Trying for SEO, Getting DuckDuckGo

This is from my weekly email series, The Weekly Mixtape. I know you hate getting new subscriptions. But this one is both free and will make you feel better. Or at least make me feel better. So please subscribe.

Hey Indiepreneurs,

Things are always changing in the world of search. I really wanted to move The Indiepreneur from my long running–but audience confused–Back Alley Taxes. And I thought I could take what I learned from my old website and get this one running on full steam on the search engines in no time at all.

SEO is a tricky thing, though. Mostly because Google finds out how people are gaming the system, then changes the system. Everything that worked before doesn’t anymore.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing for the user if it generates better results. But it does cause problems for someone like me who sets up a site to hit the old search requirements, only to realize that he has to relearn it all.

It’s all about backlinks these days. Which I guess makes sense, because it offloads Google’s responsibility to figure out if information is good and gives it to, well, everyone. I guess.

Oh, and the big social media sites don’t help with those backlinks. Probably because nobody uses those.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

This has led to a bit of an issue. I’m not hitting on Google’s search engine, which is obviously the Goliath in the room, but I have managed to show up on Bing, Baidu (which, no, is not English), and DuckDuckGo. Which my wife has asked me several times what they even do (it’s a security focused search engine).

Honestly, there’s a part of me that likes ranking higher on the smaller search sites (that “indie” part of indiepreneur is there for multiple reasons). But even if I could somehow make the website super successful without ever showing up on Google, it leads to an annoying problem: since I use Google Analytics, I have no idea what keywords people are using to get to my site. Since I don’t know how they’re getting to my place, I don’t know what it is that they’re actually looking for.

Maybe it’s all a big mistake. Maybe I have a typo somewhere that is related to some weird niche. Rule 34 and all of that (don’t search for Rule 34).

I’m working on it. I have a few more things I need to try, and hopefully they can help me get this all worked out.

In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them out.

The Links

• My latest: Another book review, this time Strengthsfinder by Gallup. It really did help me find my strengths. Now if only it could help me implement them.
• Are we all hanging out at Walden Pond these days?
• Live action Cowboy Bebop is coming. Should I be worried?

Service Dog Update

I wrote out a great update here, and the whole thing got deleted. Ug, I hate that.

So here is try two. Hopefully it’s at least somewhat interesting.

At class this weekend, the trainer asked us the good and bad things of this past week. And there really were some good things. Wilson finally seems to be learning, doing much less of the annoying things that he’s done in the past. Maybe we do have some hope with this dog training thing!

But his current kryptonite is Tiny Dogs, or TD from Secret Life of Pets.

The trainer got to see this first hand. There was another poodle (or maybe doodle) in the class, which Wilson would occasionally try to pull to get in a good sniff, but he was mostly good as he walked by.

Then this rat terrier appeared. She was hiding in the corner, there for an earlier training and serving as the bait for this one. And, man oh man, was it on.

Wilson lots his mind. I tried to block the dog’s sight like they tell us to do, but none of that mattered. Wilson barreled right through me, nearly knocking me over.

It wasn’t until TD went away that Wilson was able to find a bit of sanity again.

We’re working at it. All we need right now is a lot of TD bait, and probably an entire bucketful of Wilson’s favorite treats. And lots, and lots of patience.

Image by me. In my backyard. This owl kept getting closer and closer. And it would watch us as we moved from room to room inside the house.