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How do you build your "Authority" sites?

by Wealth Mentor
6 replies
My Observations:

1. All of the most authoritative sites on the internet are static HTML type sites. Mr. Alexa says so. (Sweeping generality, but more or less correct)

2. Those that are not static sites are built on some higher-level CMS like Drupal, etc.

3. Many "Authority Sites" have a blog appendages...but none are built the other way around.

4. The highest authority sites are thus...because they have the most people saying so (i.e. most incoming and powerful links. Not because they have the most scraped content from a million places around the internet.

My Question is:

Do the internet gods (search engines) bias towards HTML sites as "real" websites? And are the majority of marketing type Wordpress sites being treated as only plugin fueled, scaper mashups...eventually being relegated to the spam heap over time?

or to put it another way...

Have we collectively succumbed to a form of mass brain-washing? Whereby we worship at the altar of quick and easy "content generation", link building, and accelerated ranking (temporarily) through the myriad Wordpress hacks, tricks and "tools" being touted and promoted everywhere?

Are we becoming lazy with these "new" methods?? Is this all just a new form of public masturbation?

So, if you have the -- actual experience -- on this issue, and can part the waters on my honest questions...please weigh in.

No flame war, please. No hot coals of fire and fake umbrage. I'm just expressing my observations...which you may/likely will completely disagree with.

Just be nice, please. ;-)

Thanks much...
#authority #build #sites
  • Profile picture of the author Paul Barrs
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    • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
      Originally Posted by Paul Barrs View Post

      Simply put, if a website is still generating most of it's traffic from search engines after 6 months online, then it's content should be put squarely under examination - because it's most likely crap!
      Many sites get the vast majority of their traffic from search engines. I have a number of sites that get over 1000 unique visitors a day from search engines, roughly 90-95% of their traffic, because they occupy a wide range of long tail search terms related to a higher level keyword. The topics are generally 'evergreen' in nature and provide valuable information to visitors.

      This isn't to say that building site trust isn't important though.

      From my own search engine usage when working on programming problems, I'll typically do a Google search first and I know which sites will have valuable answers and which won't based on my previous searches. For example, if I have a problem with regular expressions, I'm very likely to pick Regular-Expressions.info out of the results because I've had good luck with their info previously. However, there may be another site in results that offers a different take that I'd want to look at too.
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  • Profile picture of the author Louise Green
    Good internal link structure, on topic content that's original, relevant and added on a regular basis, and a natural backlinking pattern. And of course time. It's as simple as that - the CMS doesn't matter.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
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    • Profile picture of the author Wealth Mentor
      Thanks Paul, Louise and Alexa. All good directions.
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  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    Originally Posted by Wealth Mentor View Post

    1. All of the most authoritative sites on the internet are static HTML type sites. Mr. Alexa says so. (Sweeping generality, but more or less correct)
    How did you arrive at this conclusion? I just went through the top 100 sites and every one of them uses a content management system and dynamic site generation.

    Originally Posted by Wealth Mentor View Post

    2. Those that are not static sites are built on some higher-level CMS like Drupal, etc.
    Most are actually custom written web server apps with either J2EE, PHP, .NET or plain old CGI running the show. Very few use pre-packaged CMS or ecommerce systems.

    Originally Posted by Wealth Mentor View Post

    Do the internet gods (search engines) bias towards HTML sites as "real" websites?
    First of all, stop deifying search engines. It smacks of cargo cults and voodoo.

    The answer is no, they do not. Today, virtually all professional sites of any size are dynamically generated by a content management system in one way or another. It's simply too expensive to maintain a site of more than a few pages any other way.

    Originally Posted by Wealth Mentor View Post

    And are the majority of marketing type Wordpress sites being treated as only plugin fueled, scaper mashups...eventually being relegated to the spam heap over time?
    It depends but I don't think it has anything to do with the content management system the sites are using. In the future, I think it has a lot to do with cooperative control over the Internet by large corporations and governments that will squeeze the little guys out of business and silence vocal opponents and critics of the political ruling class (aka "net neutering, er, neutrality"). But, until that day comes, what matters are links, more and better ones, and having content/products of reasonable value to visitors.
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