Google Views ActiveRain as Even More Valuable Now - My SEO Perspective

I don't want to make this post overly rudimentary, but I would like to start out (for those of you who are complete newbies) by stating that "SEO" means "search engine optimization".  Each time I have written a post with SEO in the title, someone inevitably asks.


Now that we have that out of the way, I wanted to provide some anecdotal evidence for you that Google is indexing ActiveRain more frequently. 


First, I need to explain that I have Google Alerts set up for a number of keywords and phrases that I am interested in, such as "austin texas homes" (which is also the name of my company), "pflugerville" (my hometown), and "jasoncrouch" (my profile name in most places I care about). 


I also have the Alerts set up to inform me EVERY time my full name is indexed, as it happens.  Over the past couple of days, I have received emails via Google Alerts for "Jason Crouch" for COMMENTS that I left on Public posts here on AR.


In order to best understand the significance of this, please understand that I have been here actively blogging and commenting for 16 months now, and I've had Google Alerts set up pretty much the entire time, but this is the FIRST TIME that this has happened to me. 


It actually occurred twice tonight, an hour or two after my comments were posted.  Here's one example:



I am used to looking at these alerts and seeing my own posts, or posts that happen to contain my name in the title or body, but this is definitely a "first".


WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?


One almost certain fact is that Google is re-indexing pages once comments have been added, and probably repeatedly, although the latter part remains to be tested.  Clearly, the content of your actual signature line is even more important now, as is the text of the comment itself.  DO NOT take this as a license to stuff unnecessary keywords into your comments.  Instead, just be happy that ActiveRain has enough value to Google that it provide another method for you to be found.


I wrote a post about the link value of our automatically-generated comment signatures about ten months ago:


How to generate and track backlinks for your Active Rain profile - A few basic SEO tips


Now, commenting on other member's blogs has become twice as important! 


If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask via email or in the comments below. 


Thanks for reading!


    


My RSS feed is http://activerain.com/jasoncrouch/rss.

OR
Already have Account?