I am sorry to report that Typepad, our blog publisher has been having some issues and five of our most popular blog categories have disappeared from the side bar, but can be accessed here.
You can also use the blogbar to do search terms on our blog, or view our monthly archives. (Both located on the side bar.)
We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to resolve this issue soon.
After blogging last week about Is Google dancing on my Hawaiian gifts website grave?"--which was about my sudden and huge drop in Google's ranking for the search term 'Hawaiian Gifts", I was thankful to receive invaluable advice from fellow bloggers Sheila and Andy at Go Visit Hawaii.
Andy said that because my URL www.doublebrush.com led to http://shopnow.secureonlinecart.com/estore/f/index.php?sid=528f1599df375516eeb7f1a541dd074b&store_id=1198 which is the home page of our secure shopping catalog, Google may be seeing it as a 302 redirect and that Google doesn't like a site being pointed to a "temporary" site.
Now that I knew what the problem most likely was, I had to figure out a way to resolve it. What I did over the weekend was a thing called domain mapping for my typepad blog which you are now reading. Instead of our Hawaii blog's home page being www.doublebrush.typepad.com, it is now simply www.doublebrush.com
I made a stationary Welcome page post so people can click on a link to start shopping, or choose to start reading our blog posts. I am happy with this solution as maybe now more of our customers will read our blog.
If you have any other suggestions to improve our blog site, please let me know.
I want to end with a big mahalo to Sheila and Andy, a sincere thank you for everything.
What is going on? A few days ago Hawaiian Gifts and Flowers by Double Brush was ranked #14 for the Google search term "Hawaiian gifts". Today our Hawaiian gift site is ranked #64. We went from page 2 to page 7 and down 50 listings in the SERPs, or search engine results pages. I don't understand it. I searched on Google for "Google dance June 2008" but nothing really came up. The term Google dance refers to a phenomenon in which the search results returned by Google appear to fluctuate and change. I wanted to see if anyone else was experiencing a drop in their Google SERPs.
Most people look at only the first one or two pages of search engine results (regardless of the search engine being used), so being reduced to page 7 could mean the demise of our Hawaiian gifts site because the majority of users are doing their searches on Google. Hence the title of my post, "Is Google dancing on my Hawaiian gifts website grave?"
Hawaiian Gifts and Flowers by Double Brush has been online since 1999, and we have experienced these fluctuations many times before but not so dramatically. What happens after Google does their power dance, is it usually takes months to slowly climb up the ladder of search result rankings, and that's after constant tinkering and monitoring of our site.
This time around I am finding it extremely depressing because so many Hawaii gift sites that offer the same made in China Hawaiian souvenirs are ranked ahead of our site. Our site features handmade gifts from Hawaii such as Hawaiian scented soy candles, Hawaiian soaps, and Hawaiian perfumes that we actually make ourselves in our art studio/home on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Over the years we have also added the service of sending and shipping fresh Hawaiian flower bouquets, leis, papayas and pineapples to the mainland. We can also send Kona coffee, macadamia nuts, Hawaiian candies, handmade Hawaiian lotions & bath salts, Hawaiian gift baskets and custom Hawaiian gift baskets.
I am hoping that by doing this blog post laced with the search term "Hawaiian gifts", Google will rank this post highly while I try to dig Double Brush out of the grave.
Our company blog Hawaii Vacation Gifts by Double Brush celebrates its one year blogaversary today!! I find it hard to believe that I have been blogging for a whole year. At the risk of sounding like a cliche, I can honestly say that blogging has changed my life!
Blogging has enabled me to share information I find useful or interesting, or strange, and I also get to write about things that I like and care about. However, the most precious outcome of blogging for me has been the friendships that I have formed with other bloggers--especially Sheila at Go Visit Hawaii and Evelyn at Homespun Honolulu. They both have been supportive, caring, and the most genuinely nice people I know.
Browsing over my past posts for the year, I came up with my favorite top 5 blog posts--as of today;)
1. How Double Brush Saved Hundreds of Trees
Saving our Hawaiian rainforest and not supporting clear cutting is something that I care deeply about.
2. What's the Big Deal with Interracial Marriage and Dating?
Using our families as an example, I show what true multiculturalism love means.
3. Wild Pigs on the Big Island Hawaii
We live in a rural area of the Big Island and wild pigs are a part of the environment here.
4. Maile Lei--The Most Rare and Special Hawaiian Lei
This is my favorite leis because of its intoxicating scent. The next goal is to plant some on our property.
5. The Rainiest City in the US is Hilo Hawaii
People find it hard to believe the east side of the Big Island gets 100-200 inches of rainfall annually.
Mahalo to all of my readers, subscribers, and commenters. Thank you for your continued support, I am pretty sure I would stop blogging if no one read my blog.
Please share with myself and everyone else reading, "What is your favorite Double Brush blog post?"
The following favorite blog posts were added via our reader's comments.
Would you mind Madame Pele for a neighbor in Hawaii?
Mother's Day is a only few weeks away (May 11, 2008), and I thought this would be the perfect time to post this important piece of consumer information.
