Search rankings

When the Internet was young, there were ways for a web designer to trick the search engines. However, now the search engines are pretty smart at ranking websites for relevance.

The Scuttlebutt e-newsletter began in 1997, with the launch of the website following in late 2002. Early searches for ‘Scuttlebutt’ would first find assorted navy websites and the Scuttlebutt Brewing Company in Everett, WA. However, within the first year (maybe 6 mos), sailingscuttlebutt.com was the top ranked site for that search.

However, since many Scuttlebutt readers receive the e-Newsletter, the amount of traffic to the website will always be less than if the Scuttlebutt news was only hosted online. Search engines use traffic as a gauge, so therefore it was very exciting to see how highly Google is ranking Scuttlebutt when it comes to the following categories:

Sailing News: Ranked #1
Sailing Photos: Ranked #1
Sailing Suppliers: Ranked #1
Sailing Event Calendar: Ranked #2

I am really stoked about SAILING SUPPLIERS being top ranked. This is a section of the Scuttlebutt website where we list our valued advertisers, among which are some of the elite companies in the marine industry. They believe Scuttlebutt is a great marketing investment, and apparently Google finds this page to have great value too.