Why your competition comes up higher than you in Google natural search

An interesting article in Search Engine Watch on Search Engine Algorithms & Research. The short version for non-members is good, but the real meat is in the members only version where they talk about how the search results are derived. Here’s a nutshell version of what you need to know…

PageRank is not really a factor anymore at Google. Rather a newer algorithm called HITS (Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search) is being used. HITS is link related in a different way than PageRank. HITS looks at the “community” of sites related to a keyword search and derives rank from the links between the community of sites. So, if the “authoritative” sites on a given keyword topic have links to you and you link to other sites on the same topic, you will receive better rank. Conversely, even with good content and other optimization techniques, if you haven’t got good inbound links, your site will not rank well.

Another newer algorithm which is part of the “Florida” update is known as Hilltop. It’s is based on HITS and relies on link anchor text and the text surrounding it. Both of these changes show a shift by Google from keyword independent algorithms to keyword dependence (between members of a community of sites). Sites within the community (linked to each other) will fare better than sites outside the community.

So there you have it; just what we at W3PR have been recommending for months now; for good rank at Google you must have good content, plenty of text links and a healthy amount of relevant inbound links.