Big Corporations

Do they get more weight in Google SERPS

[Visit Thailand]

For a few years one of our sites was ranked number 1 in a search with 2,310,000 results, then CNN came in and took over the top 2 places, and now it seems that USA Today has taken over 3 and 4th place (this may be temporary as the results differ from www/www2 etc.) Previously USA today were around 8th.

While all links are accurate CNN and USA today (much less so) get the double page deal, with the first link relevant to search term and the indented second result for the home page and more results from.

This has now pushed our site down to 6 !!

My question is, as the page in question is heavily optimised do you think Google is giving a heavier weight to such major news organistions (and American ones) than smaller (non US) companies and pages ?

Our site features the search term in much more detail and updates more frequently.

[Robert Charlton]

A while back I posted a thread in the Research Topics forum about physicist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi and his book "Linked: The New Science of Networks."

[webmasterworld.com...]

Barbarasi examined Google as well as other random networks. One of his observations relates to Visit_Thailand's question:

Barabasi maintains that it is an inherent property of all networks that "everybody connects to the more connected nodes.... it's the rich get richer syndrome." While some societies try to control this by limiting the amount of wealth individuals or companies may have, it's not just Google's algo that favors large and well-funded sites.

That's not all Barabasi has to say, of course... but in light of Visit_Thailand's situation, the fact that Google reflects real life may not be encouraging.

[chiyo]

Visit Thailand - do CNN and USAToday have better Page Rank? That would explain it.

Robert's contribution is interesting too and relates. I would guess that CNN and USToday would have a better chance of getting backlinks (especially from "partners" and other sites owned by them) than a local smaller site.

[nutsandbolts]

Simple answer, yes they do. But it can also work well for the "Little guys". For instance BBC News almost always link to sites related to the news story and with their super-high rank of 9, it can only be a good thing!

(mind you, Worldcom.com has a rank of 9.... blimey!)

[Robert Charlton]

I don't think that Google is changing its algo for the major news organizations and in that sense showing favoritism; but, as I've indicated, heavily linked sites on Google tend to rise to the top. Linking's not the only factor, though.

There's an excellent discussion of the big guy versus the little guy on the "Page Rank is unimportant" thread:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Among others, check out WebGuerilla's post, #14, where he looks at why the top sites are where they are.