Old blogs for new...old blogs for new...

Many bloggers have moved their blogs to new addresses.



Many people have purchased their own blog domain name, rather than have the blog URL contain the blogging host. An example of that action would be removing the .blogspot.com or similar type URL extension.



Some bloggers simply want to escape their blog hosts for any numberof reasons.



The question then arises, as to whether your old blog is now a search engine competitor, for your new blog. That situation has happened to D. Gordon Smith of Venturpreneur. His old Blogspot hosted blog ranks higher, in placement #6 on page one in Google searches for "Gordon Smith" than his new blog, which checks in at #18 on page two.



Let's examine the situation. The new Venturpreneur blog is displaying a Google PageRank 5 (PR5) and a total of 426 PR or higher incoming links. The old Blogspot hosted version of his blog, which also sports a PR5, shows 50 PR4 or higher incoming links.



Note that Google only displays PR4 or higher incoming links, but all links in Google's index are counted toward the PageRank and the placements on the search engine results.



It's clear that the new Venturpreneur version has many more incoming links. The question then becomes one of quality. That is where the answer lies.



The incoming links for the old Blogspot hosted version of his blog, are not pointing to the blog title of "Venturpreneur", but to the name "Gordon Smith" or "D. Gordon Smith". Most of the new blog's links point to "Venturpreneur".



That is the power of what is called "link text" or "anchor text." Search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search place heavy emphasis in their calculation algorithm on anchor text.



The heavy use of the name "Gordon Smith", in the link text to the old blog, gives it that continued power versus the new blog. On the other hand, because of the limited number of those optimized link text backlinks, the old blog remains at position #6, and not #1.



To place higher in the search results, you need to have link text that points toward the keyword searches you value most. In the case of Gordon Smith, he wants to place highly in the search results for his own name. To help him there, simply change your link to Venturpreneur to any of "Gordon Smith", "D. Gordon Smith" or "Venturpreneur - Gordon Smith". That will give Gordon far more powerful link text for his searches.



I have given Gordon a link text boost, by changing my link to his blog, to "Venturpreneur - Gordon Smith.



Most blog links point either to the name of the blog, or the name of the blogger. Sometimes, anchor text pointing to the most important searched keywords is better for you.



Let's use an example of your imaginary blog called Complete And Utter Waste Of Time Because I'm Bored blog. Most of your links will point to that title.



Let's go further and say you write most of your posts, on that fictitious blog, about aardvaarks. To get higher rankings on the search engines, you would prefer then to have your blog listed on the many blogrolls as "aardvaarks" or "aardvaarks blog". That emphasises to the search engines the importance of that topic to your blog.



Another area where Gordon could help his searches for his own name is in his title tags. This concept was suggested in the comments to the post by Tony Rickey of Three Years of Hell.



The title tag is what appears right at the very top of your screen, above everything else. Mine says "Blog Business World", which is my blog title. It also is my most important search term: any combination of "blog" and "business", singular or plural. Take a search of them, if you like.



Since Gordon wants his name to be searched, his title tags should also include his name. Make sure your most important keyword(s) appear in those title tags. They can be changed right in your template very easily.



If Gordon prefers his traffic to arrive at Venturpreneur and not at the old blog, he can use a 301 redirect. It will automatically send the reader to the new blog, evenif they click on the link to the old blog. He won't miss any traffic that way. The old blog will also pass along the majority of its accumulated Google PageRank, via the 301 redirect, as well.



If Gordon wants to maintain his old blog as an archive, a redirect will do that for him. Another option would be to transfer all of the old blog archives to the new blog, and delete the old Blogger hosted blog. That is up to him, of course.



As you can see, anchor text (link text) and title tags are a very important consideration for search engine power.