How Special is Your Website?

[TheMadScientist]

People seem to be totally confused about the new quality piece for Google's algo, and I wonder how 'special' the sites of those who used to rank and no longer do really are?

How many sites do you run?

How many sites do: Amazon, eBay, Twitter, FaceBook, WikiPedia, and all the other big players run? Now, again, how special is your website, really? Is it so special you only need one?

I only work on 5 right now, only run 4 of them, of the ones I run 1 is for a separate business, 1 is personal, and 2 are sites I can concentrate on basically full time, 1 of which is noindexed ... How many do you run?

Do you have the latest word press installed? It's a dime-a-dozen piece of software. Nothing special about WP ... Do you have the newest directory software on all of them? How many other people do too? How about eCommerce? Do you have the latest osCommerce or Zen Cart installed with friendly URLs? You and how many 1000s of other people?

Really, sit down and look at your site(s) and ask yourself how special it is when you compare it to the sites the 'big players' build ... Is it close? Is it really the quality of the highest caliber?

None of the sites I saw listed on Google's report a quality site wrongly demoted page were anything 'special' to the point where I thought I would really be missing out if they weren't included in the results ... Not one.

I see so many 'nothing special' sites out there I don't know what people are actually complaining about and I really wonder how honest their evaluation of their own sites is?

If you're wondering why you might not rank like you used to, imo you might do well to sit down, really look at your site, and ask yourself, what makes my site special?

Forget about other people's sites and the sites out ranking yours and trying to chase the algo for another round, and sit and ask yourself what makes your site special and then: what could I do better?

[BillyS]

If you ever used one of the better CMS, you'd realize they are highly customizable - ususally beyond recognition.

I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that it's possible for a part time webmaster to compete with Wikipedia's scale and scope. That said, it's not necessarily sheer volume of content that brings in significant traffic.

For example, I have a skill that not a lot of people possess (and even fewer webmasters). I've used that skill to create features on our website that cannot be found elsewhere. Even if discovered by a potential competitor, they would be very expensive to replicate. That’s my niche, I own it. :)

[TheMadScientist]

I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that it's possible for a part time webmaster to compete with Wikipedia's scale and scope.

Agreed, but then how can people complain when they don't out rank WikiPedia? If they don't have the time, skill or resources to out do them, why should they expect to or be upset when they can't beat them?

Sure, you can go after a few terms they have, but for the most part it's going to be difficult to win even for a few, because they're a monster site and they really have much higher quality content than quite a few sites I've seen for quite a few of the topics I've searched for...

The short version of the preceding is: You're going to have to do it with a high-quality, unique website ... IMO You're not going to beat the WikiPedias of the Internet consistently unless you put a Great website online ... Sorry, but that's reality.

I've used that skill to create features on our website that cannot be found elsewhere. Even if discovered by a potential competitor, they would be very expensive to replicate. That’s my niche, I own it. :)

And that's exactly what I'm trying to convince people they need to do ... Find something different, new, outside-the-box their competitors aren't doing, because imo that's what's going to help the small website get those few terms they want or need away from the big guys ... For the most part they can't go toe-to-toe, content-for-content or product-for-product and hope to win against WikiPedia, Amazon, etc. so they're going to, imo, have to do what you've done and think outside-the-box a bit and find a 'unique way to win' the traffic they want.

Does traffic follow rankings or do rankings follow traffic?

IMO It's an interesting question, but if you develop a site people want to visit and talk about because it's new, unique, different, it doesn't matter if the rankings come, because you already have traffic, but my guess is they will.

[wyweb]

@netmeg

Global Domination via reign of terror.

LOL.. not gonna happen kiddo.

Thanks for playing though....

[wyweb]

but then how can people complain when they don't out rank WikiPedia? If they don't have the time, skill or resources to out do them, why should they expect to or be upset when they can't beat them?

They can't. It would take an extraordinary amount of time, skill and resources to get around WikiPedia.

All WikiPedia has done is put me down one notch for some of my keywords. That's okay. I use their site on a regular basis so I'm thinking it's a fair trade. They haven't hurt me, nor are they capable of hurting me. I own some pretty tasty keywords and phrases and they haven't been able to touch those. I doubt they ever will.

WikiPedia is a good source of information. There has been controversy in the past, editors running their own agenda, bias, etc...

Get your information from them and confirm it from another source. That's what I do.

Although if that WikiPedia piece cites 20 references, and many do, I may just run with it.

[Dan01]

Wikipedia does dominate. A few years ago Google introduced their Sites. I remember people were speculating that this was their solution to Wikipedia. At that time I didn't think much would happen, and it didn't. Sites never really panned out.

