Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with blog and search

Why can't I hide from Google?

hamster — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:24:03 -0800

Help me hide my blog from the Googlebots. I blogged professionally from 2002-2007, when the project ended. I decided to start a personal Wordpress blog, and linked to the new blog from the old site before it was taken down.

Unfortunately, because of the link to the old site, the personal blog is now the first Google result when you search under my name. The new blog doesn't use my name or identifying details, but the Googlebots must know it's connected to my name anyway.

I'm starting a new job soon and expect that clients will search for me by name, so the old blog has to go. I'd like to continue blogging for the sake of old fans who still read me, but it would need to be "secret" and not associated with my name in any way.

I don't have email addresses for most of my readers, so I'd like to post the new blog on the old site... but will that just lead the bots to the new home? Can I do something like writing out the new site's address in a way that doesn't link and wouldn't search?

Thanks in advance for your help!

How do I change the name and URL of my website without losing visitors and Google search placement?

rintako — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 07:39:15 -0800

How do I change the name and URL of my website without losing visitors and Google search placement? I want to change the name and URL of my website. It currently receives 3000 uniques a day. About 90% of my traffic is from outside sources such as Google, or others that have linked to my content. How do I change the name and URL so that my visitors can continue to come find my site, and so I don't lose my top 1-3 positions on the Google search pages for my terms?

Timely, comprehensive, accurate blog-searching website?

WCityMike — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:21:43 -0800

What's the most comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date blog-searching site? I've looked around and not really been very impressed with what I've found. I would've once upon a time thought Technorati, but now that site seems layered with so much crud that it really doesn't appear useful anymore. They've "lost the mission," so to speak.

Although I've usually been impressed with Google's offerings, Google Blog Search really doesn't seem to be anywhere near as frequently updated as a blog search tool should be.

What site do you use to do a broad sweep through coverage of a topic on the blogosphere?

(Extra karma for a site that has bookmarkable search URLs so that I could construct a Firefox keyword for same.)

How can I quickly identify a lot of company blogs?

kiwitobes — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:41:33 -0800

When I try to search for keywords that I think a company blog might use, the hits tend to be posts that are about the keywords, but are not necessarily corporate in nature. Then I have to slog through tons of false positives to find the occasional useful link. Is there a smarter, faster way to find a bunch of company blogs? From a friend:

I am designing a website for a small company that primarily sells physical stuff, but also has a blog. I can think of a few ways to structure it, but I'd like to see how other companies (large and small) have done it.

However, finding examples of corporate sites that serve multiple purposes, including a blog, has proven surprisingly difficult. When I try to search for keywords that I think a company blog might use, the hits tend to be posts that are about the keywords, but are not necessarily corporate in nature. Then I have to slog through tons of false positives to find the occasional useful link.

Is there a smarter, faster way to find a bunch of company blogs?

Find books in blog?

forallmankind — Mon, 28 May 2007 10:29:16 -0800

Blogging anesthesiologist Joe Stirt has a great site, and I particularly like his book recommendations. I'd like to compile a reasonably comprehensive list of these books, but Joe doesn't use tags, so: what is the best way to go about finding his book recommendations amongst all his other posts?

Google, was verfolgst du mich?

mendel — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:45:52 -0800

My website/blog has all but disappeared from Google. What happened, and what can I do to fix it? For years my personal website (linked in my profile) has been the first hit for "Rich Lafferty", without the quotes, in Google. But suddenly it's not showing up at all. I still have PageRank (5), and it's still in there if I search for the right terms, but it doesn't appear for the obvious search.

There's a whole bunch of things that could be contributing factors: I recently redid the entire site, from a static site to a blog. I started using a sitemap. I was recently linked to by some major blogs. I've been copying my content to my LiveJournal (username "mendel") -- and since I wondered if I was hitting Google's duplicate content trap, I've just today put a robots.txt file on the LiveJournal.

Aside from disappearing from the listings, the other weird things I've noticed are that my main page is no longer cached on Google, and searches for phrases from individual posts of mine turn up multiple duplicate results: my site, my LiveJournal, my Feedburner feed, Technorati, and some of my LiveJournal friends' friend lists.

Am I just in the process of getting re-added after I changed everything around? Did I get burned by the duplicate content trap, which considered my LiveJournal to be the main copy? Are there any other red flags you see?

It's not such a big deal that I'm not #1 anymore, but since I work in high tech I'd like to figure out how to at least show up again.

Google search

tellurian — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:53:46 -0800

How do you know what Googlers were searching for? I often see blogs saying things like 'people searching for ["Malcolm Fraser"+trousers] arrived here'. How do they know that?

How can I force Google Blogsearch to index my archived blog entries?

dmd — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 14:30:57 -0800

I'd like to be able to search my (MovableType) blog via Google Blogsearch, but they only update via RSS. Most of my entries are many years old. I want to be able to search those entries. Is there any way to force Google to pick those up? (Adding a sitemap doesn't seem to have helped.)