is there any reason why one blog service could improve your search engine ranking...

[blueindian]

better than another?

if you used two different software packages and wrote your blog exactly the same, is there any reason why one would improve your rank more than another?

[Jeffbx]

Sure, there are all sorts of methods to improve your rankings, legitimately & artificially. Different companies use different methods, and it'll also depend on the size of the company you're blogging with. Like I'm sure a blog at Myspace will get a higher ranking than one at G|A simply based on the fact that the site gets much more traffic.

[blueindian]

interesting. this guy came buy our office the other day (real estate) and was pitching their blogging package. $2000 to set it up, no fees after that. he claims that his company is doing something special to improve search engine placement above and beyond what any free blogging service can do. I'm suspicious of that, hence my question.

[Jeffbx]

Yes - you can do tricky things like make multiple pages link to yours, set up lists of keywords in your headers, etc. Most are frowned upon by Google, and sometimes they take action when they find specific things that companies are doing - I recall one incident with BMW Germany where Google smacked them down for artificially boosting their ranking.

But they DO work, until Google finds & blocks whatever method they're using.