Day 15: Find Thyself

First of all, before we even get started, congrats to everybody who is participating in this challenge! Today marks the halfway point. Some of the challenges have been easy, and others I know have stretched some of you. The second half will be more of the latter than the former. We’ll be building on some of the groundwork we laid in the first half and taking it to the next level. Don’t worry if you have joined recently, or have missed some days. Join in when you can, pass when you can’t, catch up if you want, or just skip over ones that don’t appeal to you. If you take any of these challenges and learn something from it, then I consider it mission accomplished. If you’ve kept up and done every challenge every day (or the next day when I post them late at night!), then my hat is off to you. This stuff ain’t exactly a cakewalk, and I’m thrilled to have so many people along for the journey!

Today’s challenge may seem a little egotistical, but believe me when I say that it’s a worthwhile activity for a blogger to do. You’re going to go on an ‘you’ hunt! Visit some of the different blog search engines, and see who’s linking to you, ensure that you show up in searches, and see which searches you appear in. One reason that we want to take the time to do this is to ensure that our blog is actually being submitted to different search engines every time you update it. Most blog engines will automatically submit your posts to search sites, but ONLY if you have it set to do so. We also want to see whether you actually appear in the searches that you think you do. If you search for you name, do they show up too? And if they don’t, why don’t they? These tasks aren’t hard to do, but they’re often overlooked.

I don’t think you’d find to many people that would disagree that there are two big boys when it comes searching blogs, and those are Technorati and Google Blog Search. Sure there are dozens of others, and some of them like IceRocket have got some great feature sets, but we’re going to focus on the major players.

Let’s start off by finding out who’s linking to you. Some blog engines do a decent job of letting you know whenever someone links to your blog by letting you know that you received a ‘pingback’ or ‘trackback’ on a post you wrote. If someone links to that specific post, it’ll show up listed along with comments. Wordpress and EduBlogs does that automatically. However, even that will miss out on time when someone links directly to your blog in general, but not a specific post. You search for these links by typing your entire URL into the search box. So I would search for http://teach42.com. One thing you do need to be careful of is that you may get different results if you include the ‘www’ than if you exclude it. On both Google and Technorati I got more results by leaving the ‘www’ off. In theory, they should be the same, but reality is that they aren’t.

If you’re a brand new blogger, don’t be discouraged if you don’t have many, or any, links to your blog yet. It takes time and persistence. Regardless, all of these searches have RSS feeds associated with them. I suggest adding both a Google and Technorati search for links to your blog to your aggregator. That way you can keep an eye on any that might otherwise escape your notice.

Next up is to see how easily people are able to find your content. For this, we’ll be doing a variety of searches. Start off broad and do some searches for your name. In this area, I’m lucky. Dembo isn’t all that common a name, so it’s easy to browse through every hit for that word. If you’re last name is Smith or Jones or Nguyen, you may have more trouble and need to zoom in a bit more. Add your first name, and variations of it. For example, I’d search for Steve Dembo, Stephen Dembo, Steve Denbo, and even throw it into quotes, “Steve Dembo”. Without quotes, it’s finding any blog post that has the word Steve and the word Dembo. With quotes, it’ll just find ones that have Steve right in front of the word Dembo. Generally, one or two of those searches will work better than others. This is useful to see who may be mentioning you in a post, but was too lazy to link you up properly!

Besides just other people’s mentions of your blog, you SHOULD find your own blog posts. It may sound silly, but you do want your own blog posts showing up under your name. If somebody sees your name in a comment or social site, you want them to be able to find you in search engines. That’s why I always tag my blog posts with my blog name, my last name, and have included my full name in the actual title for my blog… to ensure that people can find me if they try to look. Just something to think about. We’ll be coming back to tagging later in the month.

The last set of searches that we want to do are for your blog name and keywords. Once again, that’s the benefit of me having a blog name like Teach42. There aren’t too many other Teach42’s on the internet. If your blog has more common words like 21st Century Open Education 2.0, then you’ll be competing in searches with more people. Hopefully, if somebody types in your full blog name, they’ll find your posts.

If you aren’t finding your posts, then poke around in your blogs settings. In Wordpress and EduBlogs, if you go into the Settings->Writing menu, you’ll see at the bottom of the page a box where you can in include what sites to ping when you post something new. While there may be several listed there, make sure Pingomatic’s http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping is there. It’s a general, all purpose pinger that hits most major (and minor) blog search engines. Most blog engines have a similar functionality somewhere in there, so poke around if need be.

Of course, the other half of this challenge is that when you find people who are linking to you, click through those links and see who they are and what they have to say. While you’re not obligated in any way to respond, it’s always a nice and polite thing to do. If nothing else, you just want to be sure that you’re aware of what’s being said about you, who’s connecting to you and ensuring that you’re hard work is circulating in a way that enables it to be found.

What did you find when you searched for yourself? Was it about what you expected? Any surprises? Did the different search engines have pretty similar results? Any search engines that I’m not mentioning that you think are worth sharing? Share your experiences below, and don’t forget to visit the wiki and list yourself there!

18 Comments

Martha Thornburgh
11/15/2008

Still not quite getting the technorati and the pinging. Will continue to explore. I did find a few surprises where I was referenced in a blog and hadn’t known about it. Thought that was pretty cool. When searching for my name, I am always surprized by all the Plurks and Tweets that come up. I always forget about these becoming part of my permanent record.

