Does Google favor bigger sites?

[Steadyon]

I have been full time marketing on the internet for the last 3 years.

My most profitable sites have tended to be the slightly older ones that have more content.

I know there are other factors involved, such as what I am selling on each site, but I have noticed that for my sites in the same niche, the ones with more content tend to rank higher and lead on to more sales.

Has anyone noticed whether they get an extra boost if they have say 50 pages on their site, or a 100 etc.

I remember reading somewhere that when a site gets up into the range of 200 to 300 pages or more, google can tend to spider more often and appear to give the site an extra boost.

At the end of the day, I know constantly adding fresh content is key, but I was wondering if it may be better to concentrate on one site for a few weeks, then work on another and then work on another, building up the volume of pages on each etc.

Should I hit one site intensively, rather than a few articles here, then a few articles there etc.

Obviously, this is only a part of what's necessary and marketing of the site and conversion and other things are very important.

I am just looking from the point of view of size of website (number of articles and pages etc.).

Can anyone shed any light on this ?

Building sites and quality content takes time and effort no matter which way one does it. So what would be the best strategy?

I know it is a difficult question, but is it generally better to have say 4 big sites, each with 250 pages of different good quality content. Or have 100 sites each with 10 pages of different content.

In total the volume of content I have created is the same, but what do you think google would most likely prefer?

I hope my question makes sense.

Thanks.

[chrisc58]

Hi there,

A quick reply as I am off out.

I beleive it takes time for a website to be established on the internet. With meta tags etc. it will deffinately help. Not only that try free ways of advertising. Word of mouth for example.

[Steadyon]

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate it.

Does anyone else have any suggestions about the points in my first post ?

Cheers.

[D Ambrose]

It's got to do with many things. However one big factor that Google rank your site is how many other "big" sites (or bigger than yours) link to you.

The older your site is, the more chance someone knows about it and links to it.

[Hail-To-The-Redskins]

There are several factors (and no one knows for sure outside of Google) as to the exact formula as to why sites rank higher than others, and WHAT exactly produces page rank.

Even the page rank indicator on the Google toolbar is ONLY AN APPROXIMATE indication of your site's page rank.

However, that said, many studies and tests have demonstrated that certain practices really help. One of these is comparing older domains and newer domains (of equivalent size etc) against each other. In the majority of cases, the older domains will generally rank higher.

Another key factor is the number and quality of incoming links and the anchor text also contribute to page rank.

Outgoing links are also important ... too many and will dilute your page rank and so 'reciprocal linking' strategies are not really a good idea.

But you're quite right when you ask about content ... as this is perhaps the biggest key to achieving authority status as far as Google is concerned. A site that is full of original, good quality and regular content, that other authority sites are linking to, is going to rank well in Google. So the more content you have, the better, and so the larger the site, the more content it SHOULD have I guess.

I hope this answers your question.

Regards,

Simon

[Kay King]

My most profitable sites have tended to be the slightly older ones that have more content.

That's the key right there. Time and weight (content) add value to a site.

The time factor makes sense when you consider how many new sites are added daily (hourly?) and are never updated or promoted and thus never gain any value with the SEs.

kay

[Thomas]

Re: Does Google favor bigger sites?

I gave up trying to understand the workings of Google when I realised that, in my top niche, my no. 1 affiliate, who outpulls all others combined, and even generates twice the traffic that my own natural listings do, has only 5 pages of 'just-ok' content that hasn't changed in nearly 5 years... has only a moderate number of backlinks... doesn't have a URL even remotely related to the niche... and, in fact, has those articles hosted on a site where the index.html page bears NO relation to the niche whatsoever.

And, despite all that, he has skittered between positions 2 and 6 in the natural listings for my primary keyword for as long as I have been monitoring it (which is about 5 years).

What I wouldn't give for his secrets...

Tommy.

[Steadyon]

Originally Posted by Thomas

What I wouldn't give for his secrets...

Tommy.

Maybe his DAD works at Google!!!

Thanks eveyone for your ideas.

I think older sites can be better, partly because they may have more links in general, but perhaps because google may think there is less chance of them being spammy or crappy. In other words as google has probably been spidering them for years with no real problems then they get given a bit of a boost.

I seen some of my newer sites rank quite well at first but then drift down quickly after a few weeks or months and then over a longer period of time start to climb back up again.

I have especially seen relevant keyword rich domains continue to rank well for its own keyword phrase.

In other words, for example smalldogtraining.com should always tend to rank well for "small dog training" so long as everything else is ok.

[carlos_a]

Google likes "unique sites" and not so much "replicated sites". That means learning about building your capture page may be a great benefit to your business, and not to mention rich content is a must.