[tedster]

Dan01, are you thinking of Google "Knol" - rather than "Sites"? To me, Knol is more in the Wikipedia direction.

[Dan01]

Yes Ted, that was it. Knol was their solution to Wikipedia. I never posted on it, but I also have never seen it pop up in the results.

Thanks Ted, that is the type of thing that makes this site better than the rest.

[tedster]

I do occasionally see a Google Knol when I'm doing deep research - and I've been very happy with what I've read. When it comes to areas of scholarship (rather than consumerism) I also find Wikipedia a solid resource and a good place for an overview of a topic that is unfamiliar to me.

[Dan01]

Yes, I usually go to Wikipedia first to get an overview. I also check the footnotes if I am going to use their info for my publications.

Google opened Knol up to "scholars" first before they opened it up to everyone. I was hoping it would take off and give us an alternative to Wikipedia.

I saw a comparison between Wikipedia and Britanica once. Although Wikipedia had more errors, they had fewer errors on a per-word basis. There was a lot more content on Wikipedia too.

[tedster]

With regard to the specialness for the sites I work with, I don't build sites unless there is something unique about the offering to begin with. I usually focus more on content more than functionality, and that content works more as a whole than as individual pages. In other words, scraping pages wouldn't reproduce anywhere near the total value that the site offers. And if someone tried to steal the whole site, well that's a very easy legal case for me to make.

That describes the kind of client who I prefer to work with, too. Consulting for "Just Another Widget Store" will not be the kind of contract I go for. There's got be something special about the store, or at least something special that we can surface for the visitor.

[netmeg]

Exactly.

[TheMadScientist]

For those who use off-the-shelf installations of software or are considering it and haven't been by the home page yet, here's one of the big arguments I have against it: Website performance issues [webmasterworld.com]

This is on a real-world, working site, and please note some of the issues discussed can be found in, you guessed it, "everyone's favorite" yet one of my least: WP

ADDED: Amazing to me in how most people don't seem to factor in the cost of 'free' software ... It's called hosting & headaches ... IMO The poster with the performance issues (and likely many others) could pay for some well written software once, have something totally unique and save significantly on the hosting and headache time ... They're only getting 300 visitors and 600 page views a day, but had to get a bigger box? How much does their use of Joomla really cost? This year, and next year, and the year after, and...

[Dan01]

OK, I checked some old SERPS today. I used to rank #4 for a series of keywords, but over the years that ranking dropped to #8. It was old content - no big deal.

Today I compared my ranking compared to just after Panda. I dropped two spots on the ranking, so I checked to see who outranked me.

You guessed it - two simple Word Press sites. The first thing I thought of was this thread. LOL My site is not a WP site but a Drupal site that is unrecognizable as being Drupal. Very custom.

Even funnier - both of those sites referenced my research and mentioned my website by name. One even linked to my site and scraped my content.

Now there are a couple things that could have happened.

1) My content was old and hadn't been updated.

2) Their ranking could be temporary. Sometimes Google will pull some site to the first page temporarily.

[Dan01]

I just checked their Alexa ranking and their inbound links. They rank in the millions (very bad ranking). LOL One had a Huffington Post inbound link, but so do I.

I think there is more to it than a custom flashy website, "in some cases".

[edited by: Dan01 at 12:47 am (utc) on Apr 5, 2011]

[TheMadScientist]

LOL - Yeah, there are always the 'other cases' ... And obviously, uniqueness is not everything, but imo it's 'something' ... I also try to not only look at today and what works right now, but rather what I think has the best chance a few years from now as things tighten up even more than they already are ... My thoughts may be something, or maybe they have no bearing, but, still, imo, moving ahead, 1,3,5,10 years from now there will be something to be said for uniqueness of the template footprint, because the more things get 'cluttered up' the more variables they are likely to use to try and draw a distinction between ranking pages and sites, and quite a bit of the 'big' and 'name brand' sites I see ranking now have what appears to be a unique footprint...

[TheMadScientist]

Hmmm... [webmasterworld.com...] Point 2 seems two be right along the lines of this thread, in a same, only different sort of way...

[Dan01]

UPDATE: I was just looking at Adsense and was wondering where the money was coming from for one article. I went to Analytics and found the entrance keywords. I then typed the keywords into Google and I couldn't find my site. Why?

Because the traffic was coming from Bing.

Remember the keywords I was talking about a couple posts up? Well, I typed those into Bing and my site popped up in the number two spot.

Analysis - Bing put me higher than other sites that scraped my content. I think Panda dinged me because I allowed guest posts a few years ago. Perhaps those guests were linking to junk sites.

I think this is an instance where Panda caused lower quality results.

