When I have been surfing the internet for the latest SEO news, I came across this unique list on how to rank in Twitter for a keyword entitled “5 Steps to Ranking #1 on Twitter“. But I’m wondering what does the author mean for ranking #1. Rank where? The Twitter directory? The search engine? or the top Twitter user list?

The author of the said article indicated five ways on how to ‘increase the ranking’ of a person. He cited the name, username, bio, account activity and number of followers. I agree with him that to be able to achieve maximum potential in Twitter, one must optimize a keyword in all these areas. But what he failed to point out is the different forms of search on Twitter.

Search on Twitter is not one-dimensional. It is not as direct as search engines. Twitter can be searched in various areas such as trends, hash tags, and directories. I think the author failed to point out in the area on which his tips will be more useful.

I also tried the effectiveness of Twitter in ranking in search engines. I have found out how personalities such as Britney Spears, TechCrunch and Kevin Rose have their Twitter profiles in the top 10 rankings when their name is searched.

I have also tried it on myself and yielded the same rankings.

With this, we can say that Twitter can contribute to ranking for certain brands. But how about keywords? I think this can be effective if you put keywords in your username or bio. With hashtag search, you will be associated with a particular term and you may build your credibility on a certain topic based on Twitter conversations. However, I have only tested the search engines on brand search and not on direct keyword search. As for directories, people can control the niche they are associated with because they can freely choose which categories should they belong to.

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The latest post on SEOmoz blog entitled “Nofollow is Dying: The Impact of Microblogging and Nofollow on SEO” touched on a very important issue in the the SEO world – that is the importance of nofollow links. SEOs have always believed that links should always be done on dofollow sites because nofollow does not provide link juice. However, SEOmoz have this theory that nofollow does not matter anymore.

SEOmoz provided good basis for this claim. The author referred to microblogging platforms such as Twitter that only have nofollow links. However, the conversion of these links are phenomenal since links are shown to concerned followers. If this idea is going to be applied to SEO, this can somehow change the search engines’ algorithm. With their goal of providing the most relevant search results to their users, it is not surprising if they will consider nofollow microblogging links in the future.

Another basis SEOmoz have presented is the explosion of 3rd party program users. Like social media sites such as Twitter, 3rd party websites such as blogger, wordpress.com and others usually have nofollow links. However, with the increase in users, search engines can’t always say that the links to these blogs must be ignored. Some of them are relevant and ignoring them are not practical.

Third, nofollow links have been proven to be more trusted. This can be attributed to the announcement that nofollow links are not counted by search engines. It is with this reason that spam is not present in most of the nofollow websites. Spammers usually flood the dofollow sites with their links expecting link juice. Ironically, the people who try to game the system only make the dofollow links look worse than the nofollow links. This is an aspect that search engines may consider as they weigh which link is worth more.

I have personal experience with this as well. I have found that the search engines managed to crawl my site even if I commented on related nofollow sites. I tried searching the links and the nofollow comment came out in the listings. This means that the search engines are still counting that link even if it comes from a nofollow blog.

However, this is just a theory. I think it is still best for Google to have this rule because it limits comment spam as well as build relevant content to a particular page. But it is still an interesting thing to know that nofollow may also be valued by search engines.

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Here’s something to ponder upon. It’s not that ordinary surfers weren’t already confused about which search engines work best, here’s news of another choice. Ask.com has decided to go big and make hay while the sun shines. We’re already aware of all the competition between Google and Yahoo, and as if that wasn’t enough, Ask.Com plans to launch itself against Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

They plan to follow a Super Verticals strategy that will enable them to answer factual questions directly. Another interesting thing that one must know is that Ask.com will also be the NASCAR official search engine. The system isn’t up and working jut as yet. All enthusiasts and critics will have to wait till next month, February 15th, 2009. They plan to make a launch on the day of the Daytona race, a new beginning ad certainly ample marketing for the big day in all fronts.

It certainly is a great strategy to launch  a competitive search engine because all NASCAR fans will now head to one destination, Ask.com. The company is obviously hoping to convert current users loyalties through this approach. It’s still too early to predict results but this certainly is a smart tactic by Ask.com.

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