3 ms·

Why do Google+ profiles rank so highly for "site:Google.com"?

5 points by jfoster 13y ago

dkuntz2 13y ago
I would think it has to do with how many other things link to the provided pages, considering that's the gist of how PageRank works. It might exclude the main http://google.com http://google.com because you're doing a site search, and it assumes you've looked at the index? It might be missing most of the other pages specifically about Google because they have a lower ranking/less incoming links than the Google+ profiles listed in the search?
- jfoster 13y ago
  The top profile (at least for me) is in just 77 circles. I wouldn't be nearly as surprised about the results if the Google+ profiles were all for well-known people and products, but the majority of these don't seem to be.
blauwbilgorgel 13y ago
In short: Because the "site:" operator does not rank on popularity or PR. I think it never has, and if it did, it was changed a long time ago. It merely shows you the indexed pages for a site. You can still gather a little info from it to see, for example, which pages are likely to appear in the secondary index / supplemental results ("In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries"). Pages in index is somewhat of a vanity metric. It can be more insightful to look at the number of pages that send you at least 1 visitor a month. If Google would rank "site:" on popularity people would probably (ab)use it for icky stuff like PageRank sculpting or figuring out how (internal and external) linking influences ranking, much like they did with popular search words /trends. In the same vein "Link:" does not show all pages that link to a site and doesn't order them by link strength. If you want more reliable information on links and page importance set up webmaster tools and analytics.
- jfoster 13y ago
  The first 9 results (homepage, Finance, Trends, AdWords, Offers, News, etc.) seem to be ranked by popularity.
  - blauwbilgorgel 13y ago
    You are seeing different results than me. This depends among other things on your location (also probably which data center served you the result). The number of pages in index for a large site can even differ depending on the time of day (About n results). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g8MJKFSWJU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g8MJKFSWJU (Matt Cutts answers: How reliable is the site: query and why does the total count sometimes change from page 1 to page 2?)
    - jfoster 13y ago
      Note that I linked directly to the second page of results, as that was where the Google+ profiles were. Google's results certainly are customized, but are you saying that even your first page of results is full of Google+ profiles?

5 points by jfoster 13y ago

I would think it has to do with how many other things link to the provided pages, considering that's the gist of how PageRank works. It might exclude the main http://google.com http://google.com because you're doing a site search, and it assumes you've looked at the index? It might be missing most of the other pages specifically about Google because they have a lower ranking/less incoming links than the Google+ profiles listed in the search?

jfoster 13y ago
The top profile (at least for me) is in just 77 circles. I wouldn't be nearly as surprised about the results if the Google+ profiles were all for well-known people and products, but the majority of these don't seem to be.

blauwbilgorgel 13y ago

In short: Because the "site:" operator does not rank on popularity or PR. I think it never has, and if it did, it was changed a long time ago. It merely shows you the indexed pages for a site. You can still gather a little info from it to see, for example, which pages are likely to appear in the secondary index / supplemental results ("In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries"). Pages in index is somewhat of a vanity metric. It can be more insightful to look at the number of pages that send you at least 1 visitor a month. If Google would rank "site:" on popularity people would probably (ab)use it for icky stuff like PageRank sculpting or figuring out how (internal and external) linking influences ranking, much like they did with popular search words /trends. In the same vein "Link:" does not show all pages that link to a site and doesn't order them by link strength. If you want more reliable information on links and page importance set up webmaster tools and analytics.

jfoster 13y ago
The first 9 results (homepage, Finance, Trends, AdWords, Offers, News, etc.) seem to be ranked by popularity.
- blauwbilgorgel 13y ago
  You are seeing different results than me. This depends among other things on your location (also probably which data center served you the result). The number of pages in index for a large site can even differ depending on the time of day (About n results). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g8MJKFSWJU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g8MJKFSWJU (Matