[Halfdeck]

Ok here comes a mini-novel. You've been warned

Peter didn't even try for his rankings

His initial ranking was due to domain authority. I never questioned that. Domain authority is a huge factor in ranking:

1. Authority sites have more potential for organic link growth. Authority sites are usually more visible. They are more trusted by the linkeratis. They have the potential to acquire organic links like wildfire (e.g. Matt Cutts' paid link post picked up 4,000 links in a day or two)

2. Authority sites have more total PageRank. Add up all the PageRank flowing into a high visibility domain and compare that to a new site with no IBLs. A huge difference. That difference in PageRank means:

- More pages indexed in Google
- More frequent crawling
- Quicker indexing
- Higher ranking (yes, PageRank is still a ranking factor)

A site with 100,000 pages in the main index has a huge advantage over a site with 10 pages indexed. Why? Internal link power.

3. Authority sites attract authority links. A site like seobook.com, for example, gets linked daily from other authority sites in the SEO space.

3a. Authortiy sites attract expert links. Expert pages often link to authority pages. When many expert pages in a given topic link to a page, it makes that page that much more authoritative.

4. An authoritative site can rank relatively high for thousands of queries without any optimization. Why? More trust. Higher authority score. Bigger PageRank. Higher pagecount. More internal link juice. It's like someone I respect talking. Whenever he opens his mouth, I listen. Same deal with authority sites. Even when v7n publishes a completely off topic post about britney spears, Google thinks hey, it's John Scott's site - he's probably saying something valuable, let's rank him up top.

Domain authority might be a king of spades. But guess what? Its no ace.

Domain authority can be trumped with authority, trusted links with targeted anchor text.

Domain authority can also be trumped with a ton of low value anchor text. Look at the first result for "free seo course." Do you consider that an authority site? I don't think so. Then how is it ranking #1? 1) keywords in the domain name (assuming that as the guy who ranks 5th for "seo book" claimed, Google parses domain urls) 2) A bunch of targeted anchor text from crap directories (small scale self-made Google bombing, except its not a bomb because the guy wants to rank for it).

Peter, you claim on-page SEO has very little to do with ranking. Prove it. Change the post title from "free seo course" to "expensive as hell golf course." See what happens to the post ranking. It's not like those keywords are high traffic so changing the title temporarily isn't going to hurt your traffic.

Are you also telling me that redcardinal's blog is more authoritative than v7n? He did no SEO whatsoever and he outranked v7n for "free seo course" right out of the gate.

2,566 links, a lot of those being from highly regarded SEO sites.

John, many of those links Site Explorer shows are nofollowed. True, I have a few editorial links from Bill Slawski, SEO theory, SEL, SER, digitalpoint, V7n (I remember you linked to me in a post about PageRank, thanks) But many of the links you see are comment links.

If anything, you proved my point.

Domain authority isn't what I used to outrank you, Peter.

As I said, links from xenite.org and Michael Martinez' other LOTR site are what gave my rankings a shot in the arm. He could have pointed those links almost anywhere and that page would have outranked you.

The only possible way this could happen is domain authority.

You forget keywords in the TITLE is a big ranking factor, especially for terms like "Structured settlements." True, domain authorty/PageRank is the other factor. Which is bigger? Peter can easily back up his claim by removing the words "Structured settlements" from the TITLE.

Have you read SEOmoz' top ranking factors? I don't agree with all the opinions posted there but here's what some of them say about keywords in the TITLE:

Aaron Wall: If it is overdone it can actually supress a site's rankings, but if the site is well mixed and the titles look more like descriptive newspaper titles than overt SEO it helps a lot.

Jill Whalen: Probably one of the most important factors in determining rankings.

Caveman: One of the single most important things a site owner can do to affect rankings.

Stuntdbl: Good titles assist clickthrough (which is likely a portion of current algorithms), and titles still play a very important role in identifying the content portions of a site, and thus the terms that they rank for.

Suggarrae: I still think the title tag is one of the most important on page elements from an algo perspective as well as a click through perspective.

The new anti-Googlebomb algo also demonstrates one way in which on-page text can discount 56,000 IBLs.

I've tested this myself and its clear as day keywords in TITLE is the most important on-page optimization, period. If you throw keywords in your title, you can just about forget everything else when it comes to on-page optimization (besides keyword spamming, which still works).

Bottom line: Domain authority is big, but I'm tired of every joe shmoe overhyping it, man. The word "authority" isn't even clearly defined. It's turning into another one of those SEO buzzwords like "trust." When people say "authority" many probably think of it in terms of big brand, high visibility sites like Wikipedia. Authority is a technical word thats tied to technical papers, not a vauge, marketing idea.