Ranking for your name vanity or sanity?
Posted by David WhitehouseMy colleague, James Slater, and I were debating over whether trying to rank for your name is a necessity or if it is purely vanity. Dave Naylor has previously told me trying to rank for my name is vanity, but I distinctly remember him looking to see if I ranked for my own name in Google when I came to Bronco and begged for a job! Plus I know full well that Dave’s name is a distinctive brand – well known in the SEO World.
I’m currently #2 for David Whitehouse, and I desperately want the #1 slot – in my opinion Google shouldn’t ever give that to me unless I become more famous than the other David Whitehouse, but I reckon if I keep on getting linked to from the SEO community I am bound to secure it.
Damn that guy above me
In my opinion, in the SEO community, if you are applying for a job as an SEO and you don’t rank #1 for your name, then that looks pretty bad on your part, surely?
So have any of you been guilty of trying to rank for your name? Who ranks #1 for their name?
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed or receive updates via email.
Got something to say? Say it below 
Related posts:
- David Whitehouse is really hard to rank for!
- SEO Specialist – my new target term
- Modern Warfare Ranking Overloads My Site on Day of Release
6 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Subscribe
When are you going to do a post about me? I need to get higher than #6 for Carla Marshall…….
Comment by Carla Marshall — October 14, 2009 #
Gimme a link and I might think about it
It won’t be for a few weeks though, my last two before this one were stalker pages – think I might upset my subscriber base of 89!
Comment by David Whitehouse — October 14, 2009 #
sorry I meant 8
Comment by David Whitehouse — October 14, 2009 #
I rank #1 for my name and the rest of the top 5 relate to me too.
I don’t think it’s vanity to rank for your name, if you’re lucky enough to be searched for you want people to find you quickly and not another person. Ranking #1 may be vanity but ranking highly can only be common sense.
Then again I’d hate to be the guy trying to rank for John Smith, at least i’m lucky in that my name is fairly unique.
Comment by Kean — October 14, 2009 #
You can tell Kean ranks number 1 for Kean Richmond, he’s linking with “Kean” instead (unlike Carla and I).
Comment by David Whitehouse — October 14, 2009 #
LOL. I hadn’t ever noticed that but yes it would be nice to increase ranking for my forename alone (this is definately vanity).
Unfortunately I have a University, Radio station and Google suggesting ‘Keane’ instead to contend with.
Comment by Kean — October 14, 2009 #