Website Structure to Build Topical Authority?

[knn125]

How to create a website to build topical authority in SEO?

Which pages like homepage, blog posts need to be assigned as Pillar Page and Content Clusters/Supporting Pages?

Can you provide website examples who build topical authority at its best?

 

[tazarbm]

I think you're confusing topical authority with site structure...

Topical authority simply means that your site covers only one topic. For example, if your site is ONLY about pets then pets is the topical authority. But if your site is about pets, tech, food, lifestyle, cars, etc... then you cover a lot of DIFFERENT topics, therefore google doesn't see you as an authority in your niche (on your topic) because you don't cover only one niche / topic, therefore you lack topical authority, therefore you'll struggle to rank.

Of course, news sites also cover lots of topics and yet, they still rank. Why this happens I've no idea, but I can guess it's because google have different rules and exceptions for different niches and sites... and even for keywords in many cases.

But anyway, if you only stick to 1 topic you will have gained topical authority automatically, you don't have to stress about it

Here's more on topical authority if you need:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/a...e-question-what-is-topical-authority.1450324/
https://www.oncrawl.com/technical-seo/importance-topical-authority-semantic-seo/

But site structure is different to topical authority, and - apparently - this is what you need help with since you're asking about pillar content.

Well, the way in which you will structure your site is always different and varies from one type of site to another. For example, business sites are structured differently from content sites, but also differently from classified sites, and from job posting sites, and from directory sites, and from movie streaming sites, and differently from ecommerce sites, and from image sharing sites, and from file hosting sites, and from tube sites like Youtube or Vimeo, etc...

So, as you can see, the way in which you will structure your site usually depends on what type of site you're going to make, so there isn't a way that's written in stone on how to structure your site as it depends on the type of site you're going to have, but also on the topics and keywords you wish to cover.

If you have your topics, sub-topics, and keywords ready you can PM them to me (if you're confident doing this, of course), and I can suggest a good structure for your site.

 

[Steptoe]

Check out this guide, it should cover what you're looking for and more: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/seo-siloing-2023-the-last-siloing-guide-youll-ever-need.1502244/

 

[Linker11]

To build topical authority, create a pillar page ( a comprehensive guide on a core topic) and link it to content clusters (related blog posts or supporting pages). Examples of websites excelling in this include Neil Patel, Backlinko, and Moz.

 

[NeedMyLink]

Topic authority and site structure are different things, but they are related. To become an authority on a topic, you need to choose a narrow niche. For structure, it is better to use pillar pages and content clusters.

 

[GenesisOne]

Keyword clusters will give you a good idea of your site structure.

 

[RoyRoyan]

Everything should start with analyzing the Top 10 in Google for your target keywords. Study the site structure, pages, content, and article topics. Based on this, build the structure of your own site.

From my experience, Google seems to take into account the presence of pages like About Us, Contact, Author Info, Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy, Cookie Agreement, and similar pages.

 

[roydan]

I think you are talking about siloing rather than topical authority. There's a guide by @splishsplash that covers it pretty well here.

 

[GODZILLA ADS]

You can do that, for example, if you have a niche, then sub-niche and probably sub-sub-niche(if there anything like that - but you should understand what I mean).

For your sub-sub-niche, get your keyword cluster on it and write content for the keywords. Cross-link within those keyword clusters and link back to your sub-niche.

Do what you did above regarding your sub-sub-niche for your sub-niche. Cross-link within your sub-niche and link back to your niche.

 

[splishsplash]

I think you're confusing topical authority with site structure...

Topical authority simply means that your site covers only one topic. For example, if your site is ONLY about pets then pets is the topical authority. But if your site is about pets, tech, food, lifestyle, cars, etc... then you cover a lot of DIFFERENT topics, therefore google doesn't see you as an authority in your niche (on your topic) because you don't cover only one niche / topic, therefore you lack topical authority, therefore you'll struggle to rank.

Of course, news sites also cover lots of topics and yet, they still rank. Why this happens I've no idea, but I can guess it's because google have different rules and exceptions for different niches and sites... and even for keywords in many cases.

