There is always lots of talk about what “web 2.0″ platform actually ranks better in the SERPS…and of course , it’s constantly changing as Google slaps Squidoo or Hubpages etc.
Everyone has a theory, but not a lot of people have hard data…until right now that is.
We are quietly building a massive research tool that will allow us to do Internet marketing research like no one has ever done before.
It will literally be game changing..and you’ll hear about it sometime after the Holidays. You’ll also be able to get access to the data yourself…to do your own research…but…more about that later.
We have already been doing some initial analysis and we wanted to share some very interesting Web 2.0 stats with you.
We looked at approximately 60,000 “popular” internet marketing keywords (we’ll explain our population samples better in the future…when we’re ready to share more about our research tool, but suffice to say that these are random keywords that have at least some kind of marketing value…i.e. not “chair” or something like that!)…to see what the level of penetration was for web 2.0 platforms in the top 10 Google results.
Interesting fact #1 - 15% of all keywords had an Ezine article in the top 10 listings!
Interesting fact #2 - Excluding Ezine articles, roughly 7% of the keywords had at least 1 web 2.0 platform in the top 10 listings.
Interesting fact #3 - Squidoo, Hubpages, youtube, and facebook all had about the same penetration (roughly 2.5% of the keywords) … Wordpress.com, typepad, dig, and scribed were about 1/2 of those…coming in at about 1-1.25% of the keywords.
Interesting fact #4 - blogspot.com was the big winner. For a keyword that has a web 2.0 platform in the top 10 organic results, it’s almost 3x more likely to be blogspot.com than anything else!
Conclusions ?
Well…I’ve always had a lot of respect for the potential traffic from an Ezine article…but, perhaps not THAT much respect. It’s a pretty amazing statistic…and the first conclusion…is that Ezine should become an even more serious part of your marketing efforts.
In Addition, obviously…if you want to use a web 2.0 platform to enter the SERPS…seems like it’s a no brainer to use blogspot.com … owned by Google of course…but, I’m certain that has nothing to do with it.
Keep in mind, If you’re just looking for backlinks, any of these web 2.0 platforms remain sources…this analysis is only if you want to rank the page you’ve created.
Stay tuned for more fun…and an incredible wealth of research that will help you make money.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to look at even more keywords…and perhaps break down the penetration of Web 2.0 platforms by the number of competing pages…? (evil laugh) Oh..there will be so much more!
UPDATE
Someone asked for stats re: goarticles and articledashboard.
As I suspected…articledashboard was practically non existent , and goarticles was about 1/10 of Ezine
November 5th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Thanks for the read…….Had a couple of hubs in the top ten now they are completely gone. Thanks Google!
November 5th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
This is some great news. I have often wondered about whether one platform or another was the better way to go. Having just written 7 articles, I am off to ezinearticles.com NOW!
Thanks Guys - always look forward to your notes
November 5th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
This is awesome information. It is a real eye opener and may prompt me to make some serious changes to my current strategies. Great NEWS!
Thanks for sharing this Tim!
November 5th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Thanks guys - guess where my next article goes.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I’m just wondering how it might be a conflict for Google to rank Blogspot posts that could affect Adwords revenue. Surely they have some way of mitigating this…
November 5th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
This is pretty revealing stuff and sadly something that champions of Squidoo and Hubpages will never declare. IM is an ever changing world. Thanks for keeping us abreast.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Steve And Tim. GReat info as always. I’m glad I just did a bunch of articles in Ezine. It should pay off big time
November 5th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Not surprising since your finding are reflective of the Alexa.com rankings for the very sites you mentioned and most likely mimick the results within the appropriate Alexa categories as well. See Alexa for the latest rankings and this will confirm your analysis. You may as well create several Blogspot blogs and use them as article aggregates as well.
Effective backlinking does and is shown to go hand in hand with the most popular / authoratative sites. It’s hard to believe that any penalty that google may impose on web 2.0 sites (if ever) will be heavy handed as those sites clearly have a disclaimer that the authors and articles recieve compensation in the form of affiliate links, charities, and other ways. This doesn’t devalue the content, it just makes it suspect.
Those sites mentioned may lose 1 or 2 pr if it’s deemed to spammy, link infested, or link baiting. I think they’ll be left alone for a while unless user feedback states otherwise, however thier quality and results in the serps are reflective of the traffic they recieve… and that could be because of genuine organic traffic or google SERP driven traffic (chicken vs egg.)
