A Disturbing Story... but true

Please excuse this rather long post.
It is a true story and would welcome any comment.

Several months ago, a fellow entered my office and identified himself as a 50% owner and the webmaster for a site related to our category. His site was listed in most search engines around 10-12 sites from the top. With nothing close to what one would describe as 'unique content'.

He said he would like to be an affiliate site of ours.

We informed him that we had discontiinued our affiliate program over a year before, and that we are no longer prepared for or interested in having affiliates, because the small commission we charge to our clients for the use of our software, did not leave sufficient margin (less than 5%) for doing all the work, and that our affiliate program was really only mounted with a view towards incoming links. Besides, he was already an affiliate of a competing site.....

But that we would be glad to exchange links with his site.

He laughed sarcastically,
and asked, "What do you think a link to your site is worth from our site?"
I said, "I have no idea...what do you propose?"
"10,000 Euros", he said (about 12,000 dollars) because we have made over $5,000 dollars as affiliates of another site in the last 3 months.

"Don't you think that is a pretty steep asking price for a link from a site which has never ranked higher than PR4 and rarely appears higher than position 10 or 12?" I asked.

He grinned, and shook his head, as though the question had come from a misinformed child.
"You don't understand", he said, "...within 2 weeks we will be number 2 in Google".

I told him that I do not see how he could guarantee this, and he offered to bet a rather large sum.I told him I wished him luck but would bet him only a cup of coffee. We shook hands and I have not spoken with him since.

Guess what?
I lost.
(although he never returned to collect the cup of coffee).

The site suddenly appeared in the number one position in DMOZ a few days later and it showed up and still is, in the number 2 position in Google and several other search engines
.
Certainly not because of incoming links, or unique content and the site remains an affiliate site.

Give you the willies? Does me.

There is no way that a listing in DMOZ makes someone rank highly in Google a short time later.

Another urban myth.

(And there is no such thing as number one position in DMOZ - since DMOZ has no positions, it's in alpha order)

If you think you have evidence of some sort of corruption file a complaint with proof, or send my the URL by PM.

And these days there is no such thing as the number 2 position in Google either. The ranking of a page in Google's results will depend on:
a) the data centre the results are fetched from
b) which Google site the searcher is using (e.g. Google UK).
c) whether the searcher is using personalised search.

See Webmaster World's Google forum for more on the complexity of today's Google.

Before everybody decides to play 'shoot the messenger' with details on how search engines rank, or whether dmoz listings are alphabetical.....I would like to make clear that I have posted this story exactly as it went down.

I have made no accusations precisely because I do not have any proof, and even if I did, I would not post accusations in this forum.

It is just that the whole turn of events has bothered me for a long time.

Have you actually been to the ODP to see that there really is no #1 position? The address is http://www.dmoz.org - I think you're confusing it with another site (http://www.google.com/dirhp) that sorts the data by PR.

What does a number ONE mean?

I know, of course, that dmoz does not rank sites.

What I am referring to is the numerical NUMBER ONE (1.) in front of a category listing

The alphabetic sorting used by the Open Directory ignores initial numbers. So for example in http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/
the directory 1st Spot does not actually appear in the 1st spot. It is listed between Somuch and Starting Page.

Do you mean the result of a search using the Open Directory search tool? That has numbers. It is a very simple search tool, with no algo to speak of. And it has no effect whatsoever on Google. Honest.

I can understand why you would be bothered by such a prediction apparently coming true. Seems like witchcraft. But I'd assume it was no more than a lucky guess. Particularly since (as I said above) Google's results can change minute by minute. So maybe you just hit the minute when the site showed at position 2.

The man you speak of sounds like he has a good line in sales talk!

ibicenco said:

I know, of course, that dmoz does not rank sites.

What I am referring to is the numerical NUMBER ONE (1.) in front of a category listing

Click to expand...

I already see why you are confused and why we didn't understand what you meant.

That 1. is shown in search results.
Within a category the sites are ordered alphabeticaly on title.
I have no idea how sites are sorted in search results.

The site ibicenco is talking about was already listed October 2000 within DMOZ.
A site being listed in DMOZ does have a influence on Google results (although I don't know how big this influence is, but I'm sure it is not as big as ome webmasters want to believe). As far as I know DMOZ search results have no influence on Google at all.

ODP does not have numbers in front of category listing. And if a number is used as part of the title, the number is not used for sorting purposes.

Things would be simpler if you posted a bit of specifics instead of vague non-details which cannot be used as a basis for "real" comments about what (if any) story can be inferred by some observed facts.

I was referring to dmoz search results numbering.
Please see pvgool reply above.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

The ODP search results are not ordered in any way. The sites (FOR A PARTICULAR SEARCH!) are shown in "determinate but indeterminable" order -- that is, they are always shown in the same order, but that order doesn't depend on anything the editors do, or even on anything that's on the website itself -- it probably has to do with something like hash keys in the ODP index database. Obviously, for a DIFFERENT search result, the sites that appear will be different.

So any time since 2001, the person could have looked at the order of sites for that search result -- which would not have changed (except for the addition or deletion of sites.)

The fact that no search terms are mentioned (and no apparent indication of awareness that search terms might impact the identity, let alone the order, of search results in Google--but rather the contrary) makes this a singularly implausible story.

I'd have to know the URL and the search terms involved before ... I'd go even to the extent of disbelieving.

Hutcheson - I think we can take it that 'for certain search terms' is implicit. Obviously ibicenco would not want to give the specific search terms unless he wants to identify the site.

ibicenco - I've worked out how it was done. I think.

People who watch the Google data centres (there is usually a thread over at Webmaster World) will often report a change in rankings at one data centre and then note if it propagates to other data centres. It it does, they can predict that within a couple of weeks it should be showing on Google.com .

Hope that relieves your mind. No magic involved.

jeanmanco:

Thanks...this is good information.