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wasim_at_drushti · 07-31-2006, 11:22 PM

The articles had so little link popularity. The link popularity to the articles came primarily from a single link to the "reprint content" page from the homepage, which linked to category pages, which linked to the articles themselves–three clicks from the homepage. The sitemap was enormous, well over 100 links, so its PageRank contribution was minimal. Since these articles were on the site such a short time I strongly doubt they got any links from other sites.brbrThe articles had so much competition. These articles had been reprinted far more widely than the average reprint article, which is lucky if it makes it into a few dedicated reprint sites. As part of my service I had done most of the legwork of reprinting my clients' articles for them. In fact, I guarantee at least 100 reprints on Google-indexed web pages either for each article or group of articles. So that's up to 100 web pages, sometimes more, that were competing with my web page to appear in search engine results for the search string.brbrWhy Do Reprint Articles Get Search Engine Traffic? brYou would think Google would just pick one web page with the article as the authoritative edition and send all the traffic to it.brbrBut that's not how Google works. All the search engines look at factors beyond just the content on the web page. They look at links. Google, at least, claims to look at 100 factors total. Many of these must relate to the content on the page, but not all of them.brbrThe whole experience has given me great insight into what factors Google uses in addition to what we would consider the page itself, and the relative importance of each. brbrWeb page titles (the one in the html title tag) are extremely important as tie-breakers between two otherwise equally matched pages. Most reprinters waste the html title, using the article title as the web page title. Set yourself apart by creating unique five-to-ten-word web page titles that include target keywords.brbrContent tweaks. You can also introduce the article with a unique, keyword-laden editor's note, and finish the article off with some keyword-laced comments.brbrIntra-site link popularity and anchor text (that is, for links to the article page from other web pages on the site) are also important. If you can't link to the page from the homepage, keep it as close to the homepage as possible and weed out extraneous links (try putting all your site policies on a single page).

07-31-2006, 11:22 PM	#4 (permalink)
wasim_at_drushti Senior Googler Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 139 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	The articles had so little link popularity. The link popularity to the articles came primarily from a single link to the "reprint content" page from the homepage, which linked to category pages, which linked to the articles themselves–three clicks from the homepage. The sitemap was enormous, well over 100 links, so its PageRank contribution was minimal. Since these articles were on the site such a short time I strongly doubt they got any links from other sites.brbrThe articles had so much competition. These articles had been reprinted far more widely than the average reprint article, which is lucky if it makes it into a few dedicated reprint sites. As part of my service I had done most of the legwork of reprinting my clients' articles for them. In fact, I guarantee at least 100 reprints on Google-indexed web pages either for each article or group of articles. So that's up to 100 web pages, sometimes more, that were competing with my web page to appear in search engine results for the search string.brbrWhy Do Reprint Articles Get Search Engine Traffic? brYou would think Google would just pick one web page with the article as the authoritative edition and send all the traffic to it.brbrBut that's not how Google works. All the search engines look at factors beyond just the content on the web page. They look at links. Google, at least, claims to look at 100 factors total. Many of these must relate to the content on the page, but not all of them.brbrThe whole experience has given me great insight into what factors Google uses in addition to what we would consider the page itself, and the relative importance of each. brbrWeb page titles (the one in the html title tag) are extremely important as tie-breakers between two otherwise equally matched pages. Most reprinters waste the html title, using the article title as the web page title. Set yourself apart by creating unique five-to-ten-word web page titles that include target keywords.brbrContent tweaks. You can also introduce the article with a unique, keyword-laden editor's note, and finish the article off with some keyword-laced comments.brbrIntra-site link popularity and anchor text (that is, for links to the article page from other web pages on the site) are also important. If you can't link to the page from the homepage, keep it as close to the homepage as possible and weed out extraneous links (try putting all your site policies on a single page).