It would be interesting to see of your study can disern the difference between the two and what’s really behind the data. I believe even if Google doesn’t disclose the information, the quantitive data and results speak for themselves for the discerning eyes.
November 5th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Another eye-popping piece of great research guys. I’ll be taking those site out of my keyword ranking mind map. Great to see that ezines is strong. I’ve had very good performance from those guys. Happy Holidays.
November 5th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Interesting but very depressing for me personally!
I was plodding along nicely with a blogspot blog, but as “nothing much was happening” I consulted “Experts” and was told how I should be using WordPress hosted on my own site, not leaving myself to the mercy of blogspot. Well it all made sense to a “newbie” so I embarked on what was a HUGE learning curve of WP for me and did as I was advised.
Results: Huge amount of extra work (and learned a lot) but no increase in sales, and when I look at my traffic stats the ancient blogspot site still seems to be doing better (to my still unexpert eyes).
It’s not all doom and gloom because the blogspot site is still there, redirecting people to the WP one, so I guess I’d better start tinkering with that one!
However, I can confirm everything you’ve said about Ezine articles. Delighted with the longevity of the traffic. I’m still getting visits from articles I did over 4 years ago. WOW!
November 5th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Daniel…I don’t believe Alexa has a thing to do with our analysis. We know for certain .. that in the past, Google has “manually” tweaked its algorithms to give more or less weight to certain Web 2.0 platforms in the past.
This has nothing to do with the traffic they receive…which is all Alexa looks at.
In addition, I’m also not making any statements about backlinks here. I believe, as you do, that backlinks from any of these sites are just fine.
We were discussing getting the actual “page” from that platform into the serps…not backlinking from it.
Just wanted to clarify that.
thanks for posting
November 5th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
“was plodding along nicely with a blogspot blog, but as “nothing much was happening” I consulted “Experts” and was told how I should be using WordPress hosted on my own site, not leaving myself to the mercy of blogspot.”
I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that advice!
If a site becomes a “money site”…I’d rather have total control of it!
November 5th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I have been wondering about this topic. Every time I launch a new site I would always write the Ezine article and create at least a Squidoo lens and Hub page. Like others here that posted, I would have some pretty high and quick rankings with all of them; however, the Ezine article is the only one of the three with any staying power.
I can’t thank you guys enough for all of the great information you share with us!!
November 5th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
I find it hard to believe your claims.
Ever hear of Howie Schawrtz? Maybe you missed how he and his Apprentices have dominated google’s SERP’s with squidoo in seasonal niches like Valentines, Mothers Day, and Halloween.
Maybe Squidoo is losing some of its power compared to a year ago, but does your “study” take into account historical trending patterns as well?
Every Web2.0 property will wax and wane, it’s just the nature of the beast.
Best,
J
November 5th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
So Tim, Do I create a separate blog (different persona) for each website I’m promoting (Like I would do on Ezine articles) or just do posts about different sites in different niches from a single blog? I think I know the answer but I’d like to hear it from you (the horse’s mouth so to speak) if that’s ok! Lol.
November 5th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Very interesting post.
I am still newbie in this field but I am not such in the real world.
One thing you should consider is never putting all eggs in one basket
and as not being the internet a static field, I don’t see why to investigate so deep. Web 2.0 will exist forever, maybe changing popularity of sites but it is human nature to belong to groups.
Anyway, thanks for sharing
J
November 5th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
For the last year, I have wondered about this!! Obviously ezine articles is #1, and traffic from your articles is almost automatic, but as part of your linking/traffic strategy, do not limit yourself to it. There are dozens of other article directories out there that ARE worth the extra time… The exposure is GREAT!
November 5th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Thanks for the research. This was helpful in deciding which direction to go next. It also validates what I have been doing. Good Thing!
The blogspot stat surprised me. I will be looking closer at that.
Sheila
November 5th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Steve,
You guys are always on top of cutting edge Internet marketing strategies and this info comes at a good time as I am building out content to move my blog and main URL site to Google page #1.
Like commenter above I have always used EzineArticles and results are always consistently good ….and your numbers show why.
I have used blogspot as part of blog farm strategy but never looked at that as the most powerful in ranking.
After Squidoo has tightened down significantly on what kind of lens you can set up I am not sad to see them be ranked less effective.
Surprised at YouTube being lower because it seems I was always getting good rankings for keywords…but now that I think about it…maybe not as good as before.
Big G is always keeping it interesting…look forward to another quality
product from you guys….as always!
Greg Taylor Internet MLM Mentor
November 5th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Nice info. Thanks for sharing!
