It’s Getting Hot In Here

So, the motto of Google is “Don’t Be Evil”, which certainly is a departure from many of the companies we keep butting heads with – such as Dominion Power, a corporate bad actor if there ever was one. However, here at It’s Getting Hot in Here, we shouldn’t be content just with not being evil – lets do some good!

Sidenote: This may seem like a trivial process post, when we have young heroes like Hannah Morgan dealing with the criminal justice system for trying to halt a crime against humanity and future generations through civil disobedience – but I will explain at the end, how to ruin the coal industry’s day.

First of all, a little background, It’s Getting Hot in Here has a Google Pagerank of 7 (out of 10). Now, you are probably asking, what does that mean? and Is that any good? Well, what does Google say about it?:

“PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.” Learn more.

For context, Grist Magazine has a google pagerank of 8/10, and the New York Times has a 9/10. In fact, just by linking to them just now – I have helped raise their ranking a tiny bit. So we are in good company. Good enough, that we can use it for good.

Basically, if we write on a topic that is being debated online – we can place articles prominently in google searches right next to the topic on hand, if we use the same search phrases and keywords. (ie. like Clean Coal…Isn’t) The most key section is the headline, which also shapes the URL, and is highest ranked by Google.

Here is the Basic Formula: Good Pagerank + Topical Headline + Tagging = Top Level Placement

However, we haven’t just built a good Pagerank, It’s Getting Hot in Here also syndicates to: Google News, Blogrunner, TakingItGlobal, and WordPress.com and Technorati. That means that if a story on “Clean Coal” runs on Google News, we have a good shot of being right next to it. Blogrunner does the same for the New York Times. WordPress does it for millions of blogs, if you actually tag and categorize your post, and since we are the fourth-ranked climate focused blog, we get some great billing on Technorati too.

Starting to get it? The Coal industry is spending $35 million dollars a year to promote the “Clean Coal” myth, including sponsoring the presidential debates, but when people go online to learn more about it – they can find us telling the truth about it. Kinda ruins their day.

Learn more about the “Clean Coal Body Slam” here.

Update: A few people wanted a little more details about how to actually do this. Let me break it down. Lets start at Google New’s section on “Clean Coal”. Go there and see what issues and particularly what phrases are being used in headlines. Then write a response, using that phrase in the headline, in a post bringing some reality back into the issue. Make sure to tag your post using phrases like ‘coal, clean coal, dirty energy’ etc. This will help make sure it automated services can spread it. Here is a really good example of NPR’s Greenwash Brigade doing it. Note: Our own Dennis Markatos-Soriano is a writer over there.