Does Google Rank Webpages or Websites?
Does Google rank webpages or websites?
It’s an interesting question, and a January 2021 article by Search Engine Journal suggested that webpages are what Google evaluates, not the websites as a whole. The author even showed a now deleted tweet from Google representative John Mueller as proof.
However, noted SEO consultant Victor Pan, who is currently Head of Growth at HubSpot, said there is more nuance to how Google predicts whether a page will be high quality or not.
In a Twitter thread, which begins here, Pan talked about the nuance involved in webpages vs. websites when it comes to ranking.
On a side note, we believe that getting the right content on a page will improve the chances of the page ranking. I found it interesting that the history of a website can have a lot of influence on the potential ranking of future pages.
Nuance in Google Predicting Page Quality of New Content
In his thread, Victor Pan noted that websites with a history of selling links or with old manual penalties would be less trustworthy to the Google ranking algorithm, no matter how good their content might be. Conversely, websites with a long history of satisfying users, and producing good high-quality content are more likely to have future content ranking well. Google seems to favor sites that put in the effort over a long period of time, with proven signals that users are happy with the site content.
Core Web Vitals are also a predictor of whether a site will be high-quality, in the absence of user signals related to a website’s content, according to Pan.
Site content, page experience, and the history of user signals work together to create a cohesive story about a website. Creating content around a specific topic tells Google that a website belongs in a specific category. Google makes a note of that topical knowledge, and measures the history of whether a website has a history of content that satisfies users. The website as a whole has an influence on individual pages, and their ability to rank.
To sum up, Google uses predictive models to tell whether a particular new web page should rank high based on factors like the history of the site, and the overall perception of the site, not just domain authority or the backlink profile.
What Did Victor Pan Say About Websites vs Webpages?
Victor’s thread is referencing a John Mueller statement and Search Engine Journal article centered around “Google ranks webpages, not websites” and his thread shows there is more nuance to ranking.
Domain authority, as measured by SEO tools, is a simplistic way to measure the utility of a website.
The link in question was an analysis on how Coronavirus affected traffic of the site mentioned. The page has no controversial content, but the overall website is known for adult content. Victor is making the point, the reputation of the website affects the ranking of a page, even though Google representative John Mueller said that “Google ranks webpages, not websites.” I needed to give you the overall context of this tweet, and how it fits into the concept of how Google ranks search results.
The now-deleted John Mueller tweet from the Search Engine Journal article.
Victor says here Google cannot always rank webpages without evaluating the overall history and context of the website. If you buy a penalized domain, it is essentially useless, no matter how good the new content published on that domain. Even normal, non-penalized websites have a data history that Google takes into account.
When real signals are missing, Google uses the history of that website to fill in as proxy data. This creates a lot of nuance about the context of a website.
What Victor is speaking about here is Google trusting a site to publish good content. When a site has a track record of satisfying users with their content (however you believe Google measures that), content that they publish tends to rank higher than their competitors automatically. This is exactly the “big brand” effect that Google has aimed towards since at least 2008. They want to rank websites that they already trust, that have a proven track record of quality.
Page experience is a predictor of overall site quality, more on that in a minute.
Despite what you’ve heard, the playing field is not meant to be even. Big brand websites with a long history of quality content, good page experience, and all the signals that this is a large organization, Google is going to trust that 100 times out of 100 before it ranks a brand new website above it. The risk is small that the big-brand, historically-quality website will deliver a search result that does not satisfy users.
Building a good history for your website is a long project. Google wants to reward the websites that do the difficult things, not the easy things. Focus on long-term initiatives, not only short-term quick wins.
This is an interesting insight. Google absolutely categorizes websites when it has enough information. What topic does your website revolve around? Does your site give satisfying content and a positive page experience for users? Worth noting that the “filter” doesn’t necessarily mean your content is “bad” or low-quality. If your content goes against the grain of the rest of the site’s content, Google’s algorithm may not rank it, because it doesn’t historically fit that category. Finally, penalties tend to only apply to sites who have tried to manipulate search rankings using deceptive tactics.
Page Experience and SEO
Page experience is another ranking signal, according to a November 2020 post on the Google Search Central blog. Content is important, and your site itself must have a long track record of quality and making searchers happy. But this excerpt from Google’s post on page experience is something you should also meditate deeply upon.
Page experience is a set of signals that measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page beyond its pure information value, both on mobile and desktop devices.
And also on that same page:
While page experience is important, Google still seeks to rank pages with the best information overall, even if the page experience is subpar. Great page experience doesn’t override having great page content. However, in cases where there are many pages that may be similar in relevance, page experience can be much more important for visibility in Search.
Page content, the long-term track record of your website, and site experience are all things to consider when talking about your SEO strategy.
Does Your Company Website Need SEO Help?
If your industrial or manufacturing website needs help with SEO, the team at Lockedown SEO is here to help. Reach out to us about your project, and we can make some recommendations that will help you rank higher for your target keywords, reaching your ideal clients.
