Manage your online identity.

How do search engines decide a page is about you? Well, that’s a fairly complicated process, and lots of people spend a lot of time worrying about it. At ClaimID, we worry about it for you - but there are some things you can do to make search engines rank your name higher. Here’s two simple suggestions:

1. As Patrick Cormier points out, search engines highly rank results where the URL text matches the query text. English, please? Ok, lets say you’re searching for someone named “Steve Smith.” Now, lets say there’s a website out there named http://domain.com/steve-smith.html. The URL matches the search query, and the search engine will rank this page very highly! If you choose your name as your claimID username, (for example, http://claimid.com/steve-smith) the search engines will rank your claimID page even higher. Sort of cool, huh? If you’ve got an existing claimID user name and would like to change it to match your name, simply email us and ask - we’ll be happy to make the change for you!
2. If you’ve got a page (like a blog or website) that is about you, linking to your claimID page will make your claimID rank higher! This will also let people know that your claimID is absolutely about you. If you look in your account settings, we’ve included a number of ways for you to link your blog or webpage to your claimID (we’ve got a chicklet, a wordpress widget, a hCard, and a data feed!). If you can think of other easy ways to link to ClaimID from your blog or webpage - let us know! We’re all ears.

Thank you for using ClaimID. ClaimID is a unique service in that we’re building it to your needs. ClaimID will always be simple, and we’ve done this for a reason. Online identity is hard, and we want claimID to be a place you can come where you’ll find the solutions you need. It’s as simple as that. No gimmicks, just the stuff you need.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 6th, 2006 at 3:31 am and is filed under Dispatches from a beta, Tips and Tricks.