I too think it’s always changing. I used to rank Hubpages the easiest of the lot, and now I seemingly can’t no more… And only a few of the ones ranked are still where they were before, even with new backlinks.
I’m curious about blogpspot cause I could NEVER rank one - and as they are owned by Google, I expected easier times. So I’ll check your theory!
As for EZA, sure it’s nice to have them rank, and they do send traffic, but there are so many leeks… EZA is like a glorified adsense platform. So I wonder how great it really is. Probably half the traffic there that would have clicked on the link in other platforms click on the ads instead, but, as you point out, they do rank.
November 5th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Sorry if my post seems somewhat elementary, but as a newbie, it would be helpful if someone could clarify this:
Does the information presented herein suggest that I should be learning how to put up blogs on blogspot.com instead of Wordpress.com?
I am only about half-way through the video training and, don’t really have a solid grasp yet of even using Wordpress and have yet to attempt my first site.
I’m not sure what the practical differences are between the two, but since I have an effective “zero” knowledge-base on the topic, I would assume it would be best for me to learn the more beneficial platform from the outset.
That being said and to clarify my somewhat hazy understanding: before I attempt to actually “get a working knowledge” of Wordpress (by starting to build Wordpress sites), should I instead head over to blogspot.com and begin my “journey” on that platform?
And if so, will you (the Commission Blueprint team) be recording and posting a video in the training area covering the how-to’s of blogspot?
Thanks
November 5th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
This is excellent information that puts in concrete terms what I have been experiencing. I think it is important for the sake of volume and diversity of trafic sources, to NOT eliminate the lesser performing platforms. Instead I would interpret the results in a way that would be useful in prioretizing my promotion schedule. Keep up the great work.
November 5th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
With a few new sites going live this is excellent information to use to make a plan of action. Thanks again guys for sharing such excellent information!
November 5th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Hi Steve,
This is very interesting. I had been doing a web 2.0 backlink strategy I learned from Jason Katzenback. My structure is blogger->squidoo->hubpage->money site. I write a post in a blogger blog and take the RSS feed url and insert it in a Squidoo lens’ RSS feed module, then I take the Squidoo lens RSS feed url and insert it in the RSS feed module in hubpage hub. The links from the articles point to different articles I have live on the web. I do article interlinking and link as randomly as possible (learned from StomperNet) while avoiding reciprocal linking.
With your recent findings maybe I should switch Hubpage and Blogger within my structure!
Thanks for sharing information.
Regards,
Jon
November 5th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Hi,
Just a few quick questions. Is it a right and wrong way to market using these various platforms, because if so, was that a factor considered when attempting to gather this data. For, the various internet marketers or blog readers I think results is great data and when including data. You get in to the science of internet marketing. Science opens the door for psychology. It then opens the door for the many ways to market using these platforms and if your using the type of software the gives the same impression that its a visitor. You have to considered that all content is not created equal.
November 5th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Very interesting indeed. Squidoo and Hubpages have always been part of my strategy, but I think I will focus more on EzineArticles for sure…
November 5th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
jhenry…kinda hard to argue with facts, Mate…
it is what it is.
It doesn’t take into account historical data…because…well, who the heck cares? If you’re trying to rank right now …why do you care what worked last year?
Obviously the study..and I won’t put quotes around it…doesn’t say that Squidoo lenses don’t rank..they do…and I think they were #2, but Blogspot blogs were 3x more likely to show up in the top 10 for 60,000 keywords…
You are completely correct that even this will change and web 2.0 platforms come and go…BUT…what’s important…if you’re trying to make money now…is what’s going on right at this moment.
November 5th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
I would also like to know what to do here !!!, So can somebody advise please !! as Al G. Says:below on the
November 5th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Sorry if my post seems somewhat elementary, but as a newbie, it would be helpful if someone could clarify this:
Does the information presented herein suggest that I should be learning how to put up blogs on blogspot.com instead of Wordpress.com?
I am only about half-way through the video training and, don’t really have a solid grasp yet of even using Wordpress and have yet to attempt my first site.
I’m not sure what the practical differences are between the two, but since I have an effective “zero” knowledge-base on the topic, I would assume it would be best for me to learn the more beneficial platform from the outset.
That being said and to clarify my somewhat hazy understanding: before I attempt to actually “get a working knowledge” of Wordpress (by starting to build Wordpress sites), should I instead head over to blogspot.com and begin my “journey” on that platform?
And if so, will you (the Commission Blueprint team) be recording and posting a video in the training area covering the how-to’s of blogspot?
