I met a stray cat the other day. The cat was very skittish. He primarily came around late at night or when I least expected it. I would never have known he existed but I could tell when he had come through.

He didn’t always come to my place. He used to just wander by once every 2 months or so. He would see that nothing much was new and pass by. Once in a while I’d see his tail disappear into the woods. He was a mysterious animal.

One sunny afternoon, after I went for a swim, I had a pimento cheese sandwich. I ate it while drying off in the hot sun in a lawn chair. I don’t know why, but on a hot summer day in North Carolina, a pimento cheese sandwich is just a wonderful thing. Not the store bought pimento cheese, we’re talking about the good stuff. Home made pimento cheese sandwiches. When I went inside I accidentally left the plate out beside my chair. The plate had a few scraps on it, and the next morning, the scraps were gone.

A couple of weeks later I had left something else out and the same thing happened. No, I’m not a slob, but I live on 6 acres on a secluded lot, and if I leave something out nobody ever knows about it unless I post it on the Internet. Anyways, like any stray cat, he started coming by, looking for scraps more often. He’d explore the property more and more on each visit and look for clues to see if there were any new scraps out.

Eventually I started feeding this stray cat. I’d leave him food more and more often. My house became one of the stops on his nightly route. I did not want this cat as a pet, but I did like him dropping by and I knew winter was coming, so I helped him stay fed. Even if I only put something out once or twice a week, he started coming by almost daily.

I decided to name this cat Google. This is precisely how Google’s spider Googlebot works. Google will come by your website more often the more often you feed it content. Some would say, that it places a higher value on your site the more often you have content put out. If you own a local business, having fresh cat food, I mean content, out on your site at least once a week is a good idea.

I don’t know the specifics, and nor do they matter (to me), but I’ve personally watched sites that were never indexed start putting content up. They might get visited once a month, then once a week, then once every few days. If you have a WordPress site or another content management system, it is likely already using pingomatic if you know it or not (to “ping” Google and others and let them know that dinner is served). Other sites linking to you, and other various social signals also tell the search engines that you’ve put fresh content out.

I’ve never sat down to prove it, nor do I have the time to do so, but it is only logical that search engines will use the frequency of your content as a ranking factor. I know the cat placed a higher value on my house than the neighbor’s. In addition, the value of the meal mattered a lot to the cat. If he was just getting some bread crust, he wasn’t thrilled.

Google and other search engines want one thing. They want to deliver to people what they searching for. And Google does not want a 6 month old piece of bread crust. Google wants a fresh steak.

Now for my pitch, and thankfully it is a service that sells itself, because I am a terrible salesman: If you need a chef to prepare your steak, please take note that I offer copywriting and content creation services. Read this article about content creation to discover if you can do this yourself or if you should hire someone to do it for you.

google cat

Image creditCC BY 2.0

Len
5 Comments
  1. Thank you for helping Google and it was very of you.

    “A message from my daughter.” She had a lesson on “Google the Cat” in school. So as I was just explaining to her
    How the Internet works & what search engines are, she happened to mention “Google the Cat” & so I told her to
    Search for “Google the Cat” & we came across your article. She read it out loud to my mother & I with my help.

    • This is the best comment I’ve ever received!

      Thanks Ike’s daughter!!! 🙂

  2. Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and
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  3. Wonderful blog! Do you have any tips and hints for aspiring writers?

    I’m planning to start my own site soon but I’m a
    little lost on everything. Would you advise starting with a free platform
    like WordPress or go for a paid option? There are so many options out there that
    I’m totally confused .. Any tips? Thanks!

    • If you are just doing it for fun and want an online solution, check out wordpress.com or Blogger. However, I highly recommend WordPress.org for sure. That way, you own the site and the content. I have seen things come and go in the Internet world many many times. 🙂 Keep it backed up occasionally with “duplicator”. A list of my favorite plugins are on this post: http://www.telapost.com/best-website-seo/.
      Thanks,
      Len

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