I tried to find a thread where this information would be relevant, but I wasn't happy with any current threads. I have just updated and refreshed an article I wrote a few months ago about Content and the New Google Algo. Nobody knows for sure what Google is doing these days. But here are some ideas of some of the issues that may be in play.
Our test on masses of sites showed that content was sufficient in G, using our own algo to create it, with zero backlinks, until March 12 th. We achieved a mass of No.1's including those themes that some webmasters said had been bashed by Florida. This continues to be the case with Yahoo. Our testing with G is now based on backlinks.
Nice stuff Bob, I have to say that is what I have been experiencing. I have a client that got amazing results way quicker than I had expected it to happen. The phrase was fairly competitive, (not sex toys or lingerie) but competitive non the less. He went top 20 in a result of 18million with just a handfull of links (including odp & Yahoodirectoy granted, but I though it would take much longer.
Two comments Bob... In my experience this has been true since before Florida and I have been using the keyword density of the linking page as a pretty good measure of the value of the link. That is not to say that Google uses the same measure it's just that I find it more effective in evaluation than PageRank. Is a pleonasm. - Michael
Very nice read Bob. I really feel that Google should build their algo around both content and links. Thanks.
You are correct. Interesting that my proof reader didn't catch it. I've just changed it. However, I'm not sure that every reader sees unique as an absolute. I'm sure a lot of people think of degrees of uniqueness.
i read the article about about a week ago - and i was going to thank you then - because it was one of the best reads i had for a while - thing is i can't tell if it changed or not since i read it ( i read a lot of artices) - what date did you upload the new version?
Yeah, Bob does good work. I think I noticed the same thing a while back but I did not think to articulate it as well because I am too much of a technical writer rather than an editorial type. Great work Bob! Keep them coming! Max
Very good article, Bob. I believe Google has already given the link's description some credit for SERPs ranking, but it's not enough to bring the good sites -- which has some nature links but without good anchor text -- to the top. The good websites which aren't aware of SEO should also have the chance to be in the top positions, then Google must give the link's description more power. In other words: theme-based links.
Like everyone else is saying ... Good article Bob. This makes sense that relevant links are important and content on your page is important. Ultimately if everyone was to link to sites/pages that their actual content pertained to, this would help the user in finding the information they are looking for. It seems that as the Google Algo gets smarter and when you are optimizing/creating a page you think of the user first and search engines second, Google will take care of you. Makes sense right? I like to think this way when optimizing pages for my clients. This will give them the advantage of the future, and more long term optimization. Link to releveant content and do everything you can on your side to make your page the most informative and when your looking for sites to link to you, make sure they are releveant. Seems natural. Hmmm is my entire post a pleonasm? I seem redundant.
Thanks everyone for your kind words. The article got published today by SEO News. And SGH I'm sure no one would accuse you of "pleonasm".
The basic difficulty I see, if the article's theorizing about Google is essentially on target, is that it implies a ridiculous circularity in Google's attitude: we will weight links by the relevance of the link-origin page to the link-target page; we use links because we cannot satisfactorily determine relevance value through page analysis. Hmm? "We can't determine relevance solely from on-page content." That is implicit in the original PageRank concept, and the use to this hour of links as a measure--any sort of measure--of a page's worth ("relevance") to a given search inquiry. "We can determine relevance solely from on-page content." That is implicit in the idea that the relevance of the content of page S to that of page T can be determined with sufficient accuracy to make that cross-relevance a determinant in page T's ranking for a term. You can't eat your cake and have it too. If you need links at all to help determine the "relevance" of a page to a topic, how in blazes can you say a link from page S is or is not "relevant" to the linked page T??!? Any child can conjure endless examples of links that are, to any reasonable person, quite "relevant" in some contextual way, but for which the overall content of the linking page is irrelevant to the target page. Does the overall page relevance, or lack of it, really matter to a contextual relevance? Pfui. Till Google can Get Over the idea that their precious "links are votes" theory is a dead horse, and stop trying to whip it back into life, we will have unsatisfactory SE performance.
Hell, that was over a month ago, compar, but I think it was intended as a reply to what Owlcroft wrote... "unsatisfactory SE performance"... more "Google is broken and we should stop using it" stuff...