Most people, companies, businesses needs some form of SEO, whether the focus is actual keyword rankings or some form of reputation management. Unless you’re the Queen. I was just perusing the new Royal website, created with the able assistance of Tim Berners-Lee (the founder of the interwebs) and noticed that the site had no PageRank (aside from the actual URL which has a very solid 7). It appears that no care was taken to transfer PR for even some of the top tier pages. Why bother when you’re the Queen? It’s true. It probably won’t impact traffic numbers, the brand is a pretty strong one. Still, I would think that greater care would be taken to keep the brand strong.
I just Googled “The Queen” and I’m afraid she’s outranked by imbd. “Queen” and she’s down to #3. Strong with “Royal Family” at #1. “Elizabeth II” and she’s still doing OK. Overall, I don’t think the redirect oversight is going to do her any harm, but if you’re a small business, if you rely on search rankings for your website, you are going to want to include 301 redirects where possible!
Overall, I like the Queen’s new website. Obviously accessibility was a high priority and the information is well organized which would be no easy task as it looks like there’s a lot of it! Couple of nice features like the very stalkerish “Track the Queen”, a veritable Where’s Waldo. Though I think she might want to think about using Google Latitude if she’s really serious. There are also some of the usual players which seem so old hat these days in podcasts, videos and RSS feeds (only 1 actually). I don’t love the design, it seems a little 2001 but that probably appeals to a wider audience anyway. Go check it out at royal.gov.uk
Paul Fleming is co-founder and VP of Interactive Services for Dinkum Interactive. A trained teacher, Paul has worked in a variety of forms of Internet Marketing but with a focus on SEO. Originally from Australia, he now resides in Philadelphia with his wife and 2 ankle-biters.
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May 16, 2012. Posted under: Blog.
I collected my god-daughter from dance class the other day and we grabbed a “treat” on the way home. Charli is 10, super bright and delightful. As we ate liquid chocolate, she told me about her school assignment where they had to devise a restaurant for kids. Her big idea was that while kids were waiting for their meal, they
Never thought of trying this before :) I frequently see IMDB and wikipedia outranking official movie websites.
Google latitude is only for friends, she will have to befriend the world :) She would be better off with Yahoo’s fireeagle.
I would have to commend the designer of that site. As you’ve said, it is well organized.
I have to agree with the comment that the site is a bite turn of the century but at least it has a lot of info. God bless the Queen and her website and maybe the designers.
Haehe. those are very interseting comments :) God bless
I just checked the SERPs in google and ibmd is all over the place on the 1st page for “the Queen”. Poor Queen has been moved away )))
With regard to PR transfer to internal pages – I don’t think PR is any long that important for rankings as it used to be. And althouhg link juice surely still is, it would be rather difficult for the inner pages to rank high without some authoritative external backlinks, almost certainly not on competitive terms.
Anyway, good post, nice humor! )))
Andrew
A fantastic read….very literate and informative. Many thanks….what theme is this you are using and also, where is your RSS button ?