This site is regularly scanned by Google. In fact, I have a much better rating on Google than I deserve. How is that? It’s no great secret really. Recently it mostly has to do with the fact that I am listed on sites like Daypop, Blogdex and the new Popdex (which, by the way, looks remarkably much like Blogdex).
These sites include lots of links to a plentitude of sites with frequently updated material, and that’s something Google loves. And, in Google’s view the sites linked to by sites like Blogdex and Popdex must be very important sites, since such link-rich sites link to them, which in turn gives them (as well as the sites linking to them) a higher score on Google results. Does it seem complicated? Hang on. I’ve just started…
Of course, I got a head start when I last year put up the Bert bin Laden page and got a few million more hits than I asked for. That rendered me links from all over and even some from sites rated very high on Google’s list of important sites (like Wired News). Since then Google seems to pay me a visit at least every other day. You can easily check for yourself if they where here yet by clicking the Google-search button at the top of the page. If this page has been indexed yet this link should show up as number one…
Furthermore Blogdex, Popdex and Daypop publish the links linking to popular sites with the same phrasing as the linking page. This adds another factor, the Google Time Bomb, a phenomena thoroughly explained in a series of articles on Microcontent News.
In fact, it all works out like a big network of sites exchanging links with each others, much the way the Church of Scientology has done to fight sites like xenu.net for the number 1 position on a Google search for scientology. An extensive article about this and well worth reading is found on www.operatingthetan.com/google/ (but scroll down about half the page, that’s where the good stuff begins).
So, if you’re wondering why Google never pays you a visit, make sure to update your content more frequently, be sure to use at least one link rated in the top 20:s or so on Daypop, Blogdex or Popdex and get listed by them. I’m sure that will do the trick. Oh, yes, even if Google won’t admit to it, add one of those Google search boxes somewhere on your site as well, just to make sure.