But anyway, if you only stick to 1 topic you will have gained topical authority automatically, you don't have to stress about it

Here's more on topical authority if you need:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/a...e-question-what-is-topical-authority.1450324/
https://www.oncrawl.com/technical-seo/importance-topical-authority-semantic-seo/

But site structure is different to topical authority, and - apparently - this is what you need help with since you're asking about pillar content.

Well, the way in which you will structure your site is always different and varies from one type of site to another. For example, business sites are structured differently from content sites, but also differently from classified sites, and from job posting sites, and from directory sites, and from movie streaming sites, and differently from ecommerce sites, and from image sharing sites, and from file hosting sites, and from tube sites like Youtube or Vimeo, etc...

So, as you can see, the way in which you will structure your site usually depends on what type of site you're going to make, so there isn't a way that's written in stone on how to structure your site as it depends on the type of site you're going to have, but also on the topics and keywords you wish to cover.

If you have your topics, sub-topics, and keywords ready you can PM them to me (if you're confident doing this, of course), and I can suggest a good structure for your site.

It’s hard to say why news sites rank since all of them are authority sites, and authority sites tend to rank for anything.

That’s because Google weighs trust signals higher than topical authority now.

There were periods when this wasn’t true.

2016 to 2019 was a period dominated by authority but from LINKS. So it wasnt trust but power. Back then they considered power = trust.

2020 to 2022 was the era of topical authority. I would regularly see dr 30 niche sites outranking dr 80+s.

AI content messed that up for everyone.

Now the signals are more like:

Trust | page satisfaction signals > links > topical authority

Trust is a hard block now. If you dont pass you just flatline.

Links are the most important after you pass trust, but if you fail the page satisfaction signals you drop.

Topical authority is almost a waste of time now.

You actually hurt your site more now if you create too much content so there’s a fine line between topical authority and abuse.

I would even to so far as to say they have abandoned signals related to topical authority post HCU. It is a useless signal now in the AI age if you think about it.

Siloing is still useful because you make your site easy to crawl, navigate and understand. It also helps juice flow. Relevant internal pages linking will still likely pass more juice.

If site X links to site Ys page about training dogs, and the dog training page links to a page about dealing with aggressive dogs and one about cleaning a goldfish tank, then logically you can assume site X is indirectly passing more of a vote for the aggressive dog page, than the goldfish page.

Like if i say “joe’s burger place has good burgers” you can assume their hot dogs are pretty good too without me saying it, but their pizza? The recommendation would carry less weight. What about Joe’s real estate company?

It’s likely internal juice flow would work the same and from an engineering standpoint very easy to implement with machine learning.

 

[tazarbm]

Now the signals are more like:

Trust | page satisfaction signals > links > topical authority

Thanks for the tip... Also, I assume that - as with google's most of everything - trust is also a vague, non-quantifiable term that only google knows what it means... sometimes. Because, I personally have no idea how to identify trust...

Topical authority is almost a waste of time now.

across all niches??? I find this hard to believe, despite of the fact that you are the expert here and I'm but a mere mortal

You actually hurt your site more now if you create too much content

yeah, this one had been apparent for the last 1-2 years

I would even to so far as to say they have abandoned signals related to topical authority post HCU. It is a useless signal now in the AI age if you think about it.

well, since I can't think about it (because I refuse to believe in anything AI-related) I will take your word for it without question on this one

Siloing is still useful because you make your site easy to crawl, navigate and understand. It also helps juice flow.

yep! Believe it or not, I was trying to build well-siloed sites before 2010 when I first got into SEO and before the word "silo" was even being a thing in SEO... or maybe it was, but I've not heard it... or I don't remember

The point is that I have always cared about having clean, organized sites, but I've attributed this to my organized nature, when silos have become important for SEO I was just like "meh, whatever"

If site X links to site Ys page about training dogs, and the dog training page links to a page about dealing with aggressive dogs and one about cleaning a goldfish tank, then logically you can assume site X is indirectly passing more of a vote for the aggressive dog page, than the goldfish page.

seems right...

It’s hard to say why news sites rank since all of them are authority sites, and authority sites tend to rank for anything.

maybe it's hard to prove, not hard to say because google probably have 100s of rules for 100s of cases (niches, keywords, sites).

