You can move your Google Juice as long as you do the transfer appropriately and implement 301 redirects correctly. Essentially, you're telling Google that you've permanently moved (including your Google Juice) from the old URL to the new URL.
Geoff
· 1 year ago
Its pretty straightforward, especially with wordpress, to get the google juice flowing to a new url. I started off blogging trying to get my Geoff Jones number 1 in google and ended up being number 1 or 2 for just Geoff. Thanks for the heads up on Zemanta looks pretty interesting.
aac74
· 1 year ago
Yep blogs seem to be key to getting a good position on google. I always create a blog for any domain I want to promote.
As long as there isn't too much competition for your keywords you can get to the front page of google in a few weeks with just a little work.
SEO is just a racket.
innonate
· 1 year ago
There's been a lot of chatter about blog portability. I think part of this would have to be Google Juice portability... not just data.
micah
· 1 year ago
Nate, I think your comment is going to get lost in the mix of 301 redirect suggestions from all the helpful SEO types.
The truth is that a blog is more than just the content as you mention. Its the brand, its the search engine visibility, its the comments, its all of it. Even if Fred was able to move his blog to a new url with 301 redirect, it doesnt take affect immediately, and depending on his ability to do it, may never take affect. For example, what about folks on a blogging platform like tumblr or blogger?
The recent discussions around comment ownership is yet another example of the discussion around what are components of a blog and who owns them.
António
· 1 year ago
what about folks on a blogging platform like tumblr or blogger? Apparently it can be done with blogger. There are still plenty of host services that don't offer this service, either because users don't care to ask or because there's no need for it.
Btw, people have been talking about 301s... don't know about TypePad but the way it was done in wordpress.com the last time I've checked, a few months ago, was with 302 (Temporary redirects that do not pass google juice). That means that Google sees the original URL as the one carrying all the juice and the latter one as a temporary solution. But that is ok if everyone starts linking the new url for posts published after the change of address (and they will if you do Domain Mapping).
micah
· 1 year ago
3+2s are never ok. The new URL will probably never get indexed and its just not the correct way to do it.
vanchau
· 1 year ago
Fred,
It's pretty simple to transfer google juice from one url to another. It's called a 301 redirect. If your goal is to have your fredwilson.vc url come up first instead of avc.blogs.com, just 301 avc.blogs.com to fredwilson.vc and wait a week or so
Dan Frommer
· 1 year ago
The question is whether you're going to leave TypePad or not. If not, and you're just going to keep your own domain at TypePad, pretty sure they can do a permanent redirect on your subdomain to your new domain, which should keep your Google Juice intact. If you're going to leave TypePad for another blogging service, they might demand a bribe, or might not be able to/want to do it at all.
You can move anywhere you want (see the examples on that page), and as long as you stay with TypePad, you will keep your google juice (I see Google adding this option to its webmasters tools console that allow people to move away from third parties' subdomains sometime in the future).
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
i really don't feel the need to leave typepad, even though i do like the "openness" of wordpress
so what i really need to do is get avc.com which is not happening.
as someone said, the AVC brand is pretty strong and i certainly want to keep that
My ideal domain is jo.hn. It's Honduras. We'll see if the guy will ever sell.
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
That's awesome
Sachin Agarwal
· 1 year ago
I haven't actually visited your blog in a while (usually just read it in my reader), but you're on hosted Typepad. You can use their Domain Mapping (http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/news/2004/03/do...) service and not have to move.
Dan Lewis
· 1 year ago
Is this -- "this" being the power of Google juice -- a good thing, or a bad thing? Your write up seems agnostic, which it probably should be, as you were making more of an observation than a critique. But I'm interested in your take anyway.
I'm biased -- I work on the Wikia Search project -- but I see it as a bad thing. The result you highlight re: "scoble blog" seems incorrectly out of order (Indeed, if you google "scobleizer", the current blog comes out first.), and there is really nothing one can do to fix Google's error. Instead, you rightfully conclude, the solution is to let Google set the rules, with the webmasters charged with figuring out how to abide by these rules to optimize results. Indeed, the comments before mine are doing exactly that -- suggesting how *you* can pick up the slack where Google fails. What's downright scary
I wonder what happens when someone is not SEO-literate. Why do we find it acceptable that someone who sees "301" and thinks "area code" is punished in favor of one who sees it as an HTTP code? This problem may very well increase as the SEO industry matures and as the net native population becomes an increasingly larger percentage, because the latter will turn to the web for their information, while the former will be the gatekeepers to that information. But that gate is unnecessary.
