Just thought i’d throw out a post from the Key of C Coffee shop in Ashland Oregon where I was visiting with pal Keith who always has great travel insights – in fact he has a great website for Tuvalu: Nanumea in Tuvalu and another for Italy: http://wonderfulitaly.wordpress.com/
Ashland is home to an amazing number of coffee shops and Bed and Breakfasts, though in my opinion now that the Whistle Stop is closing : ( , the nicest coffee house in Southern Oregon is Downtowne Coffee Shop in Talent.
The website for the Talent Oregon Coffee Shop called the Whistle Stop Coffee Shop is currently listed far too low by Google’s search algorithm, below two of my posts about the Whistle Stop Coffee Shop Talent Oregon. Hopefully this post plus some changes to titles in an earlier blog post (which had Title “Whistle Stop Coffee Shop Talent Oregon”, plus some linkage action will fix this problem, but we’ll see. The Whistle Stop’s website is using a Godaddy hosting template now and Google may be downranking for that or fretting over the Godaddy banner at the top which may diminish the content score (I’m just speculating here).
Blog content continues to factor very importantly into search rankings, especially (I speculate) because of the freshness and as a source of relevant links in to other content. Confounding all SEO analyses is the fact that Google appears to treat things somewhat inconsistently to reduce the effects of really aggressive optimization tactics. For example there are tricks that can be used that may lead to a short term big boost in rankings, only to leave a site penalized for months or even years for “manipulation of the algorithm”, which in the eyes of Google is a crime worthy of the harshest punishment.
One of the interesting challenges in search engine optimization is, as the excellent Mr. Matt Cutts at Google likes to say, that “Googlebot is stupid” that might be paraphrasing but I think it’s a direct quote. He was talking about the fact that good site structure will “help” Google figure out the natural and relevant relationships between links, content, and websites. Matt likes to point out – sometimes to some fairly hostile SEO folks at conferences – that good SEO is mostly just applying a lot of common sense “best practices” rules for websites, aka “building for the user not the search engines”. I often give that good advice to people who ask me how to rank well even though they are usually disappointed (and skeptical) when I don’t give them hints from the bag of secret tricks they think you learn at search conferences. For the record it used to be a lot easier to manipulate ranks and it was a common practice, but now most quality SEO folks will advise you to avoid deception or manipulations and spend your time and money seeking legitimate incoming links and building great websites. That does NOT always work – especially for new sites – but it’s good general advice.
So let’s see if Google can get this one right quickly. The most relevant site for the query “Whistle Stop Coffee Shop Talent Oregon” is …
Here in Talent, Oregon we’re lucky to have not one great coffee shop but two, each with a different “personality” to suit your mood or temperament. Where Downtowne offers free wifi, the Whistle Stop is the place to go to mingle with the city.
I’ve written before about the Downtowne Coffee Shop but also wanted to give the Whistle Stop Coffee Shop a big shout out as they serve great coffee and tasty light fare like pastry breads and scones. If you want to feel the heartbeat of Talent, Oregon drop in to the Whistle Stop and say hi to Marina, the owner of the Whistle Stop who was recently voted Talent’s friendliest barista. The Whistle Stop is located right next to city hall on Main Street in a beautiful rennovation of Talent’s Railroad Station. An hour and a coffee at the Whistle Stop will introduce you to our fine little town in no time.
Click here for more about the 2008 Coffee Calendar
Hey, it’s Coffee Calendar Google ranking excitement! As I mentioned in some earlier posts my wife’s Brother-in-law Ricardo has a great Coffee Calendar, a project he has worked on for some time that features some great art and history.
Helping him attain a proper Google rank for his site TheCoffeeCalendar.com offers up some neat lessons in how Google ranks websites – perhaps most importantly how blogs have come to be a very critical factor in some rankings.
Artist Mike Rohde also has a neat “Sketchtoon” Coffee Calendar he has done for 2008. Where Ricardo’s Coffee Calendar focuses more on history, Mike’s focuses on the actual coffee drinks. Both would make a neat gift for any coffee lover in your life so check them both out!
Mike’s Calendar has the top Google spot now and I think this is a good example of Google favoring blog content over an actual website devoted to the Coffee Calendar. Ricardo’s site was recently launched and thus I’m guessing Mike’s blog is given higher authority at Google when “Coffee Calendars” are getting discussed. Since this blog appears to have more authority than Mike’s it’ll be interesting to see if this post has any affect on the rankings.
In the meantime, pick a Coffee Calendar and a fresh picked pound of coffee beans as a neat gift for the coffee lover in your life.
Joe Duck 