Experiment Update: nworbxela

We are now on day 38 of our search engine experiment. No new posts that included the keyword we posted since day 19, our last report.

There are 125 results in google for nworbxela This blog remains number one on the list of results. Number two seems related to the class wiki (which does not include the keyword), and number three remains Bath Rugby Fans Abroad. Hurricane Katrina is now number 4. Laguna Beach is number 5, and America the Next Rome remains 6. Luxury Automobiles has slipped from 2 out of the top 10.

While my last analysis of the results suggested the keyword in the title and URL was critical, these results only support that for the first result listed. The remainder are listed for other reasons (keyword spam, some version of google bombing etc.) There is no doubt the following effect results in google, but I am not sure what is critical: number of times the keyword appears in the body text; appearance in the title; appearance in the URL; number of links to the site with the keyword in the anchor text; number of links to the site with the keyword included somewhere in the site that links to the site (wiki is an example of this); overall number of links to the site.

There are now 65 results in Yahoo, the one-two-three being This class, Laguna Beach, and Chewy's Movie. The most recent results had this site third, Laguna Beach second and America The Next Rome first, which is now fourth.

Yahoo seems to reward the spamming approach, although the class site, ranked 1 includes the keyword in the URL and title. Yahoo was much slower than google to pick up the keyword and still only has half as many entries listed.


There are now 65 results in MSN. The one-two-three being this class site (number 1 last time), Bath Rugby Fans Abroad (from number 3) and ultimate fighting.

It makes sense this class is number 1 (for the same reasons it is number 1 in the above cases). Number 2 also makes sense, it is a combination of keyword spamming and including the keyword in the URL and title. Number 3 also includes the keyword in the URL and title.

Looking at the 'time-based' blog search engines there are 20 results in technorati, 54 results in google's blog search and 52 results in feedster.