Martha Thornburgh´s most recent blog post.. Educators to End Hunger and Poverty

Dan Callahan
11/15/2008

One thing I like about Wordpress is how it will do a Google Blog search for you from the dashboard. However, thanks to testing this out, I found it has a little lag time. I found a very nice post that referred to my blog as great! http://onourmindsatscholastic.blogspot.com/2008/11/making-youtube-more-edu-friendly.html

Now that I’ve started blogging somewhat regularly, I’m now on the first page of Google searches for “Dan Callahan,” which is no easy feat! Searching for “geek teacher” shows me pretty easily as well. The former will be handy when I start job hunting in a year and a half or so, I’d think.

Dan Callahan´s most recent blog post.. One way I use Diigo

Dan Callahan
11/15/2008

Just commented on Day 15 of 30D to Being a Better Blogger http://tinyurl.com/5ck8hd

Sue Waters
11/15/2008

Technorati hasn’t been a happy camper lately (for the past several months) and can have attitude updating links to your blog. Here is a post I wrote for The Edublogger about Technorati but what we found during the Comment Challenge was we often had to manually click on ping on our Technorati account to get it to update.

Interestingly enough I’ve been wondering why Google Blog Search isn’t showing links from your blog to my blogs and yet technorati isn’t having a problem. It’s got me? Yours is the only blog that I know of that isn’t displaying the links in my dashboard yet send a pingback my blog.

I always follow pingbacks to the original post and take the time to leave a comment of encouragement (where appropriate). Anything that helps inspire new bloggers is worth it.

I’d also suggest adding a Google Alert as well for your name and your blog site. I do this for my sites and often find posts people have written but haven’t linked to me. Once again its great for building relationships and knowing what people are writing about you.

Sue Waters´s most recent blog post.. Interested In FREE Online PD This Friday?

Day 15: Find thyself | My State of Flux
11/16/2008

[...] for day 15 we are supposed to find ourselves. Steve’s recommendation for this day was to do some [...]

Nancy
11/16/2008

Phew…cleaning up the sidebar, and getting sidetracked in the process, but LOVING every moment of it. Thanks for making the blogsphere a better place!

Nancy´s most recent blog post.. Computers Decrease (My) Productivity

Natalie
11/16/2008

Didn’t find much on my blog in either Google Blog Search or Technorati. Did a search on my name though and found pages from press coverage, voter pamphlets, blog entries and comments, Twitters and half-marathon results (from when I was doing those). Interesting, but in some ways a little creepy. Sends home the message that nothing you say or do online is ever private!

Natalie´s most recent blog post.. Google Rocks…in the Ruins!

Cathy Nelson
11/16/2008

Sorry-nothing new or me today, though it did give me something to forward on to my SCASL 23 Things folks that I am advising. This was a timely post and reminded me of these things I take for granted. Oh and it guess its time to take DOWN my k12 Online logo and 2007 Edublogs Award Nomination form my sidebar too. Thanks for the reminders.

Cathy Nelson´s most recent blog post.. Your Outlet or Mine?

Mike
11/16/2008

Hmmm, in EduBlogs, I don’t see the area on the Settings–>Writing page where you can list sites to ping when you post.

Mike´s most recent blog post.. The Return of Anonymity

Cathy Nelson
11/16/2008

Hey Steve–what do you think about the pingbacks that are obviously Blog Spam and begin like this:

….wrote an interesting post today…here’s an excerpt.

Then it is an absolute copy/paste of your own blog post. Most of the time I spam then delete them. But if I leave them it does make me look ever so popular. I have seen many of these on some bigger and better bloggers out there, but I typically rid my self of them. they make me feel…um…dirty in a way. Like I didnt deserve the ping. Ick.

Cathy Nelson´s most recent blog post.. A Leader in AASL with SCASL Roots

Sean Nash
11/16/2008

I too agree about not finding the place to add Pingomatic within Edublogs/settings/writing.

I have always been puzzled about Technorati. I watch things grow and grow on GA, and yet Technorati seems to not find much. Weird.

Sean Nash´s most recent blog post.. How do you spell constructivism?

Day Fifteen - Thirty Days To A Better Blog « Virtual High School Meanderings
11/17/2008

[...] Day fifteen in the 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger series was yesterday and asked us to look at Day 15: Find Thyself. Essentially, we were asked to search ourselves on Technorati, Google Blog Search, and [...]

Where from incoming links come?
11/17/2008

[...] Day 15: Find Thyself Share and Enjoy: [...]

Baby names search - Search for d
12/26/2008

[...] Day 15: Find Thyself [...]

Harvest Marijuana
1/8/2009

Harvest Marijuana…

I will implement clean energy plans, and reward those who produce and use wind power and solar energy. I will reward those who build crop towers using hydroponics and solar energy to save land space. I will require that all Cattle Farms have small fore…

Mesothelioma Lawyer 4U
5/15/2009

Rhode Island Mesothelioma Attorneys handling Asbestos Claims throughout RI…

Denbo Mesothelioma Law professional and Serious Personal Injury Lawsuits. symptoms, treatment, litigation help for malignant mesothelioma….

Mesothelioma Lawyer 4U
7/16/2009

Lawyer in Nashville offering legal service to those suffering from malignant mesothelioma…

Nashville Mesothelioma Lawyer and Serious Personal Injury Lawsuits. symptoms, treatment, litigation help for malignant mesothelioma….

jenny
9/10/2009

Does having mesothelioma necessarily mean that someone will die from it if not treated? I mean there are some forms of cancer that you can live to be in your 90’s having the cancer for years and years and die of some other natural cause first.

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI

Leave a comment