November 5th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Stephen
If you want to rank the actual blog you’re creating..then yes, I’d recommend Blogspot over anything else…right now…including wordpress.com
Really, as far as how to’s go, Blogspot has their own training resources which would be as good or better than what we could put together…I recommend that.
November 5th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Good read. A lot of useful info. Thanks
November 5th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
As usual Steve & Tim are way ahead in their reseach work than any other marketer. The best part is that they do not exaggerate or hype anything like most of the gurus, at the same time share their results with whole community.
Around 2.5 months back they share a very similar research results about importance of backlinks in getting organic search rankings. At that time also they discussed all the points to be considered while promoting website for organic search.
This time their research is far better than any guru’s hyped couple of hundred dollar product.
Keep it up guys. Thats why all of us respect your knowldge.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
It makes me wonder if Ezinearticles has a relationship with Google. There is only one time in recent memory where they were Google slapped. As a result Ezinearticles got a lot tougher on links found within the body of the articles submitted for publishing, which ended up pretty much allowing the author’s resource box to be the only place you could post links.
Steve I’d be curious how the other two big Article Directories, Goarticles and Article Dashboard registers with Google. Any thoughts?
November 5th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Bend…we didn’t capture those stats…I’ll see what I can find out, but I highly doubt we’ll see them compete at all.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
That was a good read, I do not agree with you on wordpress though, I find the fads come and go and my wordpress blog always comes back up on top of the pile…. 65,000 competing pages. For 3 main keywords.
And Static Sites are far from dead!
Been on the latest web 2.0 is always a good bet! I look forward to your next post.
Thanks Sean.
November 5th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Thanks Sean…and don’t misunderstand…I’m not suggesting that you should use a web 2.0 property instead of a “static” site or a wordpress blog that you’re hosting…in fact, the data says the opposite
93% of the time…there were NO web 2.0 properties in the top 10.
I’m just saying if you ARE going to use one to rank…use Blogspot..and ezine…
November 5th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Wow - I was really surprised to learn that blogspot did better than wordpress blogs - that just seemed crazy but thanks to your research - i will start focusing my efforts in different arenas than I had originally planned.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
I do not believe your stats say what you say that do.
“For a keyword that has a web 2.0 platform in the top 10 organic results, it’s almost 3x more likely to be blogspot.com than anything else!”
While this may be true on the face of it, the implication that a single page has a 3 times greater chance of ranking in the top 10 if it is blogspot is not correct.
For this to be true, the population of total pages for marketing keywords for all 2.0 platforms would have to be equal size. I doubt anyone has that data, even google.
So, if “make money online” has 1MM pages in blogspot and only 333k in hubpages, then it makes sense blogspot would show up 3x times more often. But it is not correct to infer from the data that blogspot has 3x the chance to rank because of the ranking algorithm. There just may be 3x the number of a certain species of fish(blogspot pages) when you put your line in the water.
Since no one has the data in aggregate, one can’t say. A better test would have been to create equal number of pages on each platform to seen how they rank.
November 5th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Interesting data, but I wonder how long this will last until good old Google decides to change things up again. It would make sense that Blogspot should be able to rank sites high since Google owns them. I think that in the past Blogspot was always looked upon as the newbie site for getting started online because of the ease of use. Sounds like it’s time to build some Blogspot blogs…
Andy
November 5th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Michael…I’m only saying…that IF there’s a web 2.0 platform in the top 10..it’s 3x more likely to be a blogspot blog than the others…
simple as that.
93% of the kw’s didn’t have a web 2.0 platform in the top 10 (other than ezine..then it’s 85%)…so…I’m not saying anything about whether web 2.0 platforms rank easier than other pages…
At least not yet I’m not!
November 5th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Steve,
Fair enough if that was clear in your mind, but as pointed out in several responses here, people are inferring that they should be building blogspot pages. From the data you have presented so far, that may or may not be a correct assumption.
If you have further data to support one 2.0 property over another, I look forward to seeing it. Thanks for the research.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I think the data shows…that, in general…web 2.0 platforms don’t ranks as well as “regular” sites…
BUT…what we need to do is really get stats for the different levels of competing pages.
My theory is that we’ll see that <100k competing pages has a lot more penetration by web 2.0 platforms…or something like that.
Then we can make a better recommendation about WHEN to use these things.
The data is still useful now…as plenty of folks (particularly beginners who don’t want to learn HTML) use these platforms to try to build “money” pages.
