High Google Rankings-Site/Domain Factors

Hi everyone,
Today, I am discussing the factors that affect Google rankings for a page based on the site/domain of which it forms a part. The authority of a domain forms an important part of achieving high rankings on the Google SERPs. Rand at SEOmoz gets the input from the top 37 gurus in the organic search engine optimisation field.

1) Global Link Popularity of the Site:
This is the overall link authority measured by links from other sites right across the internet in terms of link quality and quantity. In general, the home page on a site is the strongest page. This is because the site accrues links to its home page from sites across the web.

It would be well worth the efforts of the site owner to procure links to her deep level money pages on her site. This helps bring up the specific deep page for a specific query and ends up as a relevant result in the Google SERPs rather than bring up the home page all the time.

The quality of links from sites is more important than quantity. If the links are of topical relevance, from good quality sites with high level of  trust in relation to link building and the number of one way links from sites that are thematically related to the site in question, all these play a role in boosting the link authority of a site and hence its rankings on Google. The group has an average agreement on this factor.

2) Age of the Site/Domain:
This is the date on which content on the site was indexed by the search engines for the first time. The popular belief is the date on which the domain was registered and this is not true because the domain ownership could have been transferred over time.

Over the past couple of years, domain ageing has assumed great significance when it comes to rankings on Google. One school of thought says that new sites can rank well on the SERPs provided they are linked closely to a parent domain that has gained trust. Sites that are less than 1 year old will find it hard to rank for competitive terms as soon as they are launched.

Others think that the age of the links on a site are living proof of the maturity of the domain. At this point of time, old sites definitely enjoy an advantage.  Average agreement.

3) Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to a Site:
This deals with the subject specific relationship of sites linking to the site in question. If the incoming links are well suited to the topic on the site’s page and highly relevant and comes from good neighbourhood, then it works in favour of the site. Thematic relationship is also involved.

If a site acquires links from various topically relevant sites on the web but has the same anchor text, then that is questionable and reflects an unnatural linking pattern. This can raise a flag for Google and the site can end up getting penalised. Today, the context in which the anchor text is placed is also analysed closely. Average agreement.

4) Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community:
This is to do with the link authority of the recipient site amongst its topical peers on the web. Some experts feel that though Google is not as community focused as Ask (previously Teoma), it is working on it to improve relevancy of its results.

Others think that quality topical links from a couple of good sites can outweigh many more links from good sites that are not topically focused. But it makes sense to cluster topically related sites together. This improves relevancy and it is easier for Google to rank peers in the same topic after taking other signals into consideration. Average agreement.

5) Rate of New Inbound Links to Site:
The frequency and timing of external sites linking to a given site is the crux of the issue here. A page on the site can get hundreds of natural links from Digg and for a new site, this can work wonders. For a trusted established site, accrual of links of good quality and topical focus will only strengthen it and make it a dominant player in its industry.

Michael Gray and Rae Hoffman share a very important point in that a spike in links overnight (say 300 to 500) does not spell doom if it is matched by a corresponding increase in search volume, SERP clickthroughs and good toolbar traffic. Citations of the site on the web also signals trust as the links were a result of great content or something innovative.

Burst in link counts with a site accruing thousand links in a week with no corroborating increase in other signals mentioned above definitely would trigger a spam alert to the search engines and the site would be scrutinised very closely for the wrong reasons of course. High level of agreement.

6) Relevance of Site’s Subject Copy to Search Query:
This deals with the relationship between subject matter of a site and a user’s search query on Google. There are diifering views here. If the site contains part or whole of the user’s search query in its anchor text (links from other external sites), it helps.

Another way of looking at it is if the content on the page is totally in sync with the search query. Then Google will definitely find the page relevant to the search query and rank it high on the SERPs. This is easier if the domain is a trusted and mature one. For new sites, it will be an uphill task at the start. But over time, they can achieve good rankings too with other matching signals like anchor text and topical inbpund links from various domains.

Caveman has an interesting take on this and feels that with good site wide focus on themes and related keywords for each theme, it will be hard to rank on Google for the most sought after keyword phrase to start with, especially so for new sites. They will rank for obscure long tail keyword phrases.

