Documenting Google’s site-level evaluation and impact on search rankings using the ‘Gabeback Machine’

Episode 18 of 'SEO From The Front Lines", I cover my blog post regarding site-level impact on rankings versus page-level. It's an incredibly important topic that site owners and SEOs need to understand. Based on Pandu Nayak’s comments at a recent creator summit where he said Google only using page-level ranking signals, and NOT site-wide signals, I decided to use the ‘Gabeback Machine’ to prove that statement wrong. Over the years, I have documented many, many examples of Googlers explaining that there are site-wide signals that can have a big impact on rankings across a site. The examples include tweets, videos, patents, and even Google’s own documentation about major algorithm updates. That includes videos, tweets, patents, and even Google's own documentation explaining more about site-wide signals. My blog post also contains information about major algorithm updates like Panda, Penguin, the helpful content update (HCU), and Pirate which all had a site-level classifier (or employed site-wide impact). Then I cover many statements from Google about broad core updates, site-level evaluation, impact to Google surfaces like Discover and News, and more. So join me as I use the ‘Gabeback Machine’ to document Google’s site-level impact to rankings. Yes, it’s real.

Chapters:

00:00 Pandu Nayak's comments about page-level versus site-level ranking signals.

01:42 An introduction to the 'Gabeback Machine'.

02:30 Google's history of crafting major algorithm updates outside of broad core updates.

04:09 Exhibit 1: HCU

05:13 Exhibit 2: Penguin

05:45 Exhibit 3: Medieval Panda

06:45 Exhibit 4: Pirate

07:40 Site-level is at the hostname level (subdomain)

08:28 Exhibit X: Links, Tweets, Videos, and Patents

08:56 Quality is a site-level signal.

09:31 Paul Haahr about site-wide signals.

11:21 FAQ from the March 2024 core update about site-wide signals.

12:10 Lower-quality content can pull down the higher-quality content.

13:30 Rich snippets impacted by overall quality. 13:52 Panda scores impacting rich snippets.

14:14 Google researchers about authority and trust.

15:05 Discover impacted by site-level quality signals.

15:40 Pages can rank higher from the start on sites that Googler trusts.

16:06 Revisiting Pandu's comments about page-level versus site-level signals.

My blog post covering Google's site-wide signals: https://www.gsqi.com/marketing-blog/google-site-level-impact-gabeback-machine/

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