Climbing Up the Google Ranks

For the last month, Abort73.com has floated between the 19th and 21st spot on the list of websites that Google returns for the search term "abortion" (out of 65 million sites total). That puts us either at the end of page two, or at the top of page three. Seeing as we were only on the 5th or 6th page of results as recently as two months ago, that is a significant jump.

Traffic wise, roughly 6,000 visitors have come to Abort73 through a Google search this May (about 3,000 from Yahoo), and that number has been growing quickly. Take a look at the chart at left to see the dramatic increase in Abort73's 2006 Google traffic (it has more than doubled since January). Of course, the real breakthrough will occur when we finally make it to page one, and that is a goal we continue to pray for and work towards. I'm sure most of you can attest to the fact that it is unusual for someone to go beyond the first page of results when they do a web search, and rarer still to get to page three. The difference in traffic between a page one listing and a page two listing is HUGE, but I'm optimistic that by God's grace, our efforts, and your help, we will get to page one.

From a purely technical standpoint, here is why we are encouraged. One of the factors that Google measures in ranking a site is link popularity (the number of 3rd party sites linking to a particular website). Every so often (I wish I had a more precise timetable) Google updates their linking records. Prior to their last revision, they showed that 237 different websites had direct links to Abort73.com. This time through, Google found 616 sites linking to Abort73, and that, it seems, is what pushed us so quickly from page 6 to page 2. Currently, there are 6 "pro-life" websites which Google lists ahead of Abort73.com, but none of them have anywhere near the amount of incoming links that Abort73 has (only the National Right to Life site comes close with 505 links). This tells us that Abort73 has become even more popular than other popular pro-life sites, but it also tells us that there is more to the Google equation than mere link popularity. There is also the length of time that a site has been online (which we can't do anything about), and the way the content on that site is structured (which we can do something about). To that end, we are gearing up for what will be Abort73 version 3.0. It will essentially house the same content that is already on the site today, but it will be completely restructured underneath to help it load faster, be accessible across a wider array of mobile and static devices, and be much more palatable to search engine digestion. While we don't have an exact launch date in place, we're much closer today to having a grasp on the technology necessary to make it happen than we were just two weeks ago. In the meantime, pray that God would be pleased to move Abort73 up to page one (He is sovereign over search engines, after all), and if you have a website of your own and haven't linked to us yet, consider doing so.

Thanks so much!

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