Monday, October 3, 2011

Share buttons: A vote for me is a vote for you

There are several ways through which visitors may land on a site, but visitors to Abarim Publication’s main website largely come through search engines. If someone types in the search string “Chaos Theory” or “Israel meaning,” chances are excellent that they’ll end up reading our articles, but if someone types in “Julia meaning” chances are excellent that they’ll end up at any of the other popular name sites.

From one of those "other"name sites
These other name sites are largely constructed from copying each other over and over, and somewhere at the bottom of it lies one or two old baby-name books that someone, long ago, typed over and turned into a website. And that results in dozens of name-sites that simply list the commonly accepted meaning of a name, without proof or reference or even the slightest hint at how these meanings are formed. And some of them are plain wrong.

At Abarim Publications we painstakingly research the names we translate, delve into etymology and derivation structures. We list texts that use the roots of the name we’re talking about in narrative sentences, and we list possible alternative meanings. In short: our articles are much more informative and much more stimulating.

But someone who types in the search string “Julia meaning” sees an enormous list of websites that all offer articles on the meaning of that name. Search engines keep track of people’s behavior while searching. They check if a person stays on a page or moves right along, whether the person types in the same search string again (indicating that the previously viewed page didn’t satisfy) or goes somewhere else, only to return at that one really good page.

All this helps search engines to determine which page is generally accepted as a better page, and subsequently places this page higher in the search results. And sure enough, our articles on the meaning of Biblical names usually come floating to the top (that means the top 5 in search results) after some time.

But another way to determine how well a page caters to the needs of visitors is by looking at how many times this page is shared on Facebook or any other network. Google has even launched a little +1 button through which visitors can indicate that the page they’re on should be higher up in search results.

Share button scorse of the Biblical Name Vault entry-page

Here at Abarim we humbly believe that our articles serve the needs of searchers much better than those un-articles on other websites. And so we believe that we deserve lots of shares, likes, thumbs-up and plus-ones. We generally dislike shameless self-promotion, or enticement to endorse without quality in return, but we’ve taken the bold step to place a “please click here”-text underneath the submit buttons on all our name-articles. Let’s hope it’ll make a difference. We’ll leave it there for a few weeks to see if there is a positive result. If not, we’ll remove it.

But in the mean time, folks, check out our wonderful Biblical Name Vault and hammer away at those precious buttons!

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