Though Google is not transparent about how it ranks sites, what is known is that a large part of Google’s ranking algorithm is based on the popularity of a Website.  They’ve been doing this based at least in part on links.  Now the truth about links is that they are very, very susceptible to manipulation.  Google has decided to fight people buying links, reciprocal linking and directory links, but in spite of this there remain dozens of ways to get links that have nothing to do with what another Website owner things of the site it is linking to.

At some point if their idea for personalized search takes off and they get a lot of people voting one site up over another it is going to become far to tempting for them not to add or even make this a primary factor in their ranking.  Is that a bad thing?  Not necessarily, but many people believe it is an elite group of users who are most likely to use this feature, so an elite group may be determining what all are seeing.

The prudent thing seo is to start using this tool.  Vote your own site up and have your network vote your site up too.  As always be smart about this and how you do it.

SearchWiki for Increasing Visitors

One of the features of the SearchWiki is the ability to make comments about a site.  Those comments are available to anyone else looking at the results for that site.  Thus what you say and how you say it can play a role in getting other to move your site, or a site you comment on, up in their search results.  Obviously, you should comment well on Websites you want to make popular.  Another thing to keep in mind is that people like sites that other people like so more positive comments on your site can only help you in the long run.

Is Personal Search Good for Personal Use

Given the advice above about having your networks vote you up you might think that I am going to say yes, but in reality I don’t think this is the case at all. When you use personal search and the SearchWiki to move a site up or out of the list you move it permenantly for your results.  Do new better sites ever come along?  Yes, everyday and any user using personal search limits what they see. Sure you can log out of your account to see what the world is seeig, or if you’re like me with two screens and three or four browsers on your computer you can easily jump between the results.  The reality for most users is they don’t have two screens and several browsers and signing in and out of accounts is just too much of a bother.

Now that you’ve got my opinions here’s what Google has to say about their new SearchWiki

Yes.  At least in Google they can.  Here’s what Google has said about 404 errors and your rankings

“When you’re moving your site, pesky 404 (File Not Found) errors can harm the user experience and negatively impact your site’s performance in Google search results.”*

Of course this doesn’t just apply when you’re moving your site.  If 404 errors can negatively impact your site’s results during a move they can negatively impact them any time.

The solution?  Simple, check your site’s links and make sure they aren’t returning 404′s.
*

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-05-09T14%3A02%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7

You may have noticed that I linked to Michael’s argument with the word post.  As a search engine optimization expert, I know the more SEO friendly thing to do would have been to link the phrase  “domain name doesn’t matter for SEO” to his page making the argument.  This would have helped search engines to determine that the page was about its actual topic and not just about the word “post.”

Not seeing the direct line of reasoning yet?  A great number of the people who eventually link from their site to your site will do so either with www.yourdomain.com or they will hyper link the phrase of your domain.  Either way, if you have chosen a domain name that includes your key search phrase you’ve just won yourself some bonus points.

Michael may be right that it doesn’t matter to the search engine what string of letters show up in the address bar, but that is simply missing the more important point about why they do matter.

So why is my domain name Dew Point Productions?  Who doesn’t like a challenge but perhaps the better question is if it is so insignificant why did Michael choose seo-theory for a url?