.edu links seem to count more...

[incka]

I was searching for lyrics (1 search of over 80,000 a day - overture), and in 5th position was a pr5 fortune city site which uses frame...

So I look at backlinks:

link:http://tinpan.fortunecity.com/blondie/313/

And I saw a few .edu sites in there...

Now this made me think...

[Chris]

They don't.

[incka]

You say that but how can you be sure. I'm not saying they do count. I personally still doubt local rank exists, but things like that make you think...

[Chris]

I guess I can't be sure. But what you observed was nothing but coincidence. Its actually a pretty common myth. I'm sure someone at one point did a study to show it wasn't so, I haven't though.

Think of it like this. The number one goal for a search engine is not to rank sites fairly, it is not to help webmasters. The number one goal for a search engine is to provider dumb surfers with relevant results. As such search engines are unlikely to implement anything that does not help this.

Besides, PageRank already takes care of this.

If a site is more reputable/higher quality it'll have more PageRank and thus the places it links to will have more PageRank.

This same type of issue exists for outgoing links.

If outgoing links add to the usefulness of a site then the site will have more incoming links, more votes, and thus it will rank better. There is no need for a search engine to make the decision as to whether outgoing links are good or not, people make that decision and then link (vote) accordingly.

[den haag]

.edu sites don't pass PR???? Links don't count?

[chromate]

den haag, they do count. But probably for no more than a normal link does.

[incka]

Nice to see a member from The Hague, do I know you? Bas? Xia? Werner?

[nohaber]

why would google WANT to give more weight to links from .edu? I don't see a plausible reason

[Mike]

why? because most of the time they are guaranteed to be useful pages.

[Chris]

why? because most of the time they are guaranteed to be useful pages.
Why leave it to chance? If they are more useful they will have more PR and their links will be weightier. (see my previous post).

[Mike]

I'm saying that could be why, not that it is why.

[incka]

I think we are getting into arguments here, we have no concrete data for either...

It makes you think if a PR5 site with frames on a free host can get into the top5 of a term searched close to 90k a day...

[chromate]

Sometimes you get freaky little sites like that. The current #1 for "dating services" is only a PR5 and doesn't even have the word "services" in the title. As a block, the phrase "dating services" is only mentioned 3 times on the page.

I have a front page link exchange with that site and 5 more from other sites on the first page of results. I then have an additional 5 front page links from other sites on the second page of results. All my links use the anchor text "Dating Services" (as that's the name of my site). Yet STILL I'm ranked 165! Don't ask me why. It's just the way things work out. Unfortunately. :(

[ozgression]

Does that then mean there is a penalty for "over optimization"? Not saying that I believe there is, just asking a question. ;)

It makes no sense to me either how such low quality pages/sites rank well for competitive terms.

Cheers...
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[chromate]

I shouldn't think so. Even if there is, it certainly isn't consistent as there are so many extremely "optimized" pages that still rank very well.

I can't figure it out though. Going back to the dating services example, the top site doesn't even use "dating services" as anchor text. It uses "dating singles". It's been in that position for a few months, so it's not a temporary listing or anything like that.

[incka]

I think google prefers old sites... Look at MSN Emotions, get-emotions is always at the top and thats the oldest...