How would a non-optimized site outrank a site which has done SEO?

[luciasko]

On every video he showing us with hands xD

[captkirkh]

I couldn't agree with Matt more! Content and Backlinks are KEY!

[dex4464]

good info these tutorials are real nifty

[gptrefback]

I totally agree with your Matt, that's where your Panda algorithm gets its brain.

[anthonysitalianfood]

So who does one send a question to Matt Cutts like is is reading and answering in his video? Where is the special place to send. I have about 1,000 questions I want to send him since Panda came out.

[agapitoflores001]

This is great. A lot of information from here.

[Films4You]

Matt "There's a lot of site with a lot of cash to pay for higher ranking"

[TheDeepEndDesign]

Makes sense but still seems stilted to me. Theres a site that ranks above mine that is purely made in flash. That goes against everything Ive learned about SEo but there are always anomalies I guess.

[TJHotMovies]

This makes little sense to me sir. I would almost classify this along the same lines of the shift recently seen in the "gaming" industry. Where mild users are now more of the industry target market than the loyal, long-time market supporting, hardcore gamers.

Do you want SEO to be a REAL job market or not?

[garethjax]

So basically, if you have little content but it seems "legit" (eg: you have backlinks), you rank better than your competitor. Nice!

The scientific method states that we should test this out, do we ? So for example, we should put into the same arena, a fully optimized page with contents and a page with only a witty quote.

Somebody cares to try it ?

[Films4You]

It's because of Money put into Googles pocket

[WebMarketeur]

What about the following factors to rank a site:

- average time on site

- bounce rate

?

Aren't those factors very important to assess the quality of the content of a page?

[CuttingEdgeTrends]

I don't even know how to check backlinks but I keep on gettin them first page Google results. I guess what Matt said is true "if it's good quality content it will rank."

I also find humor in the over analysis of every little thing. Stop checking your back links and create some quality content. DUH!! Thanks Matt. I enjoy your videos. Brent

[asurdescu]

I didn't know Google hides some of the the links that point to a particular site, this is nice because It might prevent some of the cat & mouse games between different sites.

[JJimHuinink]

It's a typically oversimplified answer as you'd expect in these videos. Age of domain is factor that can mean higher ranking for much poorer sites, over well optimized and well made but much newer sites. Thus, the backlinks might also be older and more authoritative as well.

[MalMilligan]

OMG Matt spammed Yahoo calling it "Yahoo Link Explorer" instead of "Yahoo SIte Explorer." W O W !! Whenever I was to dis someone I mis-pronounce their name intentionally.

[MalMilligan]

@MalMilligan (lol) I'm sure he didn't intentionally try to dis Yahoo. But it's fun seeing so many insane SEO's playing Matt's statements over and over again like it's the cold war and they might be able to glean a little more of the secrets of the "Algorithm" by over analyzing every sentence Matt utters.

[TheRoebidoebi]

Now this was a disappointing answer! site:link doesn't give all the results! @google #fail. On the other hand he does point us in the right direction: links outweigh content, but I guess we all knew this already...

[privatelabelproducts]

Well this video was disappointing.

The one thing that resonates in my head is the fact link:site.com does not return the full results on Google because of server space issues. Matt further indicates that this has become "tradition" indicating that they still have an issue with space around the link:site.com operative.

One has to ask the question...is Google able to weigh links within their algorithm properly with missing link data? We all know a complete list links are not available in WMT.

[chiefra]

@privatelabelproducts Well, If I remember correctly, Matt said in a last year or so video, that they intentionately do not return full site:link results because of privacy. If you knew all the back links of a competitor, you could easily surpass it.

[privatelabelproducts]

@chiefra I apologize for the misunderstanding. I was trying to make the point that Matt himself has stated that they do not store all back link data due to server space issues and that this has now become "tradition" after years of practice.

That being said, and knowing back links play a big role in indexing and positioning within the SERPs, one has to ask themselves how Google decides which back links to keep and which to toss away when updating their back link data?

The ever elusive Google!

[trooperbill]

..."tradition"... yeah right pull the other one.

chances are that the domain above has a keyword in the URL or has been online for longer IMHO

[whatwouldramsaydo]

Sites should rank on their own merit? lol in the perfect world this makes sense.. in reality it's every man for himself

[sfussenegger]

What a silly question ... you wouldn't expect a turbo-charged Nissan Micra to beat an off-the-shelf Porsche either, would you?

[resku]

Nice that the background is always matched to his shirts :)

[jdcnet]

Does that mean if we type in the Google's Search Box for the command "link: SITEURL", we do not the complete backlink lists from Google's results?

[manojgupta26]

Matt, You Must ADMIT - "Panda Update is Crap" ! It is just promoting Sploggers and Spammers"! I can cite endless examples to PROVE IT!!

[AlexDeLaForce]

That was easy one to answer. ;)

[bigal21110]

Its cuz those site have done a bunch of 301s

[bigal21110]

@bigal21110 and that is a spammy way of doing things. When I worked in payday loan industry, 301s were our bread and butter. We would buy crap load of links for mini sites, they would get some ranking, then we would 301 them to the destination site.

[endsleyfamily]

The real answer and a big problem is simple - spam still works. Too many sites still rank because of black hat techniques.

[DCFinder]

@endsleyfamily We all know the REAL definition of SPAM: Sites Placed Above Mine ;-)