Why is it that news and newspaper websites seem to have extreme authority in Google? I understand that they have new content being adding every day, but other than that...why are they so powerful? I'm talking very small student newspapers have the kind of power to put up a page and be ranking for it immediately. We're not talking the New York Times website, we're talking small newspapers with PR5s and less ranking for some very competetive terms, very quickly. Would it be possible to setup a news website just like this and eventually become such an authority? Please expand on any thoughts or observations you have found on this.
Not only do they have UNIQUE content coming online consistantly, but usually their domains have been around for a while...which fall in line with the whole "domain-age" issue at Google. Also, since these sites have been around for a while, and have unique content going up daily, they get linked to by a lot of other sources on the web, so more then likely they have a lot of links going to their sites. Yes, it would be possible, but do you have the resources? Can you provide valuable content on a daily basis?
I figured one of the big things would be the age of the domain. Daily unique content would be possible for the power and revenue potential of an authority site, but the age thing could pose a problem.
It is unclear how Google would actually "know" the site was "news." (incoming anchor text w/"news" notwithstanding) One of my sites has news in the domain name, yet another is very much a magazine and does not. Another issue here might be "feed." Google, like Yahoo and others are now looking for news-like feeds and both will take applications for becoming a carried "news" source - with VERY vague criteria for inclusion. IMHO, what has been posted above has much to do with it with respect to new content and that content getting links. Not so sure about domain age though. In my experience with G & Y, it has always been those high PR'd incoming links that made all the difference in the world to showing up on the radar, in all respects, for new sites, not just news sites.