Estimating the Distance Between Two Rankings

[akreider]

If you are ranked #2 in Google for keyword1, to get some idea of how far you are from the website that is ranked #1, I am hypothesizing that you can use stemming.

Do a Google search for ~keyword1 and that will show you how many sites rank for words that are similar to your keyword.

For instance, in my case, I rank #2 for my keyword. Another site ranks #1. But when I search for ~keyword, they still rank #1 but I fall to #7! When I do stemming, there is only one additional word that comes up as being highlighted in the search results. Thus on average, my ranking should fall to #4 or so (because there are twice as many sites that might qualify - actually my ranking should fall to more around 3-4th because the sites that rank for both terms are often the same).

As my ranking falls to #7, I assume that there is a "larger than normal" gap between my site and number one position which means I may have to do a substantial amount of work to beat them.

I'm not sure if this would work for two-word terms, because the stemming function might not work.

Is my analysis right? Is there anything else that one could learn by doing this?

Aaron

[prairie]

Hi Akreider,

Unfortunately I don't have the expertise to comment on your stemming example, but have you compared the sizes of these sites?

I suspect that larger sites tend to rank better, or better more easily, because they have a greater ability to generate their own (internal) PR.

[notsosmart]

That is an interesting question.
My answer is, always has been, and always will be, worry about your site, and forget everyone else.

But still, it would be interesting in theory to come up with a way to accurately measure how "far part" two pages are for the same keyword.

Oh, but wait, that would mean deconstructing the algo.

WASTE OF TIME!

(Unless someone comes up with the answer, in which case I'd gladly hear it! :-) )