We’ll see…as we dig deeper into analysis
November 5th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I use EZA since I got started online, and it pays. That’s why they are a little bit hard on affiliates now. Articlebase.com is another good one.
Franck Silvestre
November 5th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Your article came at a good time for me as I’m just starting a new project and was about ready to do a Squidoo Lens! I was hesitating because I haven’t seen any of my Squidoo Lenses ranking on Google and I didn’t know why. Even in my Rank Track analyses in Market Samurai, Squidoo and Hubpages are way down the list.
For my main theme keyword, I usually do my main blog in Wordpress.org; an ezine article; a scribd article; a Squidoo lens; a hubpage (I don’t like hubpages); a wordpress.com blog; a blogspot blog; and a weebly.blog. On the first page of Google, I find the first three venues in positions 1, 2, and 3 for my main theme keyword (202,000 pages), but the blogspot blog doesn’t show up until page 3. I never see any of the other four ranked.
Anyway, it’s time to rethink what I do as far as Squidoo and HubPages are concerned! Thank you for your report. I look forward to learning more from you.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Great and useful post - I had noticed some Blogspots ranking in my niches and coldnt think why.
Also, great to see Steve so active - must not sleep
All the best…Sam
November 5th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
That’s what I was getting at when I mentioned total population of pages. I meant competing pages. One has to know that to have meaningful data.
What may be going on is that instead of google emphasizing one type of platform, they may be penalizing one type instead. Lately people trying to game the engines are less likely to use static sites so they are seen as “purer” in google’s eyes. Just a thought.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Bend - I updated the post for goarticles and articledashboard
November 5th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Geoff Shaw the Australian blogger has made millions by using bloggerspot, indeed he has a membership site called bumblogging which is dedicated entirely to blogspot blogs for IM and affiliate marketing.
The value of blogspot is that you do not have to waist hoodles of time messing with plugins and themes and widgets.Wasting time and being perfect will not make you money. We are told that Google loves this and that, it is surprising that no one thought that Google also loves itself, which the stats now prove. Thanks for the stats, very very interesting!
November 5th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Hi, this post is what I am looking for about web 2.0 and how to get a quality back link…luckily I didn’t delete my email. I did agree about blogspot, which I am using it but not that seriously. I haven’t try Ezine article, but I will submit some articles very soon.
Thanks for the post
November 5th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
I have a theory about the importance of Ezine and would be curious about other people’s thoughts:
Maybe Ezine articles rank well BECAUSE people are constantly saying.. “Ezine ranks well..”. What I mean by this, is that people, upon hearing that Ezine is the most important article directory then go and post their best articles on Ezine (and submit spun, lower quality articles to other directories.) They then also spend a lot of effort building backlinks to their Ezine articles, and doing everything they can to improve the page views. Their article then proceeds to rank well and thus the theory that Ezine is the best is ‘proved’.
As ‘everyone’ has the same belief about Ezine, ‘everyone’ focuses on their Ezine articles, and it becomes a self perpetuating system. Ezine articles rank well, so people focus on their Ezine articles and try and boost them, and this effort on their Ezine articles makes them do well in the SERPs.
Perhaps if people put a similar amount of effort into a Buzzle article, or GoArticles they would rank just as well as an Ezine article? Maybe Ezine is only dominating amongst the article directories because people are spending a lot of effort building up their Ezines articles at the expense of their other contributions.
Thoughts?
November 5th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Found this really useful. Atleast I know now where to focus my time and energies.
Thanks Tim
November 5th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
David, you are on the right track. First one must know how many competing pages each platform has published, then you must know the quantity and quality of the backlinks each platform generally has.
It’s a good bet that html site owners are more sophisticated in knowledge and tactics than blogspot users, so there backlinking would be of different quality.
Without knowing these things, you can’t draw meaningful conclusions.
November 5th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Building website Quality is one of the most important factors in Search Engine Optimization,why ezine always priority all article,btw…thanks for sharing
November 6th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Wow! I guess I’ll stop feeling guilty about not making as many Squidoo lenses as my “to do list” calls for. I’ll start concentrating on more Ezine articles instead. Really great advice. Thanks for sharing.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Squidoo and Hubpages do serve a very good purpose if you have a new site and want Google to index your site fast. I have had very good results with EzineArticles except for a few occasions when I was submitting my article url to directiories and they would not except it because it was considered a spam site.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:03 am
T&S
fact’s are fact’s, but I have to say that this post CAN be a little misleading for some people.
One of above answers tells that she is sorry to run a WP blog at her own domain thinking that blogspot would be the better way.