Like, for example, in this thread that I responded to, it's clear that nobody can rank for that keyword since keywords like these are reserved to google's partners only:

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/g...ting-is-getting-more-and-more-fuc-ed.1693559/

So, for such a keyword there's a rule. And we all know (or at least I assume that this is common knowledge) that small sites get penalized for rules that big sites can break without problems. I'm referring here to having too many ads above the fold, having annoying stuff like popups, unskippable video / audio running in the background, etc... about 2 years ago I have even seen broken URLs and 404 pages ranking top 5 in google just because they belonged to HUGE sites like Cosmopolitan. It wasn't Cosmopolitan, but it was another big site in the fashion & beauty niche that I was researching back then...

So yeah, I assume that google have rules / exceptions for news sites, too since they have so many personalized rules for so many things...

Anyway, thanks for the tips!

 

[splishsplash]

Thanks for the tip... Also, I assume that - as with google's most of everything - trust is also a vague, non-quantifiable term that only google knows what it means... sometimes. Because, I personally have no idea how to identify trust...


across all niches??? I find this hard to believe, despite of the fact that you are the expert here and I'm but a mere mortal

It is quantifiable. It's just not obvious without looking at a massive amount of data. I'm still in the research phase so I've not formulated a working theory yet, and this is actually one of the hardest ones to form a working theory on. I have a hypothesis. But I don't write guides based on hypotheses.

Once my AI content creator is finished I'm going to run a massive series of experiments to test my hypothesis. As I don't steal other people's work, I'll reference https://x.com/Hobo_Web as being very influential in helping me build a hypothesis. I'm also segmenting groups of sites and looking at them to narrow in on what's important to be considered trusted.

Hobo(Shaun) specifically differentiates between different types of entities. Disconnected, bloated, greedy, unknown and spam.

I specifically agree or disagree at this stage on that aspect. That could be labelling phenomenon that occur as a result of the algorithm rather than specific classifications.

I do think there is some sort of trust flag that is switched on or off.

It's not that I think topical authority has been "switched off".

But I think there are more layers built around it now that have higher weighting.

Ie,

Trust is now far more important. Here's an example of a site.

I won't disclose the URL in public. I'll give it in pm to you(and other execs or jr execs if they want), but no one else. I don't believe in disclosing people's sites as it's someone's livlihood. Only authority sites I'll disclose publicly.






This is an ecom site.

As you can see, they have essentially no links.

US and UK traffic. non-branded keywords.

2.6k traffic from INFORMATIONAL(this is key)

501 commercial and 162 transactional.

99.9% non-local.

Now, look at the graph. They haven't been hit by a single update.

Their page 1 and 2's have been steady. Slight traffic spikes, but almost no change in page 1/2. The spikes are only because of normal movement of keywords. Spikes are more common if your traffic is from less keywords.

They didn't get hit by Dec 2024 either.

They went from 275 page 1's and 47 top 3's to 250 page 1's and 63 top 3's. So really all that happened here was they lost 25 page 1's and gained 15 top 3's.

They have a total of 161 pages.

And here's the bit that'll amaze you.

They have heavy use of AI content.

It's not 100%. It seems to be a mix of heavy prompting with some human mixed in.

If I had to guess I'd say it's the company owner prompting and editing. But there are massive chunks that are pure AI.


Now, I can guarantee you they don't rank because of topical authority.

You would fail to rank if you tried to replicate this with a pure info site using the most amazing human crafted content.

Pure info sites don't seem to work anymore. They need to have a real business purpose other than just content, with or without ads.

Ie, if you want to rank an info site about persian cats, you have to show Google you're a real business of some sort and those articles aren't created to just monetize.

There's likely other ways you can do it.

If Google can see you're a vet, then you can probably rank an info site about persian cats.

But if you're just an info site with an about page, some fake name and photo and a story about how you love persian cats, you're just not going to rank.

Expired domains also get hit if they change topic. They will not rank if Google thinks they're no longer connected to their original purpose.

Not in every case, but you're not going to be able to get a DR 50 auction domain that was a marketing company's website, and then rebrand that as a "Best Marketing Tools" type site where you review SaaS companies and expect to just rank.

