Do some sites get preference over others by Google just because? Grandfathered theory
-
So I have a theory that Google "grandfathers" in a handful of old websites from every niche and that no matter what the site does, it will always get the authority to rank high for the relevant keywords in the niche.
I have a website in the crafts/cards/printables niche. One of my competitors is http://printable-cards.gotfreecards.com/
This site ranks for everything... http://www.semrush.com/info/gotfreecards.com+(by+organic)
Yet, when I go to visit their site, I notice duplicate content all over the place (extremely thin content, if anything at all for some pages that rank for highly searched keywords), I see paginated pages that should be getting noindexed, bad URL structure and I see an overall unfriendly user experience. Also, the backlink profile isn't very impressive, as most of the good links are coming from their other site, www.got-free-ecards.com.
Can someone tell me why this site is ranking for what it is other than the fact that it's around 5 years old and potentially has some type of preference from Google?
-
Hello,
I understand clearly what you mean, and I can say I was on the other side.
I was among the first ranking in a smaller country for the most popular "blog" related queries. The page was a part of a more general website, was very solid and solved most of the problems for users searching for those particular queries. Most of the people were clicking my search result and they were pretty satisfied by what they got there. The website was old school, layout old scool. I had amazingly attractive title and meta description, I basically nailed it.
Then bigger brand names and huge websites were launched on the same queries. Solving way more problems and dealing with the matter in a new way. But I was still the first. Brands with pagerank 5 to 7 were competing with my page with no/or close to zero pagerank. I did not even have a fraction of their links and authority. I even laughed seeing that year after that I rank 1st above these big guys, they were on 2nd, 3rd and so on. A lot of years passed and I was still the first. It was really funny. And I tried to learn from it.
Then I decided to refresh and modify the layout, because it was old school. I had some problems with internal linking and domain was down for a while. Then somebody hacked my server and I got some stuff injected there. I solved most of the problems, it was not easy. But when I got back I lost the top spot. There were a lot of changes, but the URL and the content of that particular page was exactly the same.
So, from personal experience I can tell you that things can change.
I had the following:
-
I was the first to cover that area
-
a lot of users were clicking on my website - CTR from webmaster tools was amazingly high, and bounce rate was low
And I can tell you that one of those ranking factors talked about a lot on seomoz - "User Usage and Traffic/Query Data" weigh way more than people think. At least from my experience. Anyway, try to ask yourself the following questions:
-> Are the differences between your website and the old one significant? Do the users see them in the search listing and do they consider them of significant importance? If not, try to give them a 10th times better reason to click on your website, and also give them what they want (sometimes the bounce rate has something to say about this, but not always).
It may look like Grandfathering, it's really hard to dismiss or confirm it. At first I thought about it the same way you do. However, first it would be very nice to answer honestly and from the user's point of view to the above questions.
Good luck!
-
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What is the best way to eliminate ghost traffic from Google Analytics?
Hey Mozzers, I just wanted to see how you all deal with eliminating Google ghost traffic sources from Google. I tried setting up a RegEx 'include' list before, but it seemed as though I was blocking potential traffic sources when I did as much (I'm probably missing something here). Anyway, I'm interested to read how you all have dealt with this issue in the past, thanks for reading!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maxcarnage0 -
Got Google Manual penalty full Spam on my website
Here are Moz Metrics: http://prntscr.com/as3fp6 Site Url: www.financialprospect.com DA- 40 PA- 48 Spam Score - 0 RD- 68 Links No Loss in Backlink Profile I think my site is having much more spun content so can you suggest me the ways to re-index my site? How can i get my site back to google? Can you suggest any tool which give number of links already spun and then we may delete those posts. Looking for positive reply...!!!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | morisshibu1 -
Getting Spam Links
Hi There, I am planning to Disavow one spam domain but when check Google cache it shows my client domain name. So if I disavow this spam domain which link Google considered? Please help me. Thanks Satla
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TrulyTravel0 -
Competitors Linking to My Site
One of the more successful competitors in my niche has embarked on new strategy that seems to be working well for him. I noticed that many new links began to appear to my site from my competitor's stable of many websites. It appears that he has setup a link wheel to benefit a site that has been in the top Google position for several months now. The rim of the wheel links back to authority sites, including my own main site (established 7 years, now hanging on to the lowly 10th place on the serp). So the strategy seems to be: a) create a dozen sites that no-follow link back to authority sites including competitors, b) place links in a such a manner (bottom of page, uncolored links, from images) that a customer is unlikely to ever click on it, c.) do-follow to your own site and blast it to the top of Google. I don't think this competitor is worried about getting penalized. I've been watching this for years. When one site gets burned, he just shifts things around and brings up another one of his sites. He seems to age them for years, calling them up one by one as they are needed. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it a trend? Because it sure seems to work. He's crowded the front page now with 4 of his sites. Would it be appropriate for me to "disavow" his links? Would it matter?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DarrenX0 -
Can anyone recommend a Google-friendly way of utilising a large number of individual yet similar domains related to one main site?
I have a client who has one main service website, on which they have local landing pages for some of the areas in which they operate. They have since purchased 20 or so domains (although in the process of acquiring more) for which the domain names are all localised versions of the service they offer. Rather than redirecting these to the main site, they wish to operate them all separately with the goal of ranking for the specific localised terms related to each of the domains. One option would be to create microsites (hosted on individual C class IPs etc) with unique, location specific content on each of the domains. Another suggestion would be to park the domains and have them pointing at the individual local landing pages on the main site, so the domains would just be a window through which to view the pages which have already been created. The client is aware of the recent EMD update which could affect the above. Of course, we would wish to go with the most Google-friendly option, so I was wondering if anyone could offer some advice about how would be best to handle this? Many thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AndrewAkesson0 -
Pages Getting Deindexed
My Question Is I have 16 pages on my site that were all indexed until yesterday now there are only 3 indexed. I tried resubmitting my site map, and when i did it was the same result as before 3 pages indexed and 13 pages deindexed. I was wondering if someone could explain to me why this is happening and what I can do to fix it? Keep in mind my site is almost three months old, and this has happened before but, it fixed itself over time thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ilyaelbert0 -
Does your website get downgraded if you link to a lower quality site?
My site has a pr of 4. My friends site has a pr of 2 but I think that he is doing some black hat seo techniques. I wanted to know whether the search engines would ding me for linking to (i.e., validating) a lower quality site.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jamesjd70