What makes Amazon.com have high ranking?

in almost every product they sell?

[maha]

What makes large retail sites like Amazon.com so powerful in Google? It doesn't look like they SEO the site. Or did they? They are dominating the SERPs just about every product they sell.

Is because they have lots of links to these product pages? Lots of content? What?

[ashear]

Amazon actually has a very large SEO team. They may have room for improvement, however they sure know how to extend their tail coverage.

[ambition]

Also, they are on the google white list. So they take no penalties.

[LifeinAsia]

Not to mention lots of affiliates with links to individual products.

[followgreg]

Amazon is a trusted site (arguably).

[pxc433]

My site is in technology, ranks well, and the Google serps are good - anyone in the front page could do a job for you. So I've not listend carefully to those complaining about the Googles Serps just now and how poor they are...

Last night was a bit of an eye opener though. I have a great pair of 'Oaktrak' shoes and wanted another pair. I'll try Google I thought...

The Serps on Google UK were absolutely rubbish - stuffed to the hilt with ebay listings that had expired or were only partially relevent. The results were just so bad that I went to Y! and MSN. Both of these were much, much better and not polluted with ebay stuff.

If I want to buy on ebay, wait weeks, and then get ripped-off, I'll go to ebay.

[trinorthlighting]

Plus, there is a lot of unique content on amazon that is wrote very well.

[SincerelySandy]

Ambition...

Also, they are on the google white list. So they take no penalties.

I thought the existence of a google "white list" was speculation and not a "fact"?

[randle]

What makes large retail sites like Amazon.com so powerful in Google?

1,340,608 back links

37,981,962 links if you count the internal ones as well.

There’s a lot to getting sites to rank well, but when it comes to Google, its always been about links, and probably always will be.

Also, they are on the google white list. So they take no penalties.

I don’t know if there is a white list or not, but I do know that if you get enough independent, naturally grown back links you approach being bullet proof to algo changes and “penalties” (which more often than not are not penalties but filters/changes).

[Silvery]

Also, they are on the google white list. So they take no penalties.

Wouldn't you only need a whitelist if you were doing something wrong?

Undoubtedly their quality score is very high, they have great content on their pages (book pages, at least), they have a longterm seniority on the net - so no sandboxing, and they have tons of inbound links. All of these are a formula for success.

[annej]

What makes large retail sites like Amazon.com so powerful in Google?

It's not just retail. I think it's the size along with a lot of inbound links. I find the same is true of Wikipedia and About.

The inbound links don't have to be to the individual page. They give the site strength then the sites are so big that their own interlinking has a lot of clout too.

[cmarshall]

One word:

MONEY

When your whole business model is based on the Web, and you have lots of bucks, you spend a significant percentage of your capital in profile development.

[ambition]

Sandy,

I was told by a google engineer. A white list exists.

[Terabytes]

(rolls eyes)

[Bewenched]

If Amazon is on a white list then we all might as well give up. Amazon is hardly even selling the items themselves... they are simply just a shopping portal now days.

Sad really .. I used to like shopping with them, but they will literally let anyone sell on their site no matter how bad their feedback is and they will remove bad feedback for stores if they want to. I've had feedback that I placed regarding terrible customer service, not getting a refund on an order that Never shipped and more.

Maybe they are paying google ... just like ebay is paying them. ... oh .. they call it "partnering" just another word for pay off!

[ambition]

Yes, they are all paying Google, so are some of the users here, and so are a lot of my clients. When you spend a huge amount per month on adwords, you get your own Google rep. You can call them any time, etc. Not to sound harsh, but they are a business, and people paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars per month for ads will get better service than us small timers. That doesn't mean we can't compete, we just have to find more resourceful ways of doing it.

[Quadrille]

Amazon has probably the largest affiliate network on the web, and until a couple of years ago, most of the affiliate links were html links to the Mother Ship. That no longer applies, and it'll be interesting to see if their dependence on iframes reduces their status at all - mind you, the number of links quietly persisting in forgotten corners of long-established sites will keep them in clover for years to come.

Plus Amazon is a trusted site - in every sense of the word - and their sites are much 'cleaner' than many of their competitors. An Amazon link in the serps rarely takes you to an irrelevant page, and they don't seem to throw up pointless duplicates like so many dynamic sites.

Having said all that, while Amazon routinely appear on the first couple of pages, beating them in your own niche is not particularly difficult.

[potentialgeek]

It took amazon ten years to SEO their URLs with embedded keywords! It used to have really funky URLs. Who was the poor #*$! who had to redo the entire site and its 1,000,000 addresses?

Seems to rank better after the URL updates. Now everything is keyword-based and multi-hyphenated. Which also looks a bit funky or clunky like an amateur blog.

Early entry as an affiliate business of course helped amazon a lot. Accidentally, of course, since it was pre-Google, when links meant little in the SERP world.

p/g

[ClintFC]

If Amazon is on a white list then we all might as well give up.

Anyone who feels this way, might want to go ahead and give up. The google white-list is a fact of life. Fact is, without it, they couldn't get away with 90% of their recent changes.

The vast error margins in all of their "intelligent" spam-filtering are happily tolerated because any sites that would be embarrasing to Google if effected are simply white-listed to immunity.

[ambition]

Yep, take for example a very well known internet movie database. They have about 6 urls for each page, but there is no duplicate content penalty or pr split on them. Once you achieve a certain level, the filters either don't apply or are seriously toned down.

[MrStitch]

It'd be nice if there were some sort of White List handed to manufacturers based in the U.S. (or properly corresponding countries)

In my market, if you key in such and such manufacturer, half the time you get links pages. And since I just started the SEO gig for my company, I have to battle G's algo to gain their trust. Stupid...

[ambition]

Actually, most small sites will never be on the list. So as someone else said, if that bothers you you should get out of this game. Only the top echelon will ever be trusted that highly.