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Brett says:
"Google has always promoted the .edu and .org sites. We find this runs completely counter to their PageRank algorithm. With .edu's and .org's documents having the least amount of inbound links, it is clear there is a 'hand tweak' given to .org's. If you have .org's you probably can find it outranks its .com's counterpart."
Another piece of evidence comes from a search for the keywords "trade" and "power." The thought here is that these words are used on sites that have to do with free trade issues and the power structure (i.e., noncommercial, student, and activist sites), as well as commercial sites. In checking the top three engines, I find that there are two noncommercial sites in the top ten on both Google and AltaVista, and 3 or 4 in the next 10 for both Google and AltaVista. However, on Fast I see the first noncommercial sites showing up at 46, 68, and 73.
One might conclude from all of the above that at least Google is bumping up domains such as .org, .edu, or .gov, and perhaps AltaVista is as well, but Fast probably isn't.
Do any of you have evidence of noncommercial sites enjoying a bump in their rankings? If so, on which search engines is this most pronounced?
If you agree that this is happeing, then if someone claimed that some search engines are doing this out of self defense against SEO manipulations, what would your reaction be?
I think a search on North Carolina [google.com] will confirm that Google gives them preference. In this case (NC), I'm particularly sure of it because I'm familiar with some of their web efforts (or lack of them). They wouldn't know SEO if it bit 'em.
>then if someone claimed that some search engines are doing this out of self defense against SEO manipulations, what would your reaction be?
I can't say it's a defense against SEO, I expect that it's just seen as "a sure thing" regarding relevancy (though not necessarily quality content).
For example, I used "trade" and "power" in my little test, without quotes. They don't often appear right next to each other, so the results were less skewed. Also, each term has a decent chance of showing up in either a noncommercial or a commercial site.
If I had used "free trade" in quotes with "power," then there would be a definite bias toward noncommercial sites.
Or even without quotes around "free trade," the close proximity of these two words would provide extra ranking when they showed up on sites, and these sites would tend to be noncommercial sites.
So "north carolina," with or without quotes, was not a good test.
Out of curiousity, I ran eleven states, all single words. These included Florida [google.com], California [google.com], Hawaii [google.com], Arizona, and Colorado... five of the hottest travel and/or real estate terms in the web business. In 100% of the cases, Google filled most or all of the Top10 with gov, org, edu, and com sites. The com sites are the official sites for states, btw. I know some used to duplicate their .us site (spamming), but I didn't check that this time. I don't have a doubt that Google is bending the algo in their preference. Taking a look at Florida and California, I'd say that hand-tweaking was involved.
Sure, particularly at Google and to an extent at AV.
>For example, I used "trade" and "power" in my little test
If you are looking for evidence that non-commercial sites are receiving a rankings boost then you are looking at the wrong terms. You need to look at key words that are targeted by commercial organisations, so in this case North Carolina is a much better phrase with which to test. Try some popular brand name drugs, that will give you a better feel for the "boost" effect.
>search engines are doing this out of self defense against SEO manipulations, what would your reaction be?
hehe, manipulations. I don't think it is solely that, many of the SE's will have a list of "trusted" sites etc. In the same way as we as individuals make value judgements based on an organisations trustworthiness so will they. I certainly have no problems with .gov's etc being given a rankings boost although some may argue otherwise. I suppose it depends on how much you trust the source, but as I am sure you need no reminding, the .gov sites etc have their own agenda's just in the same way as a commercial site does. The ultimate judge of this tactic will be Joe Surfer, if they are happy with the SERP's they will continue to patronise the SE, if not they will move on.
Add MSN to the list. I just ran North Carolina, California [search.msn.com], and Florida; the SERPs were similar to Google's, stacked with state.us sites. In fact, the state site was listed as #1 Featured site. It looks like Expedia gets the #2 featured slot, listed as the state's Guide. (That's MSN.expedia.com, btw.)
I've noticed since the word got around that linking to or from .edu sites will boost ranking that suddenly .edu sites are starting to rank a lot higher. Whether this is a rumour or not it has definately helped increase ranking for a lot of .edu sites.
By the way I have also heard that you will get a big boost if you link to my site at www... (just kidding).
But I think rumours like this can have a landslide effect.
Remember, that was from data almost a year ago, just after Google dropped in on Yahoo. Most of that data completely deprecated now. Google has changed enormously in the last year. I've not done that type of data capture since then Doofus, so I can't give real statistical differences, but the changes are enormous.
They've added the adwords program, been through several rounds of intentional manipulation of page rank, people have pr calculated down to 10thousands of a percent and know how to manipulate it now at will. That has changed the algo dramatically. What was weighted heavily last summer, is a different reality for them today.
Do I stand by that data from last summer? Sure, after Googles first public build in the spring of 98 at 25million urls, the majority of the DB was .edu based. That carried over for almost two years.
PageRank is not just a numbers game, it is a quality game too. One look at the little green bars in the Google directory can be a big clue.
I believe a recent study showed that only 20-30% of the people that use search engines are looking to purchase something now or are doing product research. If that is the case, shouldn't 80% of the results be to noncommercial sites?
I also notice that when edu's link to my pages the effect is noticeable, even if the rank of referring pages is low. I suspect Google considers links from edu's as a strong indicator of authority/integrity/reputation or whatever pagerank intends to measure. It seems justifiable in my book, if your site is a resource provided by college and university professors to help teach their students.
I found a .gov site earlier that was listed first under a two word phrase. It had 55 inbound links (most from other .gov sites). The next site had 23k links and the thrid had 8k links. That's pretty convincing to me.
Onya
Woz
Wht wouldn't SE's give them a boost?....they can assume that these sites are going to be relevant to their topic, and they are going to have quality and legit information.
ooh...I hope so...I've just had a professional organisation email all their 150+ members at UK universities suggesting they put a link to us from their web pages :)
Anyone want a link from my edu site?