You could absolutely do that in 2014, 2015 all the way up to 2022-2023.

You would need to put the site back up as that marketing company, with a lot of the original content and really try to show google you are the same company, and then expand from there.


So that's just a little insight into my thinking and why I make the statement that topical authority is a waste of time.

A waste of time because there are other things related to trust that are going to get you far more traffic. If you miss those and focus on topical authority you just won't rank.

 

[tazarbm]

But I don't write guides based on hypotheses.

of course

I won't disclose the URL in public. I'll give it in pm to you(and other execs or jr execs if they want), but no one else. I don't believe in disclosing people's sites as it's someone's livlihood. Only authority sites I'll disclose publicly.

no need to send me the URL, but thanks!

Now, look at the graph. They haven't been hit by a single update.

yeah, that's the first thing I noticed after the DR 0.9.... But I think sites like this are rare nowadays.

I'm blind-guessing, but I'd say you won't find more than 5% of the total sites you research that are this lucky, so I think they're the exception rather than the norm.

And here's the bit that'll amaze you.

They have heavy use of AI content.

It's not 100%. It seems to be a mix of heavy prompting with some human mixed in.

If I had to guess I'd say it's the company owner prompting and editing. But there are massive chunks that are pure AI.

it only amazes me if they were using AI since 5 years ago when this AI craziness took over in the last 2 years or so according to what I've noticed. But had they been using AI for 5 years without getting penalized now that is impressive indeed...

Pure info sites don't seem to work anymore. They need to have a real business purpose other than just content, with or without ads.

yeah, I've noticed this too. Google simply doesn't like anyone who doesn't wear suit and doesn't own a business, and this enrages me even more. They basically force everyone's behaviour and this is criminal offence and psyop against humanity. No matter, the time when they'll pay for this is near...

Ie, if you want to rank an info site about persian cats, you have to show Google you're a real business of some sort and those articles aren't created to just monetize.

nah, we don't have to show google anything except for the middle finger.

And no, I'm not combating you, I'm combating google's criminal acts, while at the same time I'm agreeing with you

Expired domains also get hit if they change topic. They will not rank if Google thinks they're no longer connected to their original purpose.

I know, it's one of last year's google updates that made this rule...

Not in every case, but you're not going to be able to get a DR 50 auction domain that was a marketing company's website, and then rebrand that as a "Best Marketing Tools" type site where you review SaaS companies and expect to just rank.

that's weird... to me these 2 niches seem very related and I would have sworn that you're safe

So that's just a little insight into my thinking and why I make the statement that topical authority is a waste of time.

you said earlier that TA is obsolete because of AI (which I assume you meant google's generative AI), so what if you find niches in which google's AI doesn't intervene yet? Will TA be useless in those niches too?

A waste of time because there are other things related to trust that are going to get you far more traffic. If you miss those and focus on topical authority you just won't rank.

multi-trillion companies only trust the dollar, man. That's their only God.

But no matter! I'm still curious to read your findings on trust, maybe they'll change my views on this elusive metric

All these being said, thanks for sharing the tips with us, the rookies. In what concerns me I'm very appreciative of them even if I don't always agree with, or fully understand them, they're still welcome!

Good luck with your research!

 

[splishsplash]

of course


no need to send me the URL, but thanks!


yeah, that's the first thing I noticed after the DR 0.9.... But I think sites like this are rare nowadays.

I'm blind-guessing, but I'd say you won't find more than 5% of the total sites you research that are this lucky, so I think they're the exception rather than the norm.


it only amazes me if they were using AI since 5 years ago when this AI craziness took over in the last 2 years or so according to what I've noticed. But had they been using AI for 5 years without getting penalized now that is impressive indeed...


yeah, I've noticed this too. Google simply doesn't like anyone who doesn't wear suit and doesn't own a business, and this enrages me even more. They basically force everyone's behaviour and this is criminal offence and psyop against humanity. No matter, the time when they'll pay for this is near...


nah, we don't have to show google anything except for the middle finger.

