It Seems To Me

Thoughts and Rants on Technology, Business and Politics

Yahoo! is now reporting my sites as the first three entries that it returns when searching for Heather Hollick. I have to assume that Yahoo! is giving priority to the keywords embedded in the web page and is correctly listing these pages high in the search results.

Unfortunately, my results in Google are still dominated by sites where my name occurs but have a higher number of links pointing to the site.

It looks like Microsoft Search returns results somewhere in the middle. My CV site, along with this blog are returned on the first page. Unfortunately, Living in London does not appear in the first few pages of their search.

Until I discovered this anomaly in Google, I used it exclusively as my search engine. Now I realize the effect of their bias: they will return the most popular sites — not necessarily the most relevant. I think I will be using Yahoo! search much more often.

I currently maintain three web sites that define my primary web presence: this site; hhollick.com, where I present my CV in full detail; and Living in London, where my partner and I chronicle our adventures as expats on assignment in the UK.

You would think that if someone were looking for Heather Hollick on the Internet, that these three sites should be at the top of the search results. Yet, much to my dismay, I cannot get the two blog sites to appear in either Google or Yahoo! searches. There are plenty of instances of my name appearing in obscure comments on other people's blogs, but my blogs are not returned. Go figure!

I am grateful that my CV site is at the top of the results for both search engines but what do I have to do to get the blog sites to appear there as well? I have tried adding my name as part of the HTML meta tag for keywords but to no avail.

I have been told that I can go out to a bunch of other blogs and post comments, linking back to my own blogs as a reference in the comment. Right! I do my share of commenting when I have something to say but I don't want to get caught up in the senseless circle of linking to other people just so they will link back to me.

I don't care if my sites are popular. I am not trying to break into the A-List, or even the B-list of blogging. But when someone is looking for me on the internet, and searches using my name, it seems to me that the search results should return the three sites that define my primary presence on the web.

I guess I will have to try plastering my name all over the blog posts. So, from London, this is Heather Hollick signing off.

Be careful out there.