Real Estate Forums

ericbramlett · 11-03-2007, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MCHammered

There is no sandbox.

There is no spoon.

LVH · 11-03-2007, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MCHammered

Link authority, not link age.

I must disagree with you. Link age is very important for major key phrases. The age of a domain name if its live or has been is very important, content age and title tag age are all very important factors for ranking high in very competitive markets.

Point in fact. One of my sites doesnt have many backlinks, they are not what would be considered authoritative backlinks, site domain name was new, but after about 16 months of aging it started to rank...now its top 10 in google for a competitive market and I havent touched the site AT ALL in over a year. This means I havent added links..no new links are showing up in google...I havent changed content, title tags NOTHING.

This tells me anyway that age is important.

ericbramlett · 11-03-2007, 09:22 AM

LVH -

I completely agree with you. Link age/maturity is a concept commonly accepted among reputable SEO's. I absolutely love it when people make wild claims with no explanation.

MCHammered · 11-03-2007, 10:12 AM

I did not see your question Eric, or I would have responded earlier. It was not a wild claim. Link authority is more important than age.

Sites like Zillow and Mattcutts.com/blog are perfect examples.

Both of these sites ranked almost immediately. They were both new, so none of the links had age going for them. What they had were links from authority sites. Matt had links from every authority SE related blog on the net in the first two weeks. Zillow had links from sites like the NyTimes, etc.

With the right authority links there is no problem. The 'sandbox' has been debunked numereous times. What Google has is more of "link quality filter". If this turns into a debate over semantics, I won't play. You can call it what you want. Here is a very good explanation.

Quote:

The problem is, that there is no Google sandbox! It simply doesn't exist.

What there IS, is a growing understanding on the part of Google and other engines that they need to deliver quality results. That means that new sites are going to be judged and "allowed" to rank based on how they compare to the sites that already exist in the index. After all, how many mortgage application sites does Google really need to list? Why should they think that your brand new mortgage site is any more worthy of a ranking than the 1.5 million (yes, MILLION) sites that are already indexed for the phrase "mortgage application."

And Eric, it wasn't fair for me to lump you in with the REW apologists before you had barely opened your mouth. No kool aid for you.

ericbramlett · 11-03-2007, 10:24 AM

Hammered -

Great explanation, and I wholeheartedly agree that semantic arguments are beyond worthless. I think a blanket claim that "there is no sandbox" is a bit of a stretch - it all depends on your definition of sandbox. Many newbies believe that there is a "stopwatch" that starts ticking the minute you have a site up & it is impossible to rank until that clock hits a certain time. I don't believe this - I believe in link maturity & link authority. This operates to create the sandbox, IMHO.

I'm with you on link authority & link age. However, in order to get your site to the level of cutts' blog or zillow, you have to have a large # of on-topic backlinks - and those backlinks must be mature. Again, this is just my opinion. Would I prefer to have a 1 day old link from Zillow versus a 1 year old link from joeblow.wordpress.org? Absolutely - but it's a piece of the puzzle - there are many shades of gray.

MCHammered · 11-03-2007, 10:41 AM

Quote:

However, in order to get your site to the level of cutts' blog or zillow, you have to have a large # of on-topic backlinks - and those backlinks must be mature.

But those links had zero maturity. What they had was authority. And there were lots of them from many sources.

I am freelancing with a client that is building a new site on a domain that is old but with no real links. It fits the scenario of the original question to a tee. I'll get back to you in three months and we can see how it did. I'll provide Mert or Mack with the domain and they can verify it's progress for you, assuming you trust them.

ericbramlett · 11-03-2007, 11:14 AM

I trust Mert - I don't know Mack. I can only verify what I've seen...I started optimizing my main website, which had a site up & content w/ zero links & was able to get it ranking in ~3-4 months. I've done the same thing w/ a brand new site w/ zero links, and it also took ~3-4 months. IMO, for those specific KW's, the competition warrants that you need a few months to let the links mature - I can usually get ~1500 links in that amount of time.

For other, less competitive industries, I think you can hit page 1 in a couple of weeks...I'm getting ready to optimize a welding site (traded some work for it) and I'll let you know how it goes. We're going for Austin specific KW's.

LVH · 11-03-2007, 11:17 AM

Authoratative links can give a site a boost but using Zillow as your example. For a specific very competitive key phrase like say Las Vegas real estate, they could not rank for it without link age, domain age, content age and title tag age.

The primary problem within real estate is getting authoratative links. There are not many links of this nature available today. Sure websites like NY Times, Realtor .com and other authoratative websites dont give out links too freely or are almost impossible to get.

Within the real estate online industry its harder to create link bait for acquiring authoratative links. Zillow sank 100s of thousands of dollars in to their launch so sure thosae dollar figures are going to attract companies like the NY Times..where as Jhon Doe Realtor spending 1 to 5k to create a website will not. IMHO