My site (listed in my sig) ranks number 8-9 in google for our major key term (world of warcraft). I've checked the back links, I've checked the allinanchor, and to me, we shouldn't be where we are. There's something going on that's indexing our site extremely high. I'm wondering if google has added some sort of time aspect to the algo since our site has been up for a few years now for our key term. I also think frequency of updates is definitely added to the algo somehow. Basically, it seems links don't matter as much (I only have 8 when I do link:www.clantt.com), and allinanchor doesn't seem to weigh in as heavily.
I've always believed that Google applies a "time factor" to rankings... And, why shouldn't they... shouldn't "stickin' it out for the long term" be worth something Just guessing. Mike
I've often wondered. I transferred some of my stuff from one site to another and all other things were left pretty much equal. On the old site, one page ranked in the top 10 for one keyphrase. It has never appeared in the rankings on the newer site (it's a very low hit, low competition keyword). Interestingly, a friend who runs a very well established site has put some of my material on his site and it now ranks in the top 10 for the same keyphrase (git ) though this is not real evidence as many of the other factors are different. If I was creating a search engine, I reckon I would give credit to sites that had been around a long time and updated content regularly.
The Answer Is.... You have AdSense... All the other ones surrounding you don't... Ask Anthonycea for details if you don't understand this.
Actually, I think the results are pretty much in line with where they should be.... Allinanchor:world of warcraft --> you are #5 You have thousands of backlinks from google indexed pages.... why is a search on link:www.clantt.com showing only 8? That seems like the real question.
Hmm, wasn't aware that adsense would weigh a site more heavily. Makes sense though as the higher a page is on the serps for a somewhat popular key term the more likely people will click on G's ads, and in turn make them profitable. But yeah, the link:www.clantt.com is really screwy. I've got NO idea why that is the way it is.
I sent an email out to google to see why this is. Hopefully I get some clarification as to why this is.
Google denies that it indexes site with AdSense any differently than it does those without. Although the Adsense agent may have the same name as Google's normal agent, they almost definitely have nothing to do with the other. As for Anthony, he think EVERYTHING is a conspiracy.
Well, it would make sense. I know if I were in the SE business, I would definitely want the sites that rank in the top 10 for popular keywords with my banner ads to promote CTs and generate revenue for all parties involved. It's a very shady practice, but none the less I could see it happening. And yes, it seems we do have a select few here who are conspiracy therorists in regards to google. But I don't feel as if it would be kind to name names (especially since most of us here with quite a few posts know who we're talking about).
Googles link: search seems to be throwing up randomly selected results.. it used to be PR4 and above. Now I suspect its any random selection (or more acurately, a given random selection until they change it). Part of the same strategy as freezing PR bar updates IMO. Canny buggers.
Doing a link:clantt.com on MSN's Tech Preview shows around 12,000 links or so. This is no doubt thanks to the co-op network. But if you take a look at my competitiors, is there any way I can beat out wowvault.ign.com or Worldofwar.net? Worldofwar.net was nice enough to place a link for me in their links section, but I'm not sure if that'll be enough. I'm thinking the only way to best them would be to get links from their top level pages as opposed to link sections. I also added the co-op adnetwork ads to every page on our site to hopefully increase the in bound links. I'm thinking this will ultimately give me a 1-2 spot jump in rankings, but likely nothing higher.