TheMadScientist - 6:29 am on Dec 14, 2012 (gmt 0)

Great info tedster & MB, thank you both ... This is definitely the direction I wanted the discussion to go.

When you post a page on WSJ, it gets a different 'treatment' by Google than if it were posted on your site.

But, looking farther, why? How? What are the determining factors?

We know G started with a group of 'seed sites' from one of their patent applications (I don't remember off the top of my head which one) BUT even at that, there have to be reliable signals that can be detected via algo to actually do the ranking and make the determination the WSJ is a better choice for the results than [example.com].

Where I'd like to go, more saying than a page on the WSJ site is treated differently, is discussing Why the page on the WSJ is treated differently and there have to be some 'determining factors' to make a distinction between the WSJ site and say CNN or the NY Times or they would all 3 rank #1 for the same queries when they have a page on the topic, which just 'doesn't work'.

And, for one query the WSJ may rank higher than the NY Times, but for another it could be reversed, so there must be variables ... What's are they? What differentiates one from the other for a specific query, but not every query?

We know WikiPedia and Amazon rank very well for many queries, but what are the characteristics they exhibit that are different than other sites, because the algo isn't a person who 'knows what Amazon is', so there has to be some set of determining factors that make it so it ranks very well for many queries, but does not rank #1 for every query it has a page for.

IOW: You can say 'well Google likes them', but even if that's the case, there has to be something algorithmically determined to keep them close to the top, because they're not always at the top, so we know they're not 'programmed as #1 and everything else comes second', which means there must be factors in play they are solid at exhibiting, but at the same time they are also not 'guaranteed' a top spot or they would be the first result for Every query they have a page on.

BTW: Zivush, thanks for sharing and sorry if it seems like I'm picking on you a bit, it's not really 'picking on you', but more pushing for a deeper discussion on things, because I've been reading for years how 'Google likes this site', but the results are determined by an algo which doesn't 'like' or 'dislike' anything, but rather uses variables to make a determination, so I want us to take a bit longer look at what they are or could be (besides links), because MB is right, it's a bit '2002ish' around here sometimes.