It seems like links no longer count

Sites with hardly any links ranking on top

[reggy]

Since about february i have noticed Google rank sites that hardly have any links at top position in a particular industry.

These results have been seen across hundreds of different searches - am not saying the sites arent relevant but its more like they were handpicked bcos the backlinks are too few compared to the more established sites

In one example a site currently ranked No1 (since about march)for a TOP TOP single keyword here are some of the stats gotten from SEO for Firefox:

Registered: April 2006
Pagerank: PR4
Alexa Rank: 763 (this has shut up probably since the new rankings)
Yahoo Directory Listings: 2
Yahoo Links: 514
Yahoo Page Links: 517
Google Links:758
Cached Pages:1890
Supplemental:1800
Delicious Links:55
.edu links:0
.gov links:0

But meanwhile the site which used to be No1 which is now 6 here are the stats:

Registered: June 2000
Pagerank: PR5
Alexa Rank: 27
Yahoo Directory Listings: 4
Yahoo Links: 51
Yahoo Page Links: 33
Google Links:1940
Cached Pages:6510
Supplemental:4290
Delicious Links:55
.edu links:0
.gov links:0

This same thing can be seen across a no of searches - is anyone noticing this is any industry and what could be the reason for this?

[Halfdeck]

It doesn't matter how many IBLs you have to a site/url if the anchor texts have nothing to do with the search term its not gonna rank.

[theBear]

The PR4 site has more links than the PR5 site does so it just may have a larger number of links with the keywords that count in them or they are from better related sites than the PR5 site has, that along with other factors puts them at the top now.

One needs more information than that to figure out what is going on.

For example does the PR5 site have any issues, one that I have seen cause problems is when a page gets completely duplicated and Google gets confused as to which page is which. I'd also expect a larger drop than you are indicating, but hey I'm just tossing possibilities out there.

That shouldn't happen, but I wouldn't say it doesn't, and I could find more than one or two folks to attest to it having happened in the past.

To catch moving serp placements, that is this quest and Google says try if you wish, others say ignore the little green bar and write content.

[reggy]

Halfdeck the anchor texts on the site that used to rank No1 match perfectly and they vary as well

[centime]

New no 1 site advantage

4 yahoo directory links to 2 yahoo links for old site

1940 to 758 google recognised links

I may be missing something here, but the answer kinda jumps out at me

[reggy]

centime u did miss something - thats the old no1 site's stats that you just stated

[optimist]

These may depend on the terms, from what I am seeing sites with lots of blog links are ranking well and even outranking sites that have maintained the top of the SERPs for years.

Check for high Yahoo links, Google backlinks are really just for show.

[reggy]

optimist the yahoo links are listed there as well - ive been watching that old no1 site for about 3years and i know it has way more links than what is been shown

[nonni]

It might be a good thing (at least from my perspective). It could be that measures of link quality are being given more weight. Or that phrase-based indexing or some LSI technique is being incorporated. Or simply adjusting the weights so that links have less of an effect than other factors.

Just read an interview with the chick that is the link-queen at MySpace... she has 1.8 million friends. Right. How many thousands of new 'friends' does she make a day, and what does that mean?
At least the article had some interesting pictures. ;)

Page Rank meant something when the web was fresh. Links used to be a better measure of quality or what users really want than they do today. Only natural to discount their value.

Even though I don't think that certain politicians are that successful, it shouldn't be so easy to Google-bomb them (and all the other SERPs). It's the equivalent of the miscreants electing Carrie as prom queen ... bad things happen.

Save us, Google! Save us from our lesser selves.

[theBear]

reggy,

Don't forget it is pages that rank not sites and that Google's link counts are shall we say less than 100% of what they actually have in their system.