Even a Realitybase post can sometimes get a high Google PageRank when it has likely search terms in the title.

I just noticed this morning that if you Google "crude oil hoarding," this Realitybase post is the third highest ranked page, out of 59,500. If you Google "oil hoarding," the same Realitybase post ranks fifth out of 668,000. Why does Google rank so highly this one page from my obscure little blog? I'd like to think the answer is the quality of the information and analysis and the elegant writing, but then shouldn't my other posts be highly ranked also? ;-)

Here's what I think may be going on. The title I gave that post was much more descriptive than I usually use: Lots of crude oil hoarding a year ago, and still some now. I have read that the secret Google algorithm gives added weight to pages that contain the search terms in the title. I tried another Google search, "Stiglitz financial crisis," thinking it might link to Stiglitz on the causes of the financial crisis and how to prevent the next one. Bingo! Google ranks that post third out of 228,000. But when I Google "Soros financial crisis," George Soros explains the financial crisis is not in the top 100 of 296,000, and when I sharpened the search to "Soros explains financial crisis," my post was still not in the top 100 of 78,900. Hmmm. Well, Soros is a lot more prominent than Stiglitz, and a lot of the high-ranking pages in the Soros searches were major news media.

So, it looks like I have to choose between (a) a short, snarky, or whimsical title that may intrigue or amuse my regular readers, or (b) a comprehensive summary of the content of the post. Can I do both? Not likely. Which is more important?

Update on Friday, March 20, 2009 at 10:28AM by Skeptic

I've been noticing that this post on CEO pay is attracting a lot of page views.  Why?  When you search Google Images for "high CEO pay," graphs from my post are the first and sixth images that are displayed.

Update on Monday, March 23, 2009 at 09:16AM by Skeptic

If you Google "American Dream died," this post is ranked 8th out of 89,100,000.

Update on Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 10:03AM by Skeptic

Google "too much foreign competition" and this post is the second highest ranked of 1.8 million.

Update on Monday, August 24, 2009 at 11:02AM by Skeptic

When one Googles "comparative advantage journal," this Realitybase post is ranked 2nd of 1.45 million.