Rule is - nothing beats your own domain, and a WP Blog for SEO reasons. This is YOUR property where you decide what kind a music plays.
On Web2.0 properties you are never on a save side and the rules can change from one day to another where your business is gone if you build it on Squidoo, Hub’s, Blooger or other stuff.
We have seen changes a few weeks ago at EA and Squidoo and I can’t help myself but feel it in my bladder that Blogspot is just a tip away to face some adjustments as too many spammers use it against what Google loves to see.
So it’s not My domain OR Web2.0, it’s My domain AND Web2.0 - just to make that clear.
Personally, I had way more difficulties to rank a Blogger blog then a Squidoo Lens, but that’s maybe only me.
G.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:25 am
Great post, Steve.
No wonder EZA ranks better than Squidoo or Hubpages. They have human moderators (strict ones) and Google knows that. As far as other article directories (that also have human moderators), they have less authority (combination of indexed pages, backlinks and PR).
Guy
November 6th, 2009 at 2:22 am
Great article. I can’t wait to hear more about your research tool. If it is as good as your other products, then you will have another winner. Your article pretty much summed up what I have been seeing too. Great to see some hard data.
November 6th, 2009 at 5:36 am
Thanks for the blog post. You guys are always provide information that it makes it impossible not to want to buy your next product ;p
I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with based on all your research and data that you gather.
November 6th, 2009 at 6:08 am
Indeed this article is an eye opener.. I’ve had a couple of hubpages ranking well in Google but didn’t last that long. And same thing with Squidoo and Ezine article. I think it all just comes down to how and why they rank, by building backlinks to these properties.. But ofcourse Ezine has more power I believe and will easily rank if you build backlinks to it depending on keywords you’re trying to rank..
DanNy
November 6th, 2009 at 6:32 am
I have already came to similar conclusion. I still use HubPages and Squidoo but Ezine and blogspot rank better.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:05 am
I gotta say when I read your blog post and your somewhat off conclusions, its information like this that really gets under my skin.
So your gearing up the market to think wrong as your getting ready to launch a product that will be the end all to be all (isn’t that a conincidence)
Here’s a fact, hubpages are getting ranking extremely highly in google when you know how to leverage the hub, with unique content, interaction with the hub community, contributing to top hubs and using lazer focus tags.
Which 95% of the people who use hub pages don’t do. They toss up garbage, drop affiliate links all over the place, and that’s why their hubpages get slapped.
I have a portfolio of hubpages that are still ranked 2 years later on the first page of google and still receiving more than an average of 205 unique visitors a day across the board from external traffic and making sales.
It does matter what niche your in when it comes to hubpages and creating them as not all niches are buyer traffic driven.
As far as wordpress.com is concerned I have multiple blogs leveraging the wordpress platform that are on the first page and second page of google as well and in some competitive niches that are still bringing in leads and generating sales.
To say wordpress is not a heavyweight or gets indexed far less is an understatement.
When someone doesn’t understand how to work with web 2.0 properties then yes, the results are going to be dismal. But when you understand what the search engines like, and you give it to them, any web 2.0 property can be used to get on the first page of google, but more importantly than that, get on the first page where there is buying intent.
The fact that google owns blogspot isn’t a sign to go and use it as black hat marketers have been abusing that platform way before google acquired it and still to this day many black hat and aggressive marketers continue to abuse it for product launches and quick hit affiliate commissions.
Some do it right, most do not.
There are web 2.0 properties born everyday that the search engines are loving and starting to give weight to and the reason being is the user generated content, the buzz, and all the other ingredients that go into whether or not search engines will pay attention to a web 2.0 property.
Heck you can get a PDF ranked on the first page of google by wrapping RSS feeds around it for link juice and you don’t even need to use a web 2.0 property. Point a couple of press releases at the pdf and “BAM” even more link juice to get it pushed up in the SERPS.
Everything boils down to how you leverage the web 2.0 property, Squidoo takes a bad rap, but there are marketers out there quietly making $200+ a day from their lens.
There are people out there with no internet marketing experience that are in buying niches and getting their content ranked on the first page of google for very good buying keywords and if they figured out how to actually monetize their content and web 2.0 they would be deadly.
Your data is a bit skewed and flawed, sometimes you actually have to go into google manually and start typing around and you’d be surprised as to how keywords get ranked.
example, you ever go into a forum and really watch what a market is saying and use their keywords? you’d be a bit shocked as to how the search engines view them, or not just a forum, try a blog, yahoo answers, etc.
