Those who have read all the posts on this blog know that I registered this domain after Syed Balkhi challenged me in twitter to rank #1 in Google for his name.
I took up the challenge because it would seem that someone interested in the ranking of his name, would register the .com of his name if it was available. The domain was available so I registered it late at night on April 23rd.
It wasn't till early morning on the 24th that I put up any content. Now early morning on the 29th, the site is indexed and showing the Google SERPs.
It has actually been showing in the SERPs for a couple days, but just some of the pages, not the home page. This morning the home page is in spot #2 behind balkhis.com, Syed's blog.
Balkhis.com was registered in January 2008, and I'm sure has plenty of links to it. I think it is pretty amazing to get the #2 spot in under a week with a brand new domain and not very many links to it.
I think it demonstrates clearly that to rank well in Google on various words that one of the most important factors is selecting a domain that has your keywords. That seems to override many other factors. This site currently is outranking facebook, linkedin, twitter and many other "authority" sites.
Now, it is clear that to succeed at the original challenge there are only two simple requirements necessary: Time and Links.
I think my point has been made that it is not that difficult to rank with Syed's name, and even without this domain, the few links I made on other sites have had fleeting prescence in the upper SERPs. A more concerted effort would rank better and more permanently.
Therefore, there seems to be a Y in the road at this point and there are two paths I can take:
- Engage in a plan to completely annihilate the search results. I think it would be quite easy. For example, developing a "true" SEO Contest around Syed Balkhi, the basic rules being several prizes going to the sites that rank best on his name that link to syedbalkhi.com. In other words give others an incentive to link to my site.
- End the challenge now as my point is clearly made. Since I have no interest in being Syed Balkhi a new home would need to be found for syedbalkhi.com. I paid about $8.50 for the domain and have no interest in selling it, so if Syed Balkhi is interested in it, he is welcome to make a charitable donation to the charity of his choice (in that amount) and email me a copy of the receipt and I'll transfer the domain to him.
Of course maybe there are more paths and you could make a recommendation on the above or a third or fouth option as well in the comments below.