I think the lesson of Panda is to never allow guest posts AND never link to other sites. NEVER. I have other sites that I didn't allow guest posts on and I don't hot-link to sources. They were not hammered.

[bluntforce]

I have quite a few pages on one site that link to other sites, not because of recips but because they're probably of interest to users.

Panda didn't seem to have any problem with that.

I've never had much issue with outbound links, if they provide additional information for the user, isn't that the underlying concept of the Web?

[Dan01]

I think if you are linking to a site that is higher in rank it is a good thing. If you link to lower ranking sites, it might not be so good. If you do it too much you might be considered a content farm. Content farms typically used for link building.

[viggen]

...i think madness is breaking out...

don`t do this and don`t do that, do this,this, this and that but not this while doing that other thing although no one is really sure anyway, but remember tomorrow everything we don`t know could be totally different again, and no one is going to tell you...,

how is anyone actually managin to run a proper online- business these days, without consulting a fortune teller? ...

...running a website makes the job of a brain surgeon look simple... ;)

[edited by: viggen at 8:06 am (utc) on Apr 5, 2011]

[bluntforce]

Typically I'd say most of the links would be going to sites that would have a lower PR. That's sort of the point, the sites not might be found on a generic search, but links from me are provided if they provide information the user might find beneficial.

If you don't understand the difference between outbound links for the benefit of users and a content farm then you are destined for difficult times.

[Dan01]

I quit accepting guest posts over a year ago. I don't have time to evaluate every poster and every site they are going to post a link to. Basically I was helping others pull their site up through the SERPS.

As per linking to other sites - The big guys don't link to little sites. Danny Sullivan brought that up in one of his entries. The NY Times used his research but didn't give him or his site any credit. They used words like a source (or something like that).

But to throw a monkey wrench into this - one of the top sites on the Panda Update is a series of links day-by-day. :) But they were linking to higher ranked sites: SEW, SEL etc.

[DanAbbamont]

WebmasterWorld was a great technical feat, but I don't have any doubt that being on a proprietary platform is hurting it now. OK, it uses flat files, written in Perl, whatever, but updating the user experience to match what comes standard on vBulletin would be massively expensive, and you'd have to do it all over again to match up with the next generation of forum software when that's available.

I'm not knocking WebmasterWorld at all. Out of all the webmaster forums, this one has the best posters and the best content. When it was created, an off the shelf CMS wasn't an option. For the love of God, however, if you're planning on starting a forum, or a site that doesn't REQUIRE custom coding, go open source. Even for custom apps, deal with the extra hardware overhead and use an MVC framework.

Other than that, I totally agree about everyone complaining about their special sites. Just because you wrote your own article about how to get rid of oily skin doesn't mean it's any more valuable to the end user than whatever page on eHow has the exact same information.

As far as Amazon goes, it's a fantastic site. The people selling on there are the mom and pops. If you're trying to outrank them to sell the same products for a higher price, I don't feel all that bad.

[TheMadScientist]

...I don't have any doubt that being on a proprietary platform is hurting it now...

Out of all the webmaster forums, this one has the best posters and the best content.

There seems to be a contradiction in your post ... It can't be both, imo.

If vBulletin and bells and whistles were a benefit, not only am I sure Brett could switch to vBulletin if he wanted, I'm sure he could code his software to include all the bells of any other site ... The best posters are here for a reason, and if 'shiny bells' were a 'better, necessary user experience', somehow I'm sure they would move to the 'shiny bell' sites, but for some reason they don't, and I have a guess it has to do with user experience.

I do wish he would hurry up and give us our custom css back though! lol

[DanAbbamont]

Well, there's just a few annoying things like there being no quote button on posts. I don't doubt he could code that stuff, and the hardcore obsessive nerd in me loves the idea of hacking away in perl using text files, but the professional developer in me is horrified being that time is money!

I think people come here just because of the track record of good quality discussion. The other forums are full of completely clueless people telling each other what they want to hear.

[TheMadScientist]

Actually, if I remember correctly, there's a reason there's not a quote button, and it's because Brett watches forums very closely and when there is a quote post button the threads often wander off topic...

[DanAbbamont]

That actually sort of makes sense.

[dickbaker]

Well, there's just a few annoying things like there being no quote button on posts.

What, it's too much trouble to type "quote" "/quote" in brackets? ;)

[DanAbbamont]

What, it's too much trouble to type "quote" "/quote" in brackets? ;)

Well, it's just that I have a habit of coming on every few days and in the big threads there will be several things I want to reply to, but I get lost with all the scrolling and page loads.

It would be so much easier to wander off topic in several directions with some cool ajax stuff!