I’m going to assume that your probably going to delete this post but that’s cool, but the difference is on my network of blogs if its not a hateful post, its game on for all to read.
After all isn’t that one of the indicators that the search engines love.
Bottom line, you don’t know what you don’t know
Sorry for the spelling mistakes, just wanted to get this out there, you can edit the post as you see fit.
Yours in success,
X.
P.S. I actually like your stuff but when I read blog post like this (and I read a lot of them) sometimes you just kinda have to stand up and say… “wait a second, that’s not right”
November 6th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Interesting results Steve and Tim
Thanks for sharing the initial results of your analysis. For me,this clearly is a heads up on which methods to focus on to maximise my online success. Looking forward to the next chapter!
November 6th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Thank you for providing us with such information. That is crazy that blogsport.com ranks better than wordpress. I would have thought that wordpress ranked better. I think I’m going to switch my blog over to blogspot haha … nosa! But anyway, this is terrific information to know. I need to pump out more articles as I’ve been slacking over the past couple months. Good job on your research too!
Judah Swagerty
Internet marketing / Entrepreneur Success & Life Strategies Coach
November 6th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the info. I was never a big fan of squidoo & hupages myself but for backlinking. I just hate writing articles so I have started to outsouce it now. Are you suggesting we should be using bogspot now for our backlinking juice.
Jimmy, I read your post & some good info there thanks
Regards,
locky
November 6th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Hey,
I had to just find out for myself. I typed a long tailed key word phrase into google “how to make a better cake for my wife” and you are right!
a blogspot blog ranked #3 and ehow.com came in at the #4 spot. No wordpress blogs on the first page. That’s crazy!
Judah Swagerty
Internet marketing / Entrepreneur Success & Life Strategies Coach
http://www.eBizSuccessUniversity.com
November 6th, 2009 at 10:44 am
“So your gearing up the market to think wrong as your getting ready to launch a product that will be the end all to be all (isn’t that a conincidence)”
Geeze Jimmy…I swear this is the only market where you can get criticized for giving away free information…man..we spent a lot of money to do this research.
We’re not coming out with any product at all that would have anything to do with the conclusions of this research…NONE…the only product that benefits is blogspot.com and that ones taken.
As for the research that I said people could get their hands on…that will be free…it’s something we’re doing for the community. So..you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about when you make these accusations.
“Your data is a bit skewed and flawed, sometimes you actually have to go into google manually and start typing around and you’d be surprised as to how keywords get ranked.”
Honestly I think this says it all Mate…this is exactly the WRONG way to do research…completely..
You need to deal in facts and a population sample that’s large enough to take into account “flukes” and skewed data.
We looked at 60,000 keywords (marketing keywords) and the top 10 results for them…and the data is what it is…
We absolutely know for certain that google has manipulated the weighting of web 2.0 platforms…so it stands to reason that they still are…and when a platform is 3x more likely to show up after looking at 60,000 keywords…I think the conclusion is clear.
It’s a lot more accurate and compelling than simply typing my own keywords into google and seeing what comes out…
However…to each his own…we thought this data was VERY interesting. If you don’t … no worries.
And .. as I stated…there is no new product we’re trying to push here…just as there wasn’t when we did our page rank study etc.
Maybe give us the benefit of the doubt !
November 6th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Hi Steve, Thanks for disclosing this research to us, I was using Squidoo & Hubs , as I was advised by a super Guru. I will give your methods a good try to see if they differ. Here’s Hoping.
November 6th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Really interesting stuff guys. With IM being a world of ’shifting sands’ its great to appreciate which tools are working, especially in my business.
I have returned to EZA after some flirtations with other publishing sites and agree that, of the free publishing sites, it is a standout. I have found that eHow works a treat as well.
Never happy to have all of my cyber eggs in one electronic basket though, I split my articles between EZA and another distribution service (not a free-publishing site - different style of articles), and together they (at the moment at least) are working well for both me and my clients.
Thanks so much for the stats.
Kerry
November 6th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Great post Steve. Probably saved thousands of hours between everybody here.
Does anybody know about a good tool like Wordpress Direct for Blogspot. I’m so new I haven’t even used Wordpress Direct yet, but was look forward to it.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
hey steve
thank you
i one of your customer (nichebp sembp)
i want to know if this is different with Hispanic market
which mean instead to go blogspot.com go to blogspot.es
so my blog can rank
did you thing work best
to work a link ect
i hope steve hear from you
November 7th, 2009 at 12:20 am
make two blogs exactly the same. one on blogspot on on word press. load the content at the same time. (alternate who you post to 1st) EVERY time the WP blog is 3-4 pages ahead of the BS one. Over & over. Something is flawed, must be my testing?
