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The recent G changes favor larger sites with DMOZ listing and links coming from larger sites with DMOZ listings.
Mom and Pop selling homemade candy on the internet may be looking for some other line of work soon as will thousands and thousands of small webbers.
This change in Google's algo no longers serves the internet as a whole - but gives a step up for the big to get bigger and the small to stay away. Granted, anyone can claw their way to the top, but the playing field is no longer level.
Most of the top G search results favor listings in DMOZ which frowns on any type of affiliate site. It's also a listing that can be very hard to get because of under-staffing at ODP. And in many many cases people just don't know it's important!
Most of the top G search results favor large sites with hundreds of pages rather that a dozen or two - even though small sites bring some of the best content to the web.
Most of the top G results have links from other sites that are also listed in DMOZ and are large as well.
This is a major change from G's previous policy and practices.
With Google's changes and Yahoo's need for a Gold Card the interent may be facing a new and interesting path.
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1. Imagine there was no Google SE...Imagine that there was no SE out there on the web, Period.
Irrelevant hypothesis. If this were the case there would be no web as we know it and we would certainly not be here discussing it.
2. Next Scenario: Louise owns a pizza joint in New York City.
Once again this is not really relevant. I mean it may happen but we are not yet at the stage where we would use the Internet to find a local Pizza parlour.
But you can bet your arse off that Louise is going to be griping and complaining about why her site is not listed #1 for that search. I mean, afterall, she built the site, how dare Google not list it where SHE feels it deserves to be?
I think Louise, being a hardened business woman, would realise that she would only have a case for being top if her site was the best and provided the best information about Pizzas. This is where Google must decide if good results are commercial results or informational results (or directories).
I do not have a DMOZ listing, yet I appear #1 for my given main phrase in Google.
Don't hold your breath, your turn will almost certainly come depending on how small your niche is. Unless there is any link between Adwords and SERPS but we have been assured that this is not the case.
Google's algorythm consists of likely hundreds of variables. I'm sure all those Phd's can do a lot better than just plunking DMOZ listed sites at the top of all the SERP's...I mean, let's get real here.
You are correct in this. I have evidence that an entry in DMOZ does not guarantee a good ranking. The PHD's can do a lot better but there are so many variables involved in the algorithm (with an "i" btw) they can only do so at the expense of many sites who should feature better. It's a bit like "friendly" fire. They are willing to accept that they are going to shoot some of the good guys.
WRT to Adwords, these are fine if your business can afford them and good good luck to you with your campaign. However this thread is about Google's natural results and the consensus on this forum seems to be that they could do better (albeit a biased consensus). There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that the public are beginning to notice the inconsistency. They and only they will eventually decide if they are willing to accept different results every other time that they use Google.
This is only a small point but one which could be used as another criticism of current results. My memory is not great and when I can't remember a domain name and I am looking for a website that I have viewed previously I often use some words that I know will appear on that site. Let's say "randomly coloured widgets". It gets a bit annoying when the site cannot be found because Google has dropped it 200 places in the rankings.
I don't think that I am alone in this and it remains to be seen if the public are willing to tolerate the ever changing swings that have been evident over the last few months.
I believe that Google is archiving large sites with less than PRx to the supplemental index. This would mean very large important sites would continue remain in the index and less important dynamic sites archived into their place.
This could also explain why pages are disappearing and why for some PR is dropping.
All of our smaller sites are fine - they have been re-indexed and are ranking as good as ever. We use no tricks to fool Google they are just well structured and contain a large amount of useful information.
In a few days time our problem site will be re-launched with a small amount of pages themed around a set of important keywords.
I have high expectations for the site by reducing the number of pages as the site is currently doing very badly (and it has a PR of 5).
Our sites have always ranked highly - "tweaking" them for search engines is something we have never done.