And no, I'm not combating you, I'm combating google's criminal acts, while at the same time I'm agreeing with you


I know, it's one of last year's google updates that made this rule...


that's weird... to me these 2 niches seem very related and I would have sworn that you're safe


you said earlier that TA is obsolete because of AI (which I assume you meant google's generative AI), so what if you find niches in which google's AI doesn't intervene yet? Will TA be useless in those niches too?


multi-trillion companies only trust the dollar, man. That's their only God.

But no matter! I'm still curious to read your findings on trust, maybe they'll change my views on this elusive metric

All these being said, thanks for sharing the tips with us, the rookies. In what concerns me I'm very appreciative of them even if I don't always agree with, or fully understand them, they're still welcome!

Good luck with your research!

They're not rare. They're very common. You have to ask 5% of what though? 5% total traffic? 5% total sites? It's hard to quantify.

In terms of traffic, yeah, probably about 5%.

In terms of number of sites, a lot more than 5%.

But even at traffic, I don't know. 95% of common traffic, but 95% of total? There's so many searches out there. Most of us are only being exposed to the really common stuff like "best toaster" or "best laptop".

The site isn't anywhere near 5 years old.

It launched in Dec 2021, so it's a little over 3 years old.

But, it had only 32 pages in March 2023.

The 100+ other pages it built came after that.

Looks like they experimented with more too. They had a spike up to 340 pages in July 2024 which they must have removed now.

Ah, but that's the thing, being "related" isn't enough.

Think about it. As a human, if you look at a site that was a marketing company, and then suddenly it's now a best marketing tools site, you aren't going to think "Oh it's the same company." -- You're absolutely going to know "That's an expired domain and someone's repurposed it"

If you see a site that was a marketing company, and it's still a marketing company, I can trick you, a human.

It's a really easy way for Google to catch expired domain abuse.

It's not obsolete because of AI itself. It's obsolete because of HCU, which is in response to the internet filling up with AI generated spam purely to make ad revenue.

Topical authority is a great way to judge the quality of a site pre-AI.

If you can create 300 articles covering a niche in-depth, then statistically speaking you're probably going to have producued something of value. This wasn't easy for spammers to do.

It's super easy to do with AI, so it's no longer a quality signal. Actually the opposite now. If you have too many articles in a short period of time it's a sign you're using AI generated spam.

I just don't see topical authority having any effect anymore. In practice with clients.

You're welcome, and thanks!

 

[tazarbm]

5% total sites?

this is what I meant. 5% of the total sites that you research might behave like the one you've shown, but I've made this number up based on my perception of what I'm seeing, so I'm not surprised that / if it's inaccurate...

In terms of number of sites, a lot more than 5%.

got it!

Think about it. As a human, if you look at a site that was a marketing company, and then suddenly it's now a best marketing tools site, you aren't going to think "Oh it's the same company." -- You're absolutely going to know "That's an expired domain and someone's repurposed it"

precisely because of the fact that I'm thinking like a human I can say that refusing to rank sites because they've changed owners or niches is stupid at best, blatant manipulation at worst.

Any normal human being doesn't give a rat's ass what a domain is / was / used to be / will be in the future, they just search for something in google, they find their answer on a random domain whose history is unknown to them / they don't care about, and they move on with their life. It's none of google's business what sites are, or used to be, they should focus on providing the best value THAT ALREADY EXISTS ONLINE IN WHICHEVER FORM IT EXISTS to their searchers, not lure people with illusions of traffic into shifting their mentality and actions towards making life easier for google's AI (which I feel is the direction that SEO had gone in, in the last decade)

And again, just because I get so worked up when I type such arguments it doesn't mean that I am attacking you (I respect your knowledge too much to pick up a fight with you), so please don't take this personally as I'm only getting angry at the mega corporations that screw our lives, not at you...

It's not obsolete because of AI itself. It's obsolete because of HCU, which is in response to the internet filling up with AI generated spam purely to make ad revenue.

oh, so you weren't referring to google's AI... My bad, I've misinterpreted your quote

Topical authority is a great way to judge the quality of a site pre-AI.

there were jack-of-all-trades sites that used to rank in google 15-20 years ago that I did find useful, so for me topical authority is not necessarily an indication of a site's quality since I am able to find value in lots of things.

