEO and web marketing is giorgiotave.it and especially its vibrant forum, where every so often I do some surgery and I keep updated on the Italian scene.

I personally have participated in various competitions positioning, including Italian and international. At the Italian level 3 years ago I participated in " arcane factors "with some success (7 ° in some data centers and 11 ° -12 ° google.it others). At international level, I am confronted in " carcasherdotcom seocontest "reaching 34 ° around the world on hundreds and hundreds of participants (it was one of the few contests where you win a lot of money, so the competition was fierce soo).

Attualmemte I ventured into two new races all Italian, " wer Mosquito "and" PageRank patatrak , "that here I want to compare.

mosquito wer

We start from the first: the competition was created by the Forum forum.punto-web.net, emerging a new forum that has a long way to go to achieve the highest levels. The rules of this contest are simple: you have to finish first with the search for "mosquito wer" and you can participate with any type of website or web page. But not everything has been chosen a specific data center for the ranking.

Considerations on the rules:

1. the choice of a specific datacenter google is welcome, as the ranking is certainly more clear and consistent for all (if I'm in america and do a search on google.it, I'll probably be a little 'different than staying in Italy just because I connect to different data centers).

2. The choice of keywords rather puzzles me ... use words that actually exist may cause unexpected results and not just "happy". Even with "arcane factors," there was this possibility, but the terms are so generic that, taken individually, the results give a lot and did not make much sense. So the SERPs of the two individual words are not contaminated by the sites in the race.
But this does not happen with "mosquito wer." The word mosquito is not widespread and the results are few, so right now if you look this word appear on the front page of Google.it 4-5 sites of the contest, who do not speak so much about SEO as mosquitoes. This is a situation that does not like it very much, thinking of those seeking information on mosquitoes and instead finds himself navigating between sites that speak only of "mosquito wer."

Pagerank patatrak

Now we analyze the second contest to which I am participating.
This was designed by Giorgio Taverniti and his crew, and offers interesting rules.
The main purpose is to position your site or page while keeping the Google PageRank of 0.
It 'a little' a provocation to all those who still consider PR as a key to high rankings. George with his race wants to dispel this myth.

Considerations on the rules:

1. The reference site is google.it no indication of a specific data center. This can lead to slightly different SERP and can not be sure of its position. Just as with "arcane factors." At the time I remember seeing my site 6 ° -7 °, and when they published the rankings in the forums are 11 ° -12 °. The difference was remarkable.
Hence my criticism and my advice for the next contest: choose a specific data center, so even those who are abroad (like me) can see the same SERPs!

2. In this contest there is a single premium, but different depending on the type of sites. There is a prize for new sites created after the official start of the contest (ie, after February 2), a prize for those created before, a prize for a prize ... ... and blog pages.
These categories make the race more interesting and varied, it was definitely a positive choice.
Now let the point of my personal situation.

My site in the race for "mosquito wer" currently oscillates between the 4th and 6th position and came near the end of the contest, April 30.
Despite a delay of more than four months (the contest began in September 2007, I started towards the end of January 2008), I came quite easily to the first page of results.
I think a lot is due to the fact that I participate with a subdomain of my personal website, active for years and "seen" by Google.
I used various "traditional" techniques to place the best:
optimization of the site
inclusion of links to portals and directories
inclusion of links in my personal sites

Social Bookmarking

Since nothing new here.
But what surprised me was the power of the so-called "social bookmarking". Perhaps not everyone knows what it is, in essence, are sites that allow you to create reports and a personal directory of sites, private or available to all. A sort of list of favorite sites online. Among the most famous portals that offer this service are Digg.com, Del.icio.us and Technorati.com.

The impressive thing I experienced was the indexing speed obtained by the inclusion of Digg.com
After only 9 hours from notification to Digg, my site "wer Mosquito" had already been indexed by Google!

So when I started the contest " Pagerank patatrak "I wanted to do an experiment: I created two identical sites in two very similar subdomains, pagerankpatatrat.alancurtis.it and pagerank-patatrat.alancurtis.it . The first one I reported on Digg.com and the second on Del.icio.us.

Result?
Digg Del.icio.us Google prefers instead!

After 1 day the first site was properly indexed, and after insertion of other links, placed directly on the front page, second in my category (sites created before the contest) and the 6 ° of the general.

The second one has not been indexed yet, and I stopped bothering to point all of its positioning on the first.

Then, since the race is Italian, I am dedicated to social bookmarking sites such as Italian and diggita.it bookmarks.it

They have the authority of the international, but are located geographically and linguistically, and give added value to climb the charts in Italian.

Geographical location

Among the interesting things to note is the increased importance of the geographical location of the Google servers. My sites are in Italian, also indicated in the meta-tag.
But my server is in America and this has impacted very negatively.

How am I realized?
Well, it was easy. Changing English language search for "mosquito wer", my site is the first in the standings!

Finally, these two contests things more worthy of note that I have been able to detect the importance of social bookmarking (and in particular of Digg.com) and the growing influence of the geographical location of the server hosting a site.

The next time you attend a contest in Italian, I'll try to make a site hosted in Italy!

UPDATE:
The contest "mosquito wer" is over, at the end of my site has lost rankings and slipped to a paltry 7 th place. Too bad, the other competitors in the last days we should have given in! hehehe patience, the important thing is to participate and experiment!
Here is the official announcement of the closing of the contest, with the analysis of the top 10, including myself: http://forum.punto-web.net/zanzara-mannara-atto-finale-t-1839.html

The contest " patatrak PageRank "is officially in its final phase, now missing a week to its end, May 10 at 12:00
Here is the announcement from the site of Giorgio Taverniti: closed Contest PageRank Patatrak
And behold, the discussion on PageRank patatrak

My site patatrak PageRank is one of the few left to PR0 after the update occurred 2 days ago, now let's see what happens with the remaining competitors, as you can see from this list always made ​​on ForumGT: The sites currently have no PR

To try yet another experiment, I created another site Pagerank patatrak , this time a brand new domain (. biz) who now hope to place in recent days, surprise! I reported yesterday on Digg, where it has already taken other 2 recommendations, and today is already indexed in Google! Need more evidence on the social bookmarking? I would say no, my testing, however, the contest goes, managed with great success.

Links:

Blogs Alan Curtis
Pagerank patatrak No.1 site
Pagerank patatrak site No. 2
Pagerank patatrak site no.3
mosquito wer
wer Mosquito Blog

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• Experiment No.1 SEO managed with great success!
• Victory at SEO Contest "Pagerank patatrak"
• SEO Experiment No. 1 on the Mosquito Mannara
• The secrets of my Pagerank Patatrak
• New SEO Contest