November 8th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Found this really useful. Atleast I know now where to focus my time and energies.
great article tim
November 9th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Thanks for the information.
I had been puzzled by the way Page Rank works as even though I updated several of my sites regularly, the ranking did not go up.
Now, thanks to your research, I know to focus on getting back-links to make my Page Rank go up.
Appreciate all your hard work and sharing with us your findings. Great work!!
November 9th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Great Info! I honestly havent put enough of an effort into Ezine articles either. For climbing Google I have focused on a lot of backpage.com postings. my backpage posting climbed to #1 on Google for my local biz within 2 days. Its all about using your keywords in the headline!
November 10th, 2009 at 2:57 am
Thanks, Mark. Couple of days late responding, but thanks - good stuff!
November 11th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Awesome info. I just made like 3 blogspots to help out my other pages. Hopefully we see some results.
November 11th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
“We are quietly building a massive research tool that will allow us to do Internet marketing research like no one has ever done before.
It will literally be game changing..and you’ll hear about it sometime after the Holidays. You’ll also be able to get access to the data yourself…to do your own research…but…more about that later”
—–Not for not, I’m assuming that research tool that your talking about releasing after the holidays is going to be free because you love the market so much, and your not going to bundle the tool up with some other product that has to be purchased to be able to access it
Still love you guys, in the next little bit I’ll go after a keyword phrase that has buying intent and get it ranked on the first page. I’ll send you the page privately so you can view it and see how its structured.
I’d let everyone view it, but we all know someone would complain and it would get “whacked”, so lets just call it an exercise if I’ve got about 40 mins I’ll get on it for you.
Looking forward to your upcoming info
X.
November 16th, 2009 at 7:27 am
I like this post, thanks for sharing
November 16th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I’ve always had this theory about ezinearticles and I appreciate you taking the time to share this data. One very powerful technique is to put your article on ezinearticles, and throw as many links as it that you can including blogroll links, sitewide footer links etc. Relevancy may not matter as much. Works for me.
November 17th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Thanks for the info I will definitely take care of that.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Been using all the above for 2 years now and can’t fault ezinearticles, blogspot.com or Google for marketing my articles and e-books
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:27 am
Thank you guys for this report! but if I will build some backlinks to the squidoo or hubpages,I think that I will outrank those with blogspot and with 0 backlinks.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:19 pm
SEO is a new marketing strategy which has been successful in all fields. Now a days many peoples are outsourcing the work off shore and the reason for that is low prices, and the quality of work is also good when compared to the local companies.
December 5th, 2009 at 12:58 am
Take a look to my site there are some new tools for affiliate marketing
December 5th, 2009 at 5:02 am
You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.
December 5th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Great content
December 14th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Interesting post. I think HubPages and Squidoo remain valuable as a source of backlinks, and they do seem to more quickly rank for terms in my experience vs. blogger. That said, Ezinearticles definitely can rank higher more quickly than anything else, and a few links to those are gold. I think for the long term using blogger is great, but short term I can definitely see why people could still use HubPages and Squidoo as part of an online marketing strategy.
December 27th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Eversince squidoo blocked my lens. I restarted twice. I made some money when I used my way to backlink and put more module in my lens. Now they don’t allow me to do any more link otherwise, my lens will got blocked again. I have less and less people click my lens.
December 27th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Well that is a very useful article. Great sharing.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I’ve been concentrating on Hub pages and Squidoo Lenses … wish I’d seen this sooner!
RSS’ing the blog today to prevent that from happening again.
Thanks for the info guys!
January 6th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
I would first off like to thank you for this post as it will definately change my current IM method a bit. I would also like to say that I have been using a lot of the web2.0 properties and based upon my experience I agree that blogspot is #1. In my experience EZA is a very close #2 and then there seems to be a bit of distance to the #3 which for me has been squidoo. Hubpages has really been a bust the last few months in my experience.
January 10th, 2010 at 12:07 am
Interesting post and view, hope to hear more what the future holds THANKS
January 10th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Great post Steve. Probably saved thousands of hours between everybody here. For me,this clearly is a heads up on which methods to focus on to maximise my online success
I’ll start concentrating on more Ezine articles instead. Really great advice. Thanks for sharing.
January 19th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
theres so much hype and useless commentary about SEO on the net that its refreshing to see a post with some actualy statistics behind it, thanks for the taking the time to post this