Cayman SEO

Just an update on my previous blog about the TLD (Top Level Domain) wars .  Last week we redirected www.cayman4rent.ky to www.cayman4rent.com because we were not showing up for local searches in the United States and Canada and the website was on the first page for major keyword 'grand cayman rentals' if searched in the Cayman Islands.  But if a user was searching in the US or Canada, they would not find us on the first page. So we did a few things to the website... 1.  We redirected www.cayman4rent.ky to www.cayman4rent.com 2.  We changed the geographical target to "United States" on Webmaster Tools 3.  We did a 301 redirect to all the existing URLs to the new URLs. We are very happy to announce that even if we are still not showing up for the major keyword, 'grand cayman rentals' yet, we are now showing up for 'grand cayman rental' (singular) on # 6 (right under tripadvisor) and we are actually showing up in Canada on #4 for that keyword as we...

A few years ago, a client asked me if it mattered whether the TLD (top level domain) of a website was a .com or a .ky for Search Engine Optimization and a couple of years ago, I answered 'No, it doesn't matter' because there were several factors that determined search results and not just the TLD.  Also it is important to note that Google's local search wasn't as strong as it is now.  The TLD informed Google where your site was located and that was a good thing. Things have changed though and because we are a tourism destination and because we need to attract users in the US before they come to the islands, my answer then is wrong now. Yes it matters depending on your target market's geographical location.  If your business is in the Cayman Islands and caters to users in the Cayman Islands ONLY then it still doesn't matter - use the .ky because its FREE and available to everyone on island.  But if your business objective is to attract customers before ...

I just read about this on Danny Sullivan's blog and then followed the link going to the official Google blog and both times, I couldn't believe what I was reading.  But at the same time, its hard not to believe it.  So here is the scoop:  Google's team created fake searches like ' hiybbprqag ' - hiybb-what?  Yes. That word that's not a word. It didn't mean anything but the assumption is that when you search for a term that doesn't really mean anything, the search results of two different (rival) search engines differs.  It is a solid a assumption since both search algorithms supposedly operate separately.  But more than that, the Google Team inserted websites that had nothing to do with the search query.  They tested these synthetic queries and inserted websites that had no relevance to the search term whatsoever.  (gasp!) Google returning wrong results!  Surprise, surprise! Google and Bing had the exact same results.  The Google t...