Can brand be more powerful than links?

[santapaws]

its become very evident in certain sectors that some sort of branding relevance is contributing heavily to serps position. For example a widget+area search where large widget sellers have a widget listed both on the main site, the regional site and then a dedicated widget site all 3 domains will rank together and grouped together. I wonder what this brand grouping says about the future and its spread into all commercial areas. A further crowding out affect of niche sites and non-brands?

[tedster]

Have you checked backlinks for those co-branded sites? When I think I've found an example of brand domination, it often goes back to backlink strength in the final analysis.

[santapaws]

the examples im seeing are too widespread for this to be link power to my eyes and often the dedicated widget site has few links. To me there is clear grouping which cant be coincidence of ranking factors IMHO.

[randle]

When I think I've found an example of brand domination, it often goes back to backlink strength in the final analysis.

Tedster, anything significant you see in the “backlink strength” of these branded sites that appear to have gotten the Vince boost? Despite Google’s denials to the contrary, the more we look at it, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Many branded sites rose in ranking, during a specific time frame (or the non branded sank however you prefer).

I’m a believer that when it comes to upper echelon sites in Google, back links pretty much determine where you rank. So, to your point if it is back links, what changed relative to the types of links that point to these branded sites? If it’s the links, some added weight must have been given to something about them. (or back link profiles of non branded sites became less significant)

Something changed relative to many branded sites, and where they rank, around the same time.

[tedster]

I suspect that what we are calling "brand" is another way of looking at links, rather than a factor that's more powerful than links. I don't think there's anything "brand new" here, but rather a kind of re-weighting of data that were already in use.

It may well be one of those "start with a hand picked seed set and learn from there" metrics. If I were trying to reverse engineer this change, I'd look at the types of sites in a domain's backlink profile for some kind of a trust and/or authority factor. Established brands are usually going to have a kind of breadth and diverstiy of trusted link citations in their backlink profile, and on the websgraph they're going to be closer to other sites of the same type.

[santapaws]

but for me we are talking about 3 separate domains (in many cases)with very different link profiles that belong to the same one brand consistently being grouped together in serps. I dont see a coincidence of algo factors resulting in them having identical weight individually and returning in 3 consecutive positions. I could swallow that if it was one example of one site and/or search but not when its across different searches and different brands. For me a brand is clearly being associated strongly with the searched phrase and then anything associated with that brand (in terms of ownership/relevance) being grouped together. So i believe association is the ranking factor here and that we are seeing the start of factors that are stronger than links for ranking purposes and a glimpse of the future.

[tedster]

Yes, that is quite suggestive, santapaws. I'm glad you brought up the topic and are watching this factor. Let us know if you spot anything more about it - this "brand" or "Vince" algo tweak is still a bit of mystery. It would be interesting if site ownership was one of the factors involved.

[randle]

Anyone else seeing a big jump in this branded boost phenomenon today?

Sure seems like they are playing around with whatever causes this result.

[gusp]

randle, I am seeing this branded boost phenomenon today. A page from a subdomain of a big branded site just showed up today in the SERPs in position #13 for a very competitive keyword phrase. The page has no pagerank and no backlinks from any other sites other than its own big branded parent. I can tell you that I know all the sites in this particular keyword space and this page just popped out of nowhere. The only thing to this subdomain page's credit is its big branded parent.

[gusp]

And none of the pages of the subdomain of big branded site have any pagerank and have no backlinks from any other site other than big branded site. In the space the subdomain is in there is rarely any movement in positions in Google SERPs other than a position or two unless someone gets penalized for paid links since all are very heavy paid link buyers. So this subdomain new comer is obviously getting a branded boost.