But yeah, if I were to be honest, I can say that niche-y sites (which is basically what topical authority means) do instill a bit more trust, I'll concede this truth to google

This wasn't easy for spammers to do.

true

If you have too many articles in a short period of time it's a sign you're using AI generated spam.

I mean, it is logical, and I also believe the same. But I have seen people (in the last few months even) continuing to say that publishing lots of AI content (150 articles a day I think one of the guys mentioned) on a fresh site still works for them, so I don't know whether they're lying or if google really has exceptions to this rule for some niches.... or maybe their sites evaded the hammer somehow due to some things that were not accounted for by google's engineers...

 

[splishsplash]

this is what I meant. 5% of the total sites that you research might behave like the one you've shown, but I've made this number up based on my perception of what I'm seeing, so I'm not surprised that / if it's inaccurate...


got it!


precisely because of the fact that I'm thinking like a human I can say that refusing to rank sites because they've changed owners or niches is stupid at best, blatant manipulation at worst.

Any normal human being doesn't give a rat's ass what a domain is / was / used to be / will be in the future, they just search for something in google, they find their answer on a random domain whose history is unknown to them / they don't care about, and they move on with their life. It's none of google's business what sites are, or used to be, they should focus on providing the best value THAT ALREADY EXISTS ONLINE IN WHICHEVER FORM IT EXISTS to their searchers, not lure people with illusions of traffic into shifting their mentality and actions towards making life easier for google's AI (which I feel is the direction that SEO had gone in, in the last decade)

And again, just because I get so worked up when I type such arguments it doesn't mean that I am attacking you (I respect your knowledge too much to pick up a fight with you), so please don't take this personally as I'm only getting angry at the mega corporations that screw our lives, not at you...


oh, so you weren't referring to google's AI... My bad, I've misinterpreted your quote


there were jack-of-all-trades sites that used to rank in google 15-20 years ago that I did find useful, so for me topical authority is not necessarily an indication of a site's quality since I am able to find value in lots of things.

But yeah, if I were to be honest, I can say that niche-y sites (which is basically what topical authority means) do instill a bit more trust, I'll concede this truth to google


true


I mean, it is logical, and I also believe the same. But I have seen people (in the last few months even) continuing to say that publishing lots of AI content (150 articles a day I think one of the guys mentioned) on a fresh site still works for them, so I don't know whether they're lying or if google really has exceptions to this rule for some niches.... or maybe their sites evaded the hammer somehow due to some things that were not accounted for by google's engineers...

I'll use double arrows to quickly address your points.

>> precisely because of the fact that I'm thinking like a human I can say that refusing to rank sites because they've changed owners or niches is stupid at best, blatant manipulation at worst.

I probably wasn't clear on this. They aren't preventing ranking, but what they're in these cases is treating it like a fresh domain.

You lose any trust.

If you had a marketing agency, that was a trusted entity, and you keep the site looking like that same agency, then you can hijack their trust and build upon it.

If you change niches, then you start fresh.

From my observations you still get the LINK POWER though.

But you don't get the TRUST.

That's why people don't notice this.

A lot of the guys buying domains are doing it to rank for non-english weird casino keywords. The 'trust' thing doesn't really apply there.

>>Any normal human being doesn't give a rat's ass what a domain is / was / used to be / will be in the future, they just search for something in google, they find their answer on a random domain whose history is unknown to them / they don't care about, and they move on with their life. It's none of google's business what sites are, or used to be, they should focus on providing the best value THAT ALREADY EXISTS ONLINE IN WHICHEVER FORM IT EXISTS to their searchers, not lure people with illusions of traffic into shifting their mentality and actions towards making life easier for google's AI (which I feel is the direction that SEO had gone in, in the last decade)

Well isn't that a big can of worms!

>> And again, just because I get so worked up when I type such arguments it doesn't mean that I am attacking you (I respect your knowledge too much to pick up a fight with you), so please don't take this personally as I'm only getting angry at the mega corporations that screw our lives, not at you...

lol, I'm not that sensitive. You are disagreeing with me about many things, but you aren't attacking me personally, and you're asking for my thoughts despite the disagreement.