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
Its a good thing for those who know how to play the game and a bad thing for those who don't
Sadly some of our portfolio companies don't even know how to play the search game as well as they should
Its an area we intend to be more agressive with them going forward
Fred
kschrader
· 1 year ago
It's a somewhat unpredictable thing though. I thought that my Google Juice was pretty good (covered most of the front page of Google when my name was searched for), but then someone with the same name decided to run for Congress.
Now I only have my main blog on the first page of results and even that is falling fast.
Don Jones - VentureDeal
· 1 year ago
That's why the original naming of Internet companies is increasingly important.
Joe Lazarus
· 1 year ago
I'd pick a domain that serves as your permanent home on the web (avc.com, fredwilson.vc, or some other domain). Then, use subdomains to host your various services (ex. blog.avc.com, tumblelog.avc.com, music.avc.com, future_service.avc.com). When you make the switch, 301 redirect your blog (which it sounds like Typepad can accommodate per the comments above). That way, you carry your current Google juice over to the new domain and you also share PageRank benefits across your various sites.
I am in a totally different spot. For years I had danbuell.com. I enjoyed when friends, family and web contacts came by but then I started to see competitors, employees, clients and business peers come to my site and I felt "invaded". I never intended my blogging for that group of people, it started to impact what I wrote and I began to edit myself more than I wanted to. At the moment I am trying to move all of my content to Vox where all of my posts are only viewable by neighbors and friends.
I don't really care for this overall. I think Vox is a great tool and I've met some great people there but I am not generally available to the public. I'm not sure if there is a happy middle ground or not but I find that I'll get excited about building up Vox and then I stop for a couple of days because I know it's not what I'm really looking for.
I suppose it will come to me eventually but I've been in a state of limbo for a long time = no fun!
I LOVE Tumblr! I have several blogs over there that I've played with over time (danbuell.net) (bigpapablog.com), etc. I like how easy it is and would love nothing more to keep it but that was the blog that a recent co-worker googled me to and it creeped me out :(
My fear is that a completely unprotected blog might hurt my career... Going to continue to think about it and in the interim at least use Vox to capture the day-to-day so it doesn't get lost...
Dan Lewis
· 1 year ago
"Its a good thing for those who know how to play the game and a bad thing for those who don't."
That leaves out a huge portion of the population -- those who search but are otherwise not producing much content (if any). It's probably much higher than those of us in our industry think. Even net natives like my college student brother are not included in your sentence; his content generation is shelved on search-sheltered areas like facebook and gmail. His content consumption, however, is nearly 100% new media; that is, he doesn't use a radio or read the newspaper, and even tends to use a slingbox and Hulu more than a standard TV. I'd bet that your sentence captures 5-10% of the searcher market, if that.
It is a good thing for them?
Dan Lewis
· 1 year ago
Sorry for the un-nested reply. I must have erred in my use of Disqus.
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
Google and others need to do a better job for them
That's why there is still a ton of room for innovation in search
fred
usedbooksblog
· 1 year ago
SEO isn't some dark art and at the end of the day search engines are trying to match the best content to a user request. There are some pretty basic ways that folks creating content on the Internet should follow to ensure they're gaining exposure to the world of search.
I'd liken this to good writing in some ways. How many people actually know how to write a good essay? Or even what a topic sentence should be? Or understand that the last sentence of a paragraph should connect (in some way) to the first sentence in the next paragraph.
I know I'm on the fringe because I practice SEO (both at my 'full time' job and as a consultant) but the framework is actually pretty straight forward.
Jonathan Schreiber
· 1 year ago
From a people search perspective, I think google does a horrible job. try www.pipl.com
If you're in this for 2 more years, ok, but for the long haul? Get control of your domain! Can't blogs.com 301 redirect to your new site? (Which would efficiently transfer the Google juice)?
John Wesley
· 1 year ago
It's too bad you don't own you own name on Google or the juice associated, but it makes sense not to leave. Building an online brand takes a lot of effort and you've done a great job with your blog. You bring a lot humanity and intelligence to the VC world.
All the same, if you were starting today what domain would you use?
fredwilson
· 1 year ago
thanks
John Wesley
· 1 year ago
One thing I wonder about....with much of the conversation moving to Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. (Services that no-follow links) Will individual voices stop getting the link juice they deserve?
gregshove
· 1 year ago
Fred, transferring google juice is not so easy. We have done what all the search gurus have told us (redirects etc), and we are four months climbing back to our previous position after a name/domain change. Will probably take a total of 6-9 months on the terms we care about to reclaim our page one status. Of course, the longer you wait, the harder it gets.
david cushman
· 1 year ago
If it ain't already been said, the url is an irrelevance - the links are way more important. To move is to disrupt the network of trust you've created and that's a hugely complex web. Not much fun trying to restore all the connections either. I started with a blogspot address precisely because I figured google would look favourably on its own. Now I dare not change it - and clearly not because anyone types the address into the browser. See you next week at http://widgetwebexpo.com best dc
Krtl
· 1 year ago
that 34.2 can be a lot more, your losing a lot of juice because disqus comments are not indexed look at how much content your readers have created for you. Hopefully disqus gets that going soon.
