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Google has dramatically changed the way they rank pages in the last few years. What worked once upon a time does not seem to work now. What worked before? PageRank and keyword rich incoming links. Webmasters just swapped keyword-rich links, bought high PageRank keyword-rich links etc. Optimized sites could dominate the results.
In my opinion, Google has introduced new ranking scores that operate mostly on whole sites and lowered the weight of some of the older page-based scores. Some sites get high rankings for almost anything . I have noticed that the rankings to all my pages within a site jump/fall uniformly. Basically these new scores tell Google how reputable/trusted/quality is a whole site and these factors influence the rankings of all pages of a site.
When your site (not page) gets a higher overall domain score, you get more traffic/rankings to all your pages and vice versa. These new domain based scores are connected with the infamous Sand Box effect. To me, a sand boxed site is a site with a low general domain score.
How did Google change the weight of the older factors (PageRank, anchor text)?
1. Google de-emphasized the weight of anchor text keywords. Why? Because that makes it harder to rank internal pages. Webmasters tend to link more to sites than to internal pages. Giving too much weight on the anchor text of links pushes up the rankings of home pages. Webmasters countered this over-emphasis of anchor text with two strategies:
In Google's eyes, when a site has thousands of natural incoming links to the home page and internal pages, this site must be of very high-quality and even the internal pages with zero incoming links deserve to rank high. That can be achieved by lowering the weight of anchor text and introducing domain based quality scores. I also think that Google spreads the anchor text value of links to all related pages on a site. What does it mean? If you have 3 pages about widgets, an external link to one of the widget pages with anchor text "widgets" may also help the other two widget pages.
2. Google in my opinion has changed the way they calculate PageRank. I believe the toolbar PageRank does not reflect the real way they calculate PageRank at all.
Consider this fact: when you get a high PageRank with site-wide incoming links, your rankings don't get the same boost, as when you get the very same high PageRank with links from a lot of unique domains. The toolbar PageRank is useless.
In my opinion, Google has introduced new ranking scores that operate mostly on whole sites and lowered the weight of some of the older page-based scores. Some sites get high rankings for almost anything . I have noticed that the rankings to all my pages within a site jump/fall uniformly. Basically these new scores tell Google how reputable/trusted/quality is a whole site and these factors influence the rankings of all pages of a site.
When your site (not page) gets a higher overall domain score, you get more traffic/rankings to all your pages and vice versa. These new domain based scores are connected with the infamous Sand Box effect. To me, a sand boxed site is a site with a low general domain score.
How did Google change the weight of the older factors (PageRank, anchor text)?
1. Google de-emphasized the weight of anchor text keywords. Why? Because that makes it harder to rank internal pages. Webmasters tend to link more to sites than to internal pages. Giving too much weight on the anchor text of links pushes up the rankings of home pages. Webmasters countered this over-emphasis of anchor text with two strategies:
In Google's eyes, when a site has thousands of natural incoming links to the home page and internal pages, this site must be of very high-quality and even the internal pages with zero incoming links deserve to rank high. That can be achieved by lowering the weight of anchor text and introducing domain based quality scores. I also think that Google spreads the anchor text value of links to all related pages on a site. What does it mean? If you have 3 pages about widgets, an external link to one of the widget pages with anchor text "widgets" may also help the other two widget pages.
2. Google in my opinion has changed the way they calculate PageRank. I believe the toolbar PageRank does not reflect the real way they calculate PageRank at all.
Consider this fact: when you get a high PageRank with site-wide incoming links, your rankings don't get the same boost, as when you get the very same high PageRank with links from a lot of unique domains. The toolbar PageRank is useless.
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