SEO and Soccer.

As an experiment in SEO, I figured I’d see how I’d rank for my name.   Of course I’m number one for my name “Joe Leyba” in all the major search engines.   Not much competition there.  So I recently set my sites on just my last name.  As of today, here’s where I rank in the major engines for “Leyba”:

Google – 10th

Yahoo – 2nd

Bing – Nowhere to be found

What’s most interesting to me is I can rank #1 in Bing for “Joe Leyba” but not rank in the top 100 for “Leyba”.  I’ll have to see what they hate me.

I know I’ve improved in Google because I checked how I ranked sometime last year and I was at #22.  I’ve never checked Yahoo or Bing before so I have no prior knowledge there.  For the most part I’ve neglected my domain.  I used it for image storage and experimenting at a cost of $4/month.  I’ve never been active in link building or trying to boost my awesome PageRank of 1.  So I’ll get a little more proactive and try to build my personal brand.  I’ll check back in three months to see if anything has changed.

Truth is I see the name Leyva far more often than Leyba.  Just today, FC Dallas midfielder Bryan Leyva has been called up by the Mexican Under-17 Men’s National Team for participation in the FIFA U-17 World Cup in Nigeria.  I’ve also seen another Leyva soccer player, Fatima Leyva, 28, who is a highly rated midfielder who plays for FC Indiana. She joined FC Indiana in 2005, and helped the club to two league and two cup titles in four seasons. She has played 45 times for Mexico, scoring four goals.

I found some message boards talking about the Leyva/Leyba/Leiva/Leiba name. One site said it is “Spanish: variant of Leiva, which is the habitational name a place called Leiva, chiefly the one in La Rioja province and to a lesser extent the one in Murcia.”

I’ve also found boards saying the name maybe of Sepharic Spanish/Jew and part of the Israel Tribe of Levi. The Tribe of Levi was scattered & the Leyba/Leyva’s are part of that lost tribe.  They were prosecuted as Jews and made to give up their culture and claim Spanish decent due to the the Catholic Church.

Anybody know any better?

BTW, when I Google “Leyba and Soccer” I come up #4 and that’s my Linkedin profile.  You’ll soon realize after watching me play soccer with the Indomitable Drinky Crows that soccer is better left to the Leyva’s.

A Google alert just came up for my name even though it’s not me.

http://www.news-bulletin.com/nb/index.php/la-vida/658-metal-artist-experiments-with-imagination.html

I’ve found there’s quite a few artists with the last name of Leyba.   Steven Johnson Leyba is the name I’ve seen most frequently online.  I’ll do some digging and try to profile some others.

Don Fernando de Leyba was a Spanish officer and politician who served as the third governor of Upper Louisiana from 1778 until his death in 1780.  He was a native of Barcelona, Spain and a Captain in the Stationary Regiment of Louisiana.  According to The Frontier War for American Independence, he sympathized with the Americans and aided George Rogers Clark in the war.  When Clark met de Leyba, he expected a stuffy bureaucrat and remarked that he had “never before [been] in Compy of any Spanish gent.”

De Leyba helped protect the village of St. Louis in what was called the Battle of Fort San Carlos.  Follow the link for more information on Fort San Carlos and the Battle of 1780.  The successful if costly defense of St. Louis prevented the British from obtaining control of the Mississippi River Valley.  De Leyba’s health was already poor, and, by June 28, 1780  he died. His report of the action reached Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Viscount of Galveston and Count of Gálvez only after his death, yet the general was impressed enough to promote the governor, posthumously, to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Marino Leyba was a Desperado who is said to have been associated with Billy the Kid. On December 10th, 1880, he was shot by Pat Garrett at Puerto de Luna. According to the Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography, Garrett rerarked that Leyba was the “quickest man with a six-shooter” he had ever seen.