All Comments
As long as there isn't too much competition for your keywords you can get to the front page of google in a few weeks with just a little work.
SEO is just a racket.
The truth is that a blog is more than just the content as you mention. Its the brand, its the search engine visibility, its the comments, its all of it. Even if Fred was able to move his blog to a new url with 301 redirect, it doesnt take affect immediately, and depending on his ability to do it, may never take affect. For example, what about folks on a blogging platform like tumblr or blogger?
The recent discussions around comment ownership is yet another example of the discussion around what are components of a blog and who owns them.
Apparently it can be done with blogger. There are still plenty of host services that don't offer this service, either because users don't care to ask or because there's no need for it.
Btw, people have been talking about 301s... don't know about TypePad but the way it was done in wordpress.com the last time I've checked, a few months ago, was with 302 (Temporary redirects that do not pass google juice). That means that Google sees the original URL as the one carrying all the juice and the latter one as a temporary solution. But that is ok if everyone starts linking the new url for posts published after the change of address (and they will if you do Domain Mapping).
It's pretty simple to transfer google juice from one url to another. It's called a 301 redirect.
If your goal is to have your fredwilson.vc url come up first instead of avc.blogs.com, just 301 avc.blogs.com to fredwilson.vc
and wait a week or so
You can move anywhere you want (see the examples on that page), and as long as you stay with TypePad, you will keep your google juice (I see Google adding this option to its webmasters tools console that allow people to move away from third parties' subdomains sometime in the future).
so what i really need to do is get avc.com which is not happening.
as someone said, the AVC brand is pretty strong and i certainly want to keep that
I'm biased -- I work on the Wikia Search project -- but I see it as a bad thing. The result you highlight re: "scoble blog" seems incorrectly out of order (Indeed, if you google "scobleizer", the current blog comes out first.), and there is really nothing one can do to fix Google's error. Instead, you rightfully conclude, the solution is to let Google set the rules, with the webmasters charged with figuring out how to abide by these rules to optimize results. Indeed, the comments before mine are doing exactly that -- suggesting how *you* can pick up the slack where Google fails. What's downright scary
I wonder what happens when someone is not SEO-literate. Why do we find it acceptable that someone who sees "301" and thinks "area code" is punished in favor of one who sees it as an HTTP code? This problem may very well increase as the SEO industry matures and as the net native population becomes an increasingly larger percentage, because the latter will turn to the web for their information, while the former will be the gatekeepers to that information. But that gate is unnecessary.
Sadly some of our portfolio companies don't even know how to play the search game as well as they should
Its an area we intend to be more agressive with them going forward
Fred
Now I only have my main blog on the first page of results and even that is falling fast.
That's interesting
If I get avc.com, then fredwilson.vc becomes tumblog.avc.com
Sounds right
Fred
I don't really care for this overall. I think Vox is a great tool and I've met some great people there but I am not generally available to the public. I'm not sure if there is a happy middle ground or not but I find that I'll get excited about building up Vox and then I stop for a couple of days because I know it's not what I'm really looking for.
I suppose it will come to me eventually but I've been in a state of limbo for a long time = no fun!
It's a better version of vox
fred
My fear is that a completely unprotected blog might hurt my career... Going to continue to think about it and in the interim at least use Vox to capture the day-to-day so it doesn't get lost...
That leaves out a huge portion of the population -- those who search but are otherwise not producing much content (if any). It's probably much higher than those of us in our industry think. Even net natives like my college student brother are not included in your sentence; his content generation is shelved on search-sheltered areas like facebook and gmail. His content consumption, however, is nearly 100% new media; that is, he doesn't use a radio or read the newspaper, and even tends to use a slingbox and Hulu more than a standard TV. I'd bet that your sentence captures 5-10% of the searcher market, if that.
It is a good thing for them?
That's why there is still a ton of room for innovation in search
fred
I'd liken this to good writing in some ways. How many people actually know how to write a good essay? Or even what a topic sentence should be? Or understand that the last sentence of a paragraph should connect (in some way) to the first sentence in the next paragraph.
I know I'm on the fringe because I practice SEO (both at my 'full time' job and as a consultant) but the framework is actually pretty straight forward.
Here's how to do it the right way: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-10-27-n88.html
All the same, if you were starting today what domain would you use?
See you next week at http://widgetwebexpo.com
best dc