Taking top 2 or even 10 slots on page 1?

[thehobbster]

So I just had a thought. Let's just consider the top 2 slots on page 1 for now. Many people will write an article and then spin it, making it unique. Say I have 50 pages all ranking #1 on page 1. What's to stop me from spinning those articles, duplicating the backlink process, and owning the top 2 slots? I could have two different domains with two "different" sites, although the content efforts are the same, and the backlinks are automated... Heck, you could even interlink if you wanted to laugh in the face of the powers that be. If you hosted them separately, registered them under different names, who would ever know?

Has anyone tried this? Thoughts?

[Tom Goodwin]

Originally Posted by thehobbster

So I just had a thought. Let's just consider the top 2 slots on page 1 for now. Many people will write an article and then spin it, making it unique. Say I have 50 pages all ranking #1 on page 1. What's to stop me from spinning those articles, duplicating the backlink process, and owning the top 2 slots? I could have two different domains with two "different" sites, although the content efforts are the same, and the backlinks are automated... Heck, you could even interlink if you wanted to laugh in the face of the powers that be. If you hosted them separately, registered them under different names, who would ever know?

Has anyone tried this? Thoughts?

This is actually very common and many of us aim to get the top 2 spots for all of our keywords. My partner Terry Kyle actually discussed this quite a bit in his massive 60 day experiment thread in this forum.

Note though that they don't have to be on different domains, and in fact you generally don't want them to be on separate domains. The reason is that if 2 pages on the same domain both rank on a single page of Google's search results, the lower ranking of the two pages gets an indented listing right behind the higher ranking page.

So, if you have the #1 listing, if you got a second page on that domain to #10, that second page would actually be listed at #2 in google as you get an indented listing for it.

Now, if you tried to rank a page on a second domain, you would actually have to get that page up to #2 in order to rank at #2.

Here is an example of an indented listing for squidoo (#2 and #3).

Google

The page ranking #3 could actually be valued by Google at anywhere from #3 to #10 ( you don't know), but gets boosted up to #3 as an indented listing behind the #2 page.

Now, Google actually recently made an announced change that will allow more than 2 pages from the same domain occurring on a single search result page.

Tom

[Social-Media-Marketing]

Actually you don't have to get a 2nd page on the same domain to #10 for it to show up as an indent to an existing #1 ranked URL on the same domain. A second page that would have ranked 30th or 40th for that targeted keyword phrase in the SERPs could be shown as the #2 indented listing for your #1 URL. This happens VERY frequently for sites who implement Theme Pyramids as their site architecture.

[Tom Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Social-Media-Marketing

Actually you don't have to get a 2nd page on the same domain to #10 for it to show up as an indent to an existing #1 ranked URL on the same domain. A second page that would have ranked 30th or 40th for that targeted keyword phrase in the SERPs could be shown as the #2 indented listing for your #1 URL. This happens VERY frequently for sites who implement Theme Pyramids as their site architecture.

I'm not saying I disagree with this, per se, but I would love to see an example of it.

Tom

[Google.me]

If you have 50 pages on one domain why not just optimize for sitelinks?

Gets you noticed and makes you look more authoritative dnt you think that will be more easier.

[Liam Hamer]

I once had 8 slots on the front page of Google. My own site was number 1, and the other 7 were made up of press releases, articles at article directories and web 2.0 properties. Admittedly, this was a lot to do with it being quite a weak and new niche, but it still felt really good. The articles were spun versions of articles that were on the site, and the press releases were spun too so each one would be unique

It's obviously a good thing to have more than one listing, but I personally wouldn't spend much energy building backlinks to anything(i.e articles at article directories, web 2.0, press releases) other than my own domain.

[Social-Media-Marketing]

Originally Posted by Liam Hamer

I once had 8 slots on the front page of Google. My own site was number 1, and the other 7 were made up of press releases, articles at article directories and web 2.0 properties. Admittedly, this was a lot to do with it being quite a weak and new niche, but it still felt really good. The articles were spun versions of articles that were on the site, and the press releases were spun too so each one would be unique

It's obviously a good thing to have more than one listing, but I personally wouldn't spend much energy building backlinks to anything(i.e articles at article directories, web 2.0, press releases) other than my own domain.

Having more than 2 really becomes important for brand searches (people searching for you company name, web site name, etc.) Dominating page 1 with as many of you domains, sub-domains, Twitter profile, FB profile, etc. will help to keep any negative press on page 1.

[Social-Media-Marketing]

Originally Posted by Tom Goodwin

I'm not saying I disagree with this, per se, but I would love to see an example of it.

Tom

I was SEO Manager for LendingTree for several years, and saw this happen time and time again. I would have a page that really wasn't focused on a given search phrase but ranked in the top 30-50. Then I would throw up a page focused on that same search phrase, get the new page to page 1, and suddenly it has the other page as an indent.