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Is there better high serps stability from a large site?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by earlpearl, Dec 11, 2004.

  1. #1
    I was just hit by a thought...and will look at this in greater depth but I'm curious as to your experience.

    Does it appear that larger sites retain their Serps rankings better than smaller sites.

    My site is relatively smaller than its major competitors. We have aggressively moved to first page for a variety of terms, primarily through targeted anchor text back links. In this regard some terms get neglected for a while. I've seen us drop to second page on two terms...I see the same larger...and in some cases much larger sites maintain their positions...and I'm wondering if your experience is that larger sites maintain serps rankings better than smaller sites in general.

    Additionally, the terms where my site is slipping has competition from some enormous sites both in terms of overall size and backlinks that only touch on these keyword phrases in a tangential way.

    Dave
     
    earlpearl, Dec 11, 2004 IP
  2. Tid

    Tid Peon

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    #2
    Tid, Dec 13, 2004 IP
  3. nevetS

    nevetS Evolving Dragon

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    #3
    Older sites seem to be more stable. Also larger, consistently updated sites seem to rank higher in terms where it is applicable.
     
    nevetS, Dec 13, 2004 IP
  4. daamsie

    daamsie Peon

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    #4
    I don't think it makes much difference. Our site has over 100K pages indexed now and it still goes up and down like crazy. In some ways things are perhaps more stable because of age, but I would not think it's the age so much as the ever increasing amount of backlinks that is responsible for that.
     
    daamsie, Dec 13, 2004 IP
  5. earlpearl

    earlpearl Well-Known Member

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    #5
    My site is as old as any of its competitors. We had added an obscure and non competitive phrase with some on page optimization and added just a couple of bls targeted to that phrase...then quickly climbed to first page on google and got some traffic and conversions.

    Just checked it recently and our ranking fell off the side of the earth. While our site is as old as major competitors it is significantly smaller. I was wondering if size makes a difference in maintaining rankings?

    Dave
     
    earlpearl, Dec 13, 2004 IP
  6. Bernard

    Bernard Well-Known Member

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    #6
    The only size that has a bearing on the particular ranking of one page for one search term is the size of that page IMO.

    Search results are ranked according to on-page and off-page factors. I would be surprised if any ranking algorithm gave bonus points to a given page because the domain included some threshold of indexed pages. I cannot fathom any justification for it.

    Likely the main benefit that large sites enjoy is many targeted internal links. Of course, if the large site is actually filled with great content, it should draw a lot of external links into the deep pages and this will help bolster rankings for those deep pages on the terms they target.
     
    Bernard, Dec 13, 2004 IP
  7. SEbasic

    SEbasic Peon

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    #7
    I disagree,

    In my experience, I have noticed that larger sites certianly do a lot better than smaller ones.
     
    SEbasic, Dec 13, 2004 IP
  8. daamsie

    daamsie Peon

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    #8
    I agree that large sites do better, but I don't think it's their age that makes it so. Their extra internal backlinks, combined with a LOT more keyphrases and combinations to target helps a lot. Just the fact that you have multiple pages targeting similar keywords with small variations gives you a much better statistical chance of succeeding in the long run. On a page by page, term by term basis though, I don't think they are particularly more "stable" than a small, well optimised, site though.

    Also, I would think any half serious SEO would try to build a large content-rich site anyway, which means that statistically the properly SEO'd sites are more likely to be large and therefore it might seem that large sites do better. All you have to do is read the famous '12 month plan' by Brett at WMW to see that this is one of the most basic SEO principles.
     
    daamsie, Dec 13, 2004 IP