Metro Vancouver vs Google
byApparently Metro Vancouver, fka the GVRD is hurt and displeased with its google rank and is in need of some serious SEO help.
If you Google it, you’ll get eight other entries, including a newspaper, soccer league and hotel before you finally find the one for the body formerly known as the GVRD.
Staff tell the Vancouver Courier the name isn’t the trouble though, it’s Google’s arcane system, which tracks outside sites still using the old title and they say their webmaster is hard at work trying to find a solution. [News1130]
Apparently the big issue is that the name “Metro Vancouver” isn’t unique or ‘googleable’ enough. Geez and I thought I was anal about my google search results.
Well they are correct, the first result I get is the Metro News Paper, followed by Vancouver Metro Soccer League, the non-downtown Days Inn, Metroblogging Vancouver (yay!) and rounding out the top five is a Urban Vancouver.
According to Urban Vancouver’s poll: ‘What do you think of “Metro Vancouver”, the new name for the GVRD (Greater Vancouver Regional District)?‘ so far 40% of readers welcome the name. As for me? I really don’t want this to turn into a mass amalgamation a la Toronto but it’s just a name change, which doesn’t bother me. And regarding the google search? I’m on results page 3 so count me out of the running, although I’ll be checking back to watch the climb of the District formerly known as GVR, just because I am that geeky.
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If they still own the info from the old website, they should do a forward via DNS to the new one. Google will figure it out from there.
Metro free dailies have only been around a couple of years and that is exactly what I thought you were going to talk about based on your title. Second idea was about Metro(blogging) Vancouver. It will take some time — and we won’t notice it — before it becomes second nature to recognize it.
Personally, “Metro Vancouver” doesn’t sound that official at all. GVRD was fine for me — suitably distinct and longer than GTA, and “Greater” seems to have the connotation these days as “the areas surrounding”. “Metro” right now carries the connotation of only the downtown core… to me anyways.
In advance I mean no disrespect to anyone for what I post below. It’s just how I feel and I’m sure other will eventually feel this way as well.
I first ran across this story over at http://urbanvancouver.com/node/5438 and I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I just wish I could get a copy of the news paper. This is something I’d love to hold onto as a gag piece.
First off I’d like to say that the rename is a good idea. Sure other may not agree but “Urban Vancouver” is much easier to remember than GVRD, especially if your from out of town. Like myself. Sure it sounds like a transit line but it’s easier to remember than an acronym.
Second, http://www.metrovancouver.org should have been a .ca at least, or .ca.gov or .gov that would give it a much more official feel and come across with more authority to Google, thus ranking it a bit better.
Third, The site doesn’t need “meta tags”, it needs A NEW SITE DESIGNER. Come on… really… I do print design, web UI design and SEO for a Vancouver company and I can already tell this guy they have doing their site hasn’t got a clue. Geez… just look at the code of the site for starters. It DOESN’T VALIDATE to W3C standards, and the whole site is done in tables. Tables.?. Really.?. What is this 1999.?. Plus the site has and over all SEO score of 70%.
I’m starting to think that Bill Morrell’s comment about “Google’s arcane system” is him being a lazy snot and pointing the blame to someone else instead of standing up and saying.
“Yes, the site needs to be worked on a little more so we can get it perfect. Man didn’t fly to the moon on the first try and it will take me some time to get our rankings better.”
Or heck why not…
“We realize there is small issue of our site ranking poorly, this is why we are consulting with external web design and SEO firms to figure out what we can do better.”
Okay… So I’ve ranted. Like I said I don’t mean to be rude or insult anyone. But knowing that there are people out there not willing to stand up for what they did and pointing the figure to someone else really burns me. Heck Google could be worse… it could be Cuil. http://www.cuil.com/