19 replies to this topic

[bwelford]

One of my blog posts that was ranking in the #1 position on Google for a particular keyword has suddenly today been bumped down by an item on Feedraider.com, which featured the full content of the same blog post. This particular website had not been on my radar screen previous to this. I am most surprised that their item can rank higher since I am not sure it would have sufficient inlinks.

Has anyone run into this particular website before? Does anyone have comments on how to outrank their items?

Edited by bwelford, 06 January 2008 - 10:54 PM.

[phaithful]

I haven't heard of FeedRaider myself, and that sucks that they are ranking above you.

My advice would be to comb your logs and look for the same IP address that visits you on a regular interval or run a reverse DNS on the IP addresses that are accessing your feed. Chance are you can locate the bot they are using and block it from grabbing any more of your posts.

[bwelford]

Thanks, phaithful. That sounds like a thing I may need to do if this persists. However I still wonder how it manages to rank so high. This is not a Wikipedia kind of situation. How do they get the inlinks to rank highly?

[DonnaFontenot]

Barry, I'm guessing it's just ranking high for the moment because it's "fresh news" ... ie, the latest blog post about the topic, but as soon as a day or two goes buy, it'll be history.

[bwelford]

Good point, Donna. That thought came to me later: we'll see.

[kulpreet_singh]

I think the freshness is probably the cause as Donna said.

How's Langley treating you Barry?

[bwelford]

Thanks, Kulpreet. Langley is fine and particularly balmy, when I compare with what's happening in Eastern Canada.

[yannis]

Barry I also think that the 'freshness' is the cause. Does the Google snippet show something like ..20 hours ago next to it? I have seen it now in a number of instances and I smell some changes in the algorithm.

Yannis

[bwelford]

I think this is the right answer. Here is a current screen shot of the Google search.



Until 24 hours ago, my blog post was #1 with the Government item that triggered the post at #2. Now the FeedRaider items have come in at #1 and #2 and the Government item has moved ahead of my blog post pushing the blog post to #4. That could be due to some impact of the duplicate content that the FeedRaider item has created, perhaps.

[yannis]

Barry

This morning I did a search on a new domain name I got, where I have posted a couple of posts. (Domain has no backlinks yet, but appears to have been indexed). Google showed next to it a recent post with the note 'posted 23 hours ago'). It has since disappeared and my guess is that Google gives every dog its day of 24 hours fame (biasing a new post for newness). My guess watch the term and Feedraider will disappear by to-morrow or very soon. Actually my guess is that they read the 'feed' but redirected you to the page. Strange stuff!

Yannis

[phaithful]

Barry, this is truly unfortunate, especially if this is just the beginning.

Food for thought: You may want to consider writing a summary / abstract / or do a partial post for future efforts. At least FeedRaider isn't euthanizing your links and essentially you should be getting links from a "trusted source"... granted it probably isn't helping that it's coming from a duplicate content page.

Edited by phaithful, 07 January 2008 - 05:00 PM.

[yannis]

Feedraider is not shown on my computer this morning!


Yannis

[bwelford]

It's still on mine for that particular search.

[AbleReach]

I see feedraider.com at #1 and #2, and www.strategicmarketingmontreal.ca at #7 and #8.

Edited by AbleReach, 08 January 2008 - 06:15 AM.

[eKstreme]

Here in the UK using Google.com: Barry is number 1 and 2, FeedRaider (what an apt name!) is number 3, a UK govt petition website at number 4.

Pierre

[bwelford]

Panic over I guess. My blog post(s) are at #1 and #2 now, Feedraider is at #3 and #4 and the original Government response is at #5. Pretty much what Pierre was seeing. It clearly was a fast display feature of the current Google algorithm. Thanks for all the responses.

What I don't get is why Feedraider exists. It has no ads and no obvious purpose.

Edited by bwelford, 08 January 2008 - 10:38 AM.

[bwelford]

For those who like to watch paint dry, you may be interested to know that now the order is:
my blog post(s) #1 and #2, the government web page #3 and Feedraider #4 and #5.
By Jove, there is a Google.

[Thejspot]

What this post reminded me of is some customers of ours who watch the search engines (hourly in some cases, you would wonder if they had any kind of life) and call me when their position changes.

Yes, it changes... You don't have any permanent position in the search results. And there isn't a list somewhere out there that has you listed in a position for a keyword phrase. The ranking happens everytime someone does a search. And can change based on factors that have nothing to even do with the site. It could be the last three searches someone did in a session and the search engines have decided what you're looking for.

So maybe we should stop equating a position with success? I realise that this wasn't the point of your post, it was a question over why something is ranking above something else. But I think there needs to be a swing toward thinking of success in terms of conversions, traffic etc.

[EGOL]

I think that this might not be a good sign for your future SERPs. Feedraider has some authority to have the ability to throw a brand new post above you. If people start linking to their service in mass then their posts could stick in the position above you in the SERPs. I've seen that with Topix.net and some topic specific news sites in the US.

If they grab your feed from a syndication service there might be little that you can do about it beyond yanking your feed from syndication. If they are grabbing the feed from your domain you might be able to selectively ban them if you can figure out their IP address. Maybe they would be good guys and stop picking up your feed at your request.

For sites that I own or watch, most initially have the ability to get their homepage indexed quickly, then as they grow in strength their posts become indexed almost immediately. Even though you posted first, Feedraider's post page was indexed before yours - at least in this situation. That suggests to me that they might have some authority underway.

This leads to the interesting topic of the "reach" of a domain. Powerful news sithes like CNN or MSN have enormous reach in the news SERPs. The typical US domain can publish a fantastic story about a news topic and these powerhouses can publish a short little blurb - the powerful domains get indexed immediately and also rank higher. They get the early traffic and the huge traffic. Then, if the story if expecially hot, writers at the powerful sites can get inspiration from excellent writing at a weaker site, publish an updated version of their story and collect all of the links on the basis of their higher rankings - they get your story line too!

In some situations the excellent writer can be recruited by the gorilla site or a mutually beneficial syndication can be obtained between the owners of the two domains. The powerful domain publishes the writings of the excellent writer with the branding of the lesser domain. This gives the lesser domain enormous branding compared to what they had before but they gorilla gets most of the traffic (and ad revenue).

An interesting example of this in the food area is the introduction of premium coffee by McDonalds in direct competition with Starbucks. McDonalds might have sought a deal to bring Starbucks coffee into their stores but instead decided to reach for the richer unfranchised market.

Edited by EGOL, 10 January 2008 - 07:15 AM.

[bwelford]

I'm not too worried by this incident, Egol. My post was picked up within an hour and at #1 shortly thereafter. The starting order has now been re-established. Posts from aggregator services such as FeedRaider and Hubdog are now lower in the ranking. It's a short term effect due to the way the Google algorithm is currently working.

The mildly intriguing thing is that the Google BlogSearch shows none of this instant reaction and only this morning has finally shown this blog post as the only entry for this search.