But semantic analysis can identify the common keyword phrase on all pages of the site as that would be the core represenation of the industry the business is established in. Google can ignore that term in the beginning and any other terms that are modifiers of slight variations of that keyword. Wikipedia is an exceptional standout. Highly disputed.

7) Historical Performance of Site as Measured by Time Spent on Page, Clickthroughs from SERPs, Direct Visits, Bookmarks, Toolbar, Analytics etc.
This relates to the data collected by Google through Analytics, personalisation (if a user is signed into any of Google’s services at the time of browsing the SERPs) and Google toolbar. At this point, it is speculation that Google could be using these metrics though they have not openly admitted doing so.

The experts are divided on this disputed factor. The clicks on SERPs  by a user leading her to the site and the recording of the click of the back button to return to the SERPs shows a poor amount of  time spent on the site and a higher bounce rate. This does not necessarily mean the site is irrelevant or of poor quality. The user could have found the information she was looking for in the first paragraph of the home page.

But a uniformly high bounce rate sitewide and low average time spent on the site can be a problem though Google finds the site relevant enough to rank it on the top of SERPs. Google has enough data to analyse the trends shown by these metrics and can draw a strong conclusion as to the relevance and popularity of sites.

Some of the experts feel that this could be a good shift from tradional ranking factors like linking that can be manipulated. Sampling of a large volume of quality data gathered from Analytics, toolbar and personalised search (a user can move results on the SERPs up and down when doing a personalised search) by Google can certainly help it display better quality of relevant results on the SERPs which will enhance the user experience.

8) Manual Authority Granted to Site By Google:
Google is sometimes accused or suspected of manual intervention to help certain sites attain positive rankings. This is a highly contentious issue for the experts.  A few feel that it is a myth as all rankings are algorithm based. Some question the existence of DMOZ and the power of Wikipedia as the rankings they enjoy could definitely be due to manual bias on Google’s part.

Caveman opines that if there is a huge cleanout in a specific category on the SERPs, then Google’s manual intervention is the reason behind this. There is a view that some “famous” sites do get a helping hand from Google to help them maintain their position. There is lots of speculation here. Highly disputed.

9) Top Level Domain Extension(edu,us,info,com etc)
This is about the TLD extension of a site. Remember that there are restrictions in registering gov, edu and mil extensions. Some experts believe that the .edu and .gov extensions are far more powerful than others because they are perceived as authoritative sources both by users and search engines. The number of inbound links to these sites is quite numerous.

Others feel it is a myth and it does not matter in ranking a site. Some ask to keep away from .info and .biz extensions. In general, Google’s aim is to organise the web and it endeavours to provide the best search results to its users in terms of relevance. Average agreement.

I feel that whatever be the domain extension, as long as the site plays by Google’s rules, has great content and good link authority, it should rank for relevant user queries irrespective of anything else.

10) Rate of New Pages Addes to Site:
This relates to the number of indexable pages of content added to a site. Some experts have a valid point when they state that it depends on the industry in which the site is operating. For a pet site, if there are 10,000 pages added overnight, that can certainly raise a flag. But for news sites, it is common to have atleast 1000 pages added per day.

If the pages are generated by automated means such as ecommerce feeds and auto generated pages, then that is certainly an open invitation for penalty. More than size of pages generated, the quality of content is a vital signal to Google. If this content goes on to attract editorial links, the site wins hands down without a doubt. Average agreement.

11) Number of  Queries for Site/Domain:
This deals with the number of searches made on Google with respect to a specific domain and its brand name which is recorded in Google’s query logs. Some think it does not have any effect. Some say it is hard to speculate as there is no supporting evidence. There is a thought that if the brand name of a company is recorded strongly, then Google gives it a manual boost. Average agreement.

12) Verifying Site With Google Webmaster Central:
Many experts feel that verifying a site through Google Webmaster Central is a good way of bringing the site to Google’s attention and helping the bots crawl the site at the earliest period possible. Registering with Webmaster Central is also a small way of the webmaster of a site saying she is adhering to Google’s rules.

Others feel that this has no bearing on their sites getting ranked or anything along those lines. High agreement.

Ravi Venkatesan
Senior SEO Consultant
Netconcepts - Auckland Search Marketing Professionals

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Blogging, Consultants, Natural Search, Ravi Venkatesan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.