vanderwal.net

Matt points out Google ranks blogs highly. This seems to be the result of Google giving strong preference to titles and other HTML elements. Tools like TypePad help the user properly develop their pages, which Google deems highly credible.

Matt's complaint is his very helpful PVR blog is turning up top results in searches for Tivo information, and other recorder info. Matt's site is relatively new and out ranking the information he is discussing.

This is something I personally run into as things I write about here often get higher Google ranking than the information I am pointing to and is the source and focus of the information. I have often had top Google ranks for items that are big news on CNN or the New York Times, which I am pointing to in my posts.

Much of the reason for this seems to be understanding proper HTML uses and not putting my branding at the forefront of the message. CNN puts their name first in the title of their pages (not the headers, which also have benefit if they are in "H&" tags). The tools and people building Web pages with attention to proper naming and labeling will get rewarded for their good work (if a top Google rank is a reward).

I have written on this in the past in Using HTML tags properly to help external search results from April, which mostly focussed on search ignoring Flash, but for the few HTML elements on a page wrapping the Flash. Fortunately there have been enough links pointing to the site that was laking the top rank to raise the site to the top Google rank.

Some of the corrected Google ranking will come over time as more sites begin to properly mark-up their content. The Google ranks will also shift as more links are processed by Google and their external linking weighting assists correcting the rankings.