Otis and Google sitting in a tree

I think one of the funniest things about certain subsets of rap and hip hop is watching rappers rap about how good they can rap. The Beasties, for instance, got more rhymes than Jamaica got mangoes. I love finding instances of rappers rapping about their ability to rap. Since I got nuked by Google back in July, I’ve probably spent a little too much time being a blogger who blogs about blogging. I am happy to say those days are hopefully over (at least, after today).

I noticed a strange thing in my referral logs this morning: a search request from Google that didn’t have me as the 67th result. Somebody had searched for “Otis Blog” and I actually showed up on the first page. I don’t think I have to tell you how fast I did a search for Rapid Eye Reality. And there I was, back at #1.

What did it take to come back? Well, since a relationship with Google is like being married, I had to do a lot of guessing. First I put nofollow tags on all my ads. Then I requested reinclusion. No dice. Then I realized I had a bunch of archives left over from the Blogger days that still had the old ads. So, I deleted all those pages (which hurts the old search results, but c’est la vie), submitted for reinclusion again, and offered to cook Google meatloaf. Two days later, I was back. I think I’m going to make a tasty cheesey Tex-Mex meatloaf my wife showed me how to make a couple of years ago.

Do I think any of this had anything to do with me getting back? I dunno. All I know is that I exist in Google’s eyes again and for some reason that makes me happy. I don’t think I can stress just how important it is to be seen on search engines like Google. If you’re not, then how can you be the best that you can possibly be? I was lucky! But to ensure that I don’t slip away from the cracks again, I might get in touch with a company like Linear (https://lineardesign.com/services/google-ads-management/) to see how their Google Ads Management service can help to make sure that I can maximize my performance to the full because I only want to get better from here. And as I’ve learnt over time, anything is possible. I’m just so happy that Google knows of my existence again.

How happy? Well, so happy I spent half the day making improvements to this old blog. Most of them you will barely notice, if at all. However, I have added something that comes from probably the coolest WordPress plug-in there is. It allowed me to created the Rapid Eye Reality photo gallery in just a matter of minutes.

So, thereyago.