Will Your Blog get a Passing Grade?
Buzz it
Filed under: Blog SEO, Blog Tools, Miscellaneous Blog Tips
What Next? Read More Tips From BLOGBloke:
Sharing is Caring...
Subscribe here to the Better Tips Newsfeed! 
Follow @BLOGBloke on Twitter for Social Media Tips & News!
Subscribe here to the Better Tips Newsfeed! Follow @BLOGBloke on Twitter for Social Media Tips & News!
Opinions? (click here to jump to the comments form)
Video
.gif){kind=small}
Hey there bloke. I performed the check on http://www.jeffro2pt0.com and my score was 35% I realize why my score is so low but I hope to get it to 45% by the end of this month. Thanks for the service share
[
Reply..]
Yikes! I performed this test for http://www.JugglingFrogs.com, and only got a 67%. That wouldn’t bother me too much, as I’m not a for-profit blog, and I’ve only been around for six weeks.
The part that is bothering me, is that Yahoo has 365 links to me, but Google has 0!!! Something is broken about Google finding the links to me.
Any advice, Blog Bloke? How do I stop being invisible to Google?
When I re-run the site with “blog.JugglingFrogs.com”, the score goes to 70%, with 183 yahoo links, still ZERO Google links, but there are 184 Google Indexed pages.
I’m so confused! I definitely have inbound links from other sites. What am I doing wrong?!
[
Reply..]
One other thing: It says the reading level is a Ph.D., and that I should simplify.
It’s a light-level blog, with recipies, parenting thoughts and duct tape crafts. Hardly a graduate school set of topics.
Should I put any stock in this “reading level” metric? Is it valid? Should I care?
Thank you!
[
Reply..]
I have checked out your blog frogs and I don’t see anything that would relate to needing a Ph D. in order to read your content. I wouldn’t put much faith into that metric.
[
Reply..]
Hi Juggling Frogs. Have you submitted your url to Google yet?
http://www.google.com/addurl/
And have you submitted your Sitemap yet?
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/
You will need to create a Google account, and since you are on Blogger you only need to give them your newsfeed (full feed) address.
That should make Google notice you.
[
Reply..]
Following on what Jeffro said, the importance of the readability level would depend on your audience that you are writing for.
In my case I am writing at the college graduate level and I should probably lower that because I am reaching out to the general populace.
Also, given that the majority of bloggers today do not use english as their first language it would probably help them with the translating if the level was lower.
[
Reply..]
Today, I made a few changes to my site and I was able to increase my score from 35% to 54% I guess my goal for the month of June is accomplished. I too am noticing I have 0 Google links. I did submit my site to Google but perhaps it has yet to be entered into the search engines just yet.
[
Reply..]
Congrats Jeffro! Don’t forget to submit your sitemap like I mentioned above. One day at a time and keep up the great work.
[
Reply..]
Nice bloke you are. i blogged about you. Read here:
http://blogavenues.blogspot.com/2007/06/comprehensive-comparison-and-grading.html
Cheers.
[
Reply..]
I’m 85%. Woohoo! Not sure how accurate some of the data is but there you go. Just need to get a few more inbound links and I’ll whip your ass, BB
[
Reply..]
That’s excellent Mike. We can’t be certain of its accuracy, but the site is a good learning tool for optimization purposes. As far as the whipping my butt is concerned, only in yer dreams fella. But a little friendly rivalry never hurt anybody. (Shall we swap links
[
Reply..]
Thanks Malathy. A few more inbounds links and I’ll be in the 90 percentile. Keep ‘em coming.
[
Reply..]
Thank you, Blog Bloke and jeffro. I did submit the site to Google in the middle of May. I’m getting search hits, but the links aren’t recognized by Google.
I didn’t submit a sitemap, because I didn’t think the blog had so much of a structure. Does the sitemap really make a difference?
How long after submitting to Google does it take before the links appear?
I think your blog, Blog Bloke/Instabloke is at a perfect level. Everything is clear and easy to read. Your language supports your content. If you simplified the language, how could you express the same content? If that website grader has a problem with your writing level, then I guess I have a problem with IT.
Another aspect of the website grader that makes me wonder: Websites that use blogger are penalized with lower scores. Instabloke, what do you think of this?
I wonder how heavily this is weighted.
Thank you for pointing me to this tool, and for listening to me whine about it!
All the best,
CLKL
[
Reply..]
Hi Juggling Frogs, thanks for the kudos. I would get your sitemap done asap. It will make a big difference in hits.
I couldn’t be certain how long Google will take to index you but newer blogs will take longer. According to this search that I did:
site:blog.jugglingfrogs.com/
it would appear to me that are indeed listed in Google, so I wouldn’t sweat it.
The fact that you are using a custom domain hosted by Google Apps should not be held against you. But I would agree that blogspot users would definitely be penalized.
What makes you think you are being penalized?
[
Reply..]
Thanks, Instabloke! I’m off to make a sitemap ASAP.
When I said “penalized”, I meant by the website grader, not by Google. The website grader had a red ‘warning’ section in its results page for my blog, indicating the blogspot address is likely to split traffic/links/??? because www.xxxx.blogspot.com and xxxx.blogspot.com are treated differently, (or something like that, I may be garbling their comments…)
This isn’t something I plan to change. I have a custom domain hosted by blogger, which is all I can handle right now. Just posting to the blog is taking up enough time. I don’t have the resources to manage hosting the blog myself.
I thought from previous reading on your site, that Instabloke was hosted the same way. If so, then 100% at the website grader might be just out of reach for the Instabloke.com site. That’s what I meant when I used the word ‘penalized’ before.
Thanks again, Instabloke. Your site has taught me so much, and continues to teach me more every day!
All the best,
CLKL
[
Reply..]
Yes, you are right. A blogspot address will not show YOUR real stats. Which is also why I’m in the process of switching from “blog” subdomain to “www” because alexa, etc. do not recognize subdomains and will also water down your real stats.
[
Reply..]