Maybe links aren’t important anymore
This is so so weird, I have had a feeling for a year or so that Google would move away from Links and Pagerank as we know it today. Well I think we are starting to see the first sign of it, over the last few weeks an industry I work in has had a couple of sites take first page listing, nothing new I hear you say, well if I said I knew the history of one site, would that make a difference …
The site has never had any SEO work on it, even in the early days the site was designed without any thought of search engines (and still is) the only thing that ever changed was 5 years ago I pointed out they should change the title tag from something like home page and I sent them a keyword rich call to action, the on page seo looks weak, on page links are either the brand ( no keywords) or view and click:

The site has had no new links of any note, but was covered on the BBC and in the newspapers years ago.. So maybe Google just found the BBC links.. unlikely thou..
It’s dead on theme and in fairness should be in the top 20 at least, but it’s the history of the site that’s interesting me. The site was launched 2000, got a make over in 2003, and nothing else has changed apart from an image on the homepage every 4months which is a picture from the off-line catalogue, the site is a pagerank 4, the owner didn’t know what Pagerank was so I can’t get any historical data on that..
Another site in the same sector just popped in at the same time, I rang the owner of that site as well and the same story..
Take from this very small sample what you like, but at present i can’t see any reason why these 2 site have just taken top 10 placements, anyone else seeing this or am I just going mad !
Dave
22 Comments
SimonV - http://www.kiteboarding-history.com
of course we need to know what domains you are talking about so we can do some more investigation. But for now the only factor can be domain age.
you sure there is no keyword in the domain? and how competitive is this niche?
DaveN
@SimonV there is no keyword in the domain.. I not after people investigate this sector, more has anyone seen it in other sectors
Dave
Vygantas
I am not sure if you know that (bet you should, since you are long in this business as well as I am), but you can hide backlinks.
Richard Hearne
Indeed – seen some quite odd movements, with older domains with what we might consider weak link profiles ranking well.
Question is though – are you seeing this for all sites in that SERP, or just the odd one or two?
And are the rankings stable? Are they shuffling?
SimonV - http://www.kiteboarding-history.com
ok, I know only of examples where the backlinkprofile sucks big time, but that the few anchors present are ok due to a keyword rich url. and I see domains with age getting there in an absurd fast way.
maybe the client 301ed a powerfull domain?(this will show up in google webmaster central sooner that yahoo)
Mikkel deMib Svendsen - http://www.demib.dk
> else seeing this or am I just going mad !
It’s not an either/or question Dave. Just because others might see this too dosn’t mean you are not mad 🙂
I have seen examples like yours, Dave, a few times here in Denmark too. In fact, I am just working with a site at the moment where I see much the same – over 250k visits from Google a month, low PR, few links and top ranks for a lot of competitive keywords. This domain has some age too. Hardly any SEO done (just added a few meaningfull titles recently).
SimonV - http://www.kiteboarding-history.com
same here mikkel.
Gary Beal - http://www.ppc-managers.blogspot.com
I’ve noticed over the past 4-6 weeks that the dramatic changes I see after getting nicely placed links is having little or no effect in the SERP’s.
In fact one client is targeting Germany and The Netherlands Google (.be and .nl) and even when the links are themed and on german or .nl sites they still aren’t moving (with the exception of Yahoo).
I believe this happened around the time that the last wave of devaluation of blog links kicked in but I can’t be sure.
GaryTheScubaGuy
ed - http://www.blackhatdigest.com
I found 6 sites in the top 10 for a keyword with less than 20 links the other day. Sort of competitive – I was quite surprised myself.
I guess we are both going crazy 🙂 but I have to agree that things are changing….
DaveN
Ok you are missing the point the webmaster isn’t hiding anything they haven’t done anything, no one has no sneaky 301’s ..
DaveN
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Rich Pearson - http://www.attributor.com/link_building_beta
Very strange indeed and certainly something to watch, particularly as I am trying to provide SEOs with an automated way to find *high quality* backlinks.
It seems like the older domain theory is the best one.
Andy
Dave – I have noticed a massive fluctuation from July 8th in the financial sector for a number of keywords. All drops (in the top 50 – around 10 of them) fell outside the top 100 and ALL URL’s relied heavily on off page optimisation – not one of the URL had a reference to the keyword term within any on page elements.
Anthony Shapley - http://www.anthonyshapley.co.uk
I have noticed this, although at first I jsut thought it was me I thought hmm… still not seeing xyz.com in the serps, more links ought to sort that out. 3 big purchases later and still no sign. I think you could be right 🙂
JamesW
Im seeing some strange behaviour in my industry too. One site is at the top for literally every location page (around 500) with little seo, lots of dupe content and only 11 site links.
They havent done any special SEO, nothing sneaky…but the domain is 13 years old…
Daryl Clark - http://www.internet-search-marketing.com
Dave,
I can’t speak to this specific situation but I can speak to the opposite situation experienced by a specific client of mine whose business model lends itself to getting .edu links. We launched six new product pages about eight weeks ago and all of those pages are in the top ten already at Google for very competitive keyword phrases.
The situation you mention certainly is puzzling but based on my experience the quality of the link is still playing a dramatic roll. It appears in some cases getting links is like a cat chasing it’s tail since they get devalued almost a soon as you get them. Hope you figure this one out though.
DaveN
@daryl agreed totally think more universal search than organic on this one
AlchemyV - http://www.alchemyv.com
I think going towards age could make sense for Google as it will make the game harder for SEOs out there – it will just make more money for domainers! How this all works out in light of the recent ICANN announcement will be interesting.
Stuart
I’m glad I finally found someone talking about this. I have seen this for a month or so now. It seems like when we get good links it does noting to the SERPS.
I think maybe the link value is devauled and doesn’t get it’s full credit until a specfic time. (1 year??)
Trisha
Haven’t we known for a long time though that we don’t get full credit for links until some time has passed? Maybe they’ve made the length of time longer?
And if links aren’t very important anymore, what is? Age of domain seems to be the only thing anyone has noticed so far.
Lee McCoy - http://www.leemccoy.co.uk
I’m seeing loads of old sites that haven’t changed in a couple of years (at the minimum) taking up some good rankings for Christmas terms!
It’s shocking that “old” is starting to become something great in Google’s terms, even if the sites have very week inbound links.
Murray Newlands - http://www.murraynewlands.com
Google still loves goo links and seems to love things with forthcoming dates