Archive for January, 2010

What happens to rankings of a website after it is sold – A case study

What happens to rankings of a website after it is sold, is one of the open seo questions. Matt Cutts is believed to have said in domain round table 2008 that is a domain changes hand, then google resets the link value to zero/ near zero. If that were true then the entire business model of site flipping would be dead by now. Hence I have a strong suspicion that rankings of a domain remains unaffected by its sale.

Good seos are expected to confirm their views through experiments :) So I am going to set up a simple experiment to find out what happens to a site after it gets sold. Recently one of my favorite blogs, bloggingtips.com got sold on flippa for USD 60,000. That may explain my interest in Binaryday, even though I do not have any adsense after splitting with my partner. The important thing is the analytics report was posted on the site. I have created a list of top keywords and where on google bloggingtips is ranking for them.

  1. Blogging tips – 1
  2. Blogger Themes – 8
  3. Blogger Theme – 4
  4. Great  Blogs -2
  5. Blogger widgets – 13

I shall be again checking these rankings one month from now and we shall know if domains have a life after sale :)

Blogging lessons from 3 Idiots

  1. The most successful bloggers are the ones pursuing excellence and not success itself. Look at even the big daddy of MMO blogging, john or guru of seo blogging. They were simply sharing what they knew about their respective domains.
  2. There is only one way to be the best in what you do. Do what you really love without worrying about the money. If the best football player tries to play golf for the money, he will be a mediocre golf player at the best. I am not asking you to stop doing keyword research and all. But do not start writing about automobiles just because it is the highest paying term.
  3. Do not become nervous because of others’ expectations. I have suffered from this issue, personally. After some of my most appreciated posts, I was too nervous to write anything as I was worried that it is not upto the mark. That sort of took the fun out of blogging for me.
  4. There is no room for even the smallest mistake. Remember what happened in the movie when chamtkar was replaced with balatkar in a speech. Do not let that happen to your blog.
  5. Like the hero of the movie, you have most probably not heard of the most successful bloggers. The ones that make a ton of money and are at the forefront of innovation. Seek them out and learn from them.