Mohamed Mansour's Personal Website

Yearly Statistics to test SEO tactics

Posted on December 2, 2006, 4:28 am EST

Why

I felt like posting this sites statistics in a range of 12 months. I was pretty impressed myself, from the amount of visitors. During last summer, I was researching on how to optimize my website to let search engines index it properly. So I applied intensive Search Engine Optimization tactics on this website for an interesting experiment.

I started this experiment during the beginning of April. I have used various techniques to test out. My search rankings during the summer were very bad indeed. When I goggled my name, I was on the 50th+ page. Same with other search engines. My page rank was horrible, it stayed at 0.

Tools

I am currently using Analog Statistics which a perl script. It is one of the most powerful web statistics worldwide. Many big organizations port their own statistics module from Analog.cx

Graphs

I have included the generated Analog graphs, the graphs below represent statistics taken in one year timespan.

Results

• From 288 (End of May) to 2625 (End of November) Distinct Hosts. I was pretty shocked as well. Around 900%+ increase.
• From 6549 (End of May) to 46812 (End of November) Successful Requests. Around 700%+ increase.
• From Google, Yahoo, and MSN, my search rankings for my name improved well. I am on the first page for all, and sometimes I am 1st on the list or 2nd otherwise. I can't seem to beat University Rankings :p
• Page rank quadrupled!

Explanation...

So why am I having a nice increase in statistics? The answer is pretty easy, I spent a great deal of time researching for better search engine optimizations. I will explain after I complete my exams this semester the techniques I used, specifically for this site.

There was a point around April, where all the search engines deleted all indexes of this site. I was pretty much sad to hear that, but then I realized now, that the new structure and formation derived better rankings and much more indexed pages.

I have introduced the following. I will go quickly and explain in detail in another post explaining more concepts.

• XHTML and CSS Design (April)
• Respect the true meaning of tags *order matters* (April)
• All links are text based (April)
• Every page has a unique title page (April)
• Links on other websites [blogs,news,forums] (June)
• Introduced RSS Feed (June)
• Home page consistently changes over time (August)

That is basically some of the stuff which I have done. But I have more ideas which can improve rankings by a good amount. I will experiment once again during Christmas :).

If more explanation is needed on some points, I could answer in great detail if needed

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