When I made the Links page, I made sure to use the HTML mode so that I could add rel="me" to the links to my online profiles, except the ones that add "nofollow" to the link to my website; in the links to those I added rel="me nofollow". What rel="me" does is it tells search engines that the linked page is to one of my online profiles. What "nofollow" does is tell them not to count the link in calculating the importance of the linked-to site; many sites that allow user-submitted content add "nofollow" to links to deter spam.

The point of my manual coding of link properties is that I want my site to be the first result when people search for me online, not buried under a bunch of random profiles that I might not have used in years, like the current situation. I don't mind the sites overall having more "Google juice" than my site, but when searching for my name I want my site to be first. Thus I'm starting a project to bring my website to the top, above my random profiles.

I think it might take a few different strategies. I plan on doing a mixture of transferring ranking to my site and adding value to it. Here's what I'm trying:

Method 1: Link to my site from those sites.

This will increase the number of links to my site, which should increase its "Google juice". However, this will also add activity to the profiles I don't care so much about, likely increasing their "quality" as perceived by Google's algorithms. This might not drastically increase my site's ranking, but it should increase its perceived visibility to search engines.

Method 2: Update my site more often, and more substantially.

This will make my site worth visiting regularly. Ideally, my site should be updated often enough that my policy of keeping the last 5 updates on the main page results in nothing staying up longer than a month. As of right before I announce this project on the main page, there's an announcement that's almost a year old.

Method 3: Recruit friends.

Google tracks which search results people click on. Thus, the more people search for my name and scroll past the random profiles and click the link to my site instead, the more important it will look to Google. If you want to help, here's how:

1. Select my name here: Mark Haferkamp
2. Right-click on my selected name (or Command-click or whatever on a Mac, and maybe press-and-hold on a phone/tablet browser).
3. Select the option to search for my name using your search engine.
4. Scroll past all the results that aren't at refola.com.
5. Click the result at refola.com (tap/touch on a phone/tablet browser).

Status / History

Here's where I'm tracking the top 5 results when searching for my name, both with and without quotes. To avoid more problems, I'm just listing the results, not linking to them.

• 2013-09-21
  • "mark haferkamp": LinkedIn profile, Google+ profile, Refola about page, Refola home page, Twitter profile.
  • mark haferkamp: Same top 5 results as with quotes.