If you look at the people I pick fights with they are usually very aggressive towards me personally. They don't just just disagree, but they say something smarmy like "You're just trying to sell your pbn links", then I get triggered.


>> oh, so you weren't referring to google's AI... My bad, I've misinterpreted your quote

No worries

Google's AI is another fresh can of worms. But let's leave that one closed up for now.

>> there were jack-of-all-trades sites that used to rank in google 15-20 years ago that I did find useful, so for me topical authority is not necessarily an indication of a site's quality since I am able to find value in lots of things.

I do agree the web was a more interesting place 15-20 years ago.

And there we have a 3rd can of worms..

>> I mean, it is logical, and I also believe the same. But I have seen people (in the last few months even) continuing to say that publishing lots of AI content (150 articles a day I think one of the guys mentioned) on a fresh site still works for them, so I don't know whether they're lying or if google really has exceptions to this rule for some niches.... or maybe their sites evaded the hammer somehow due to some things that were not accounted for by google's engineers...

Here's a 4th can of worms, but let's open this one

Find me all the ones you can and let's look through them.

Most of the ones I've just come across seem to have the same pattern that they do well for a while, then an update comes along and wipes them out. Or 80-90% of their sites.

But I want to be proven wrong here, so I'm hoping you do have examples of people who are counter-examples to this.

 

[tazarbm]

I probably wasn't clear on this. They aren't preventing ranking, but what they're in these cases is treating it like a fresh domain.

You lose any trust.

If you had a marketing agency, that was a trusted entity, and you keep the site looking like that same agency, then you can hijack their trust and build upon it.

If you change niches, then you start fresh.

From my observations you still get the LINK POWER though.

But you don't get the TRUST.

That's why people don't notice this.

oh, this changes things then.... well, it definitely changes my opinion...

I thought you are banned from google for all eternity (silly me )

A lot of the guys buying domains are doing it to rank for non-english weird casino keywords. The 'trust' thing doesn't really apply there.

yeah, yeah now it makes sense when you put it like this. Thanks for the clarification

Well isn't that a big can of worms!

maybe

lol, I'm not that sensitive. You are disagreeing with me about many things, but you aren't attacking me personally, and you're asking for my thoughts despite the disagreement.

glad you see it like this. When I first joined the forum I would see an enemy in everyone who contradicted me ... Over time I've learned to behave and to understand that not everyone who isn't on my side is my enemy. Big achievement for someone like me...

If you look at the people I pick fights with they are usually very aggressive towards me personally. They don't just just disagree, but they say something smarmy like "You're just trying to sell your pbn links", then I get triggered.

I think I know who you're referring to., but I'll not mention them, it's pointless anyway as there are many people like that (I used to be one of them )

Here's a 4th can of worms, but let's open this one

Find me all the ones you can and let's look through them.

Most of the ones I've just come across seem to have the same pattern that they do well for a while, then an update comes along and wipes them out. Or 80-90% of their sites.

But I want to be proven wrong here, so I'm hoping you do have examples of people who are counter-examples to this.

I'll have a look, and if I find them I'll PM you as I don't want to compromise people that might be innocent...

 

[alternatesword]

Ie, if you want to rank an info site about persian cats, you have to show Google you're a real business of some sort and those articles aren't created to just monetize.

Yes, this was correct. No matter whether it's AI or human-written ones, still ranks. Just the extended version of EEAT I guess.

 

[splishsplash]

Yes, this was correct. No matter whether it's AI or human-written ones, still ranks. Just the extended version of EEAT I guess.

Yeah they don't seem to care about the content itself.

The level 1 filter is the trust one. If you don't pass that, you just don't rank. You'll only rank for weird low comp keywords, but mainstream stuff, no.

Next, you'll rank, but if the user signals are bad, you'll tank. This is where the content quality comes in. They let the users decide. Whether it's AI or human, if people are happy, then you keep the rankings, but if the signals show that people are not satisfied with your content, then you drop.

 

[tazarbm]

but if the signals show that people are not satisfied with your content, then you drop.

I'm curious.... do you happen to know whether they (google) ever re-assess your content after the drop (and assuming that you make no changes to it, you just keep publishing new content), or is the drop permanent?