Buying flowers online is convenient and easy, but buyer beware. Consumers are falling victim to misleading florist advertising and marketing practices every day. From substitutions of lesser quality and amount of flowers, to downright fraud, how do you know who you are dealing with and what can you do to protect yourself?
To find out about all the nitty gritty dirt on buying flowers online from ordering to delivery, visit Florist Detective. This is the only site you will ever need to read first before you plan on ordering flowers online. I spent a long time at their site with my mouth hanging open or shaking my head. These are the subjects that are covered at Florist Detective.
Free Delivery Ruse
Fake Locations
Give Us A Break
Find Real Florists
Where to Complain
Report Flower Deception to the FTC
Not Your Local Florist
Florist Price Comparisons
Be Wary of the Yellow Pages
Florists and the Media
How Flower Wire Services Work
Quality Assurance?
ProFlowers.com vs Florists
FTD vs Florists
FTD and Kay's Florist
1800Flowers.com vs Florists
Skimmer Report
Anatomy of a Flower Fraud
Letters From Consumers
All American Scam
Order Gathering
Valentine's Day
Local Search for Florists
If you ever want or need to buy tropical Hawaiian flowers such as Anthuriums, Orchids, Bird of Paradise, Protea, and Heliconia, please give us a try. We also offer beautiful orchid flower leis that are great for any occasion.
All of our flowers are locally grown on the Big Island of Hawaii where we are located, and come direct from several small flower farms. The fresh flowers are then washed, graded, and expertly packed into special shipping boxes for overnight or 2 day delivery to the mainland, by our friend's local flower shop in Hilo called Nahilihili, located one block from the Hilo airport. This location is also wonderful because your flowers get on a Federal Express plane right away.
We thank you in advance for your support of small businesses and flower growers on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Aloha to my dear readers!
I apologize for not posting more in the past 2 months but was very busy with making lots of candles and switching to a new web host for our site DoubleBrush.com because my web host that I had since we started in 1999 completely shut down operations on March 31. They used proprietary software and couldn't work with all of the new Web 2.0 features that were becoming more common place and expected. They also had no export feature so it was a long manual process to redo our site.
Please take a look at our new site when you have some time and tell me what you think of it. There are still many things that need to be added such as the drop down menu on some catalog pages, but the shopping cart works and most of our items are posted. We also now have great features such as free shipping and a search our site bar.
I think it looks a bit sterile but will work on designing a better logo. We also have partnered with several mainland companies to offer more all occasion gift baskets. I will be posting those in the next week in time for Mother's Day.
Things have settled down a bit and I will begin posting regularly to our blog.
Our Hawaii blog will also be taking a little bit of a change in direction. I won't be blogging about Hawaii travel and activities as much, if any, but will still write about living in Hawaii, especially living on the Big Island where we are located. I will be concentrating more on everything related to Hawaiian gifts and gift baskets which is actually quite a lot. I hope I don't lose any of my 40 regular readers, but if I do, I understand, but please stick with us a while and see what we are up to. I will try my best not to make it boring.
I will also still be doing our popular Hawaii Sweepstakes Sunday feature.
A hui hou, or until we meet again,
Cheryl
Once again Evelyn over at Homespun Honolulu has done it again! Hop on board her latest Hawaii blog carnival with a Menehune train ride.
The virtual train tracks start at the leeward coast of Oahu, chugs on over to the island of Maui, and then like a good reporter, goes to where the other stories about Hawaii are.
Say goodbye to the old year, and ring in the new year Hawaiian Style.
Haoli Makahiki Hou! (Happy New Year!)
When I started my Hawaii blog with Typepad a few months ago, I requested that they offer a "follow the comments" feature so my readers could follow the conversation on different posts.
I am happy to say that Typepad finally developed this feature and I added it last night! Now after every post at the beginning of the comments section, you will see a little orange RSS icon and link with the following text next to it: You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
It works if you are subscribed by RSS feed or email.
I enjoy reading other people's comments on blog posts' that I am interested in, and now my readers can also have that convenience for Hawaii Vacation Gifts blog posts' they are interested in.
Once again Evelyn at Homespun Honolulu has put together a great blog Carnival of Aloha, her third Hawaii blog carnival that she has hosted. It is quite a bit of work to host a blog carnival and she does it so well. Mahalo Evelyn!
This one is called,"The Carnival of Aloha Takes a Magical Hawaiian Safari."
A blog carnival is a fun way to discover new blogs that fit in with the carnival theme; in this case anything to do with and about Hawaii.
My entry was about the famous 2 1/2 ton "Naha" stone moved by King Kamehameha.
Hope you will join us on a Hawaiian cyber safari!
Did you know that October 15, 2007 has been declared "Blog Action Day"? Blog Action Day is the date when bloggers everywhere will unite by publishing a post about the environment on their blogs. Your post can be about anything to do with the environment.
The premise of this event is:
What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day? One issue. One day. Thousands of voices.Our aim is to get people thinking, discussing, questioning and talking about the environment, from every angle, niche, viewpoint and personality.
I think it is a great idea and will be participating. I hope that you will too. Also please spread the word!
You can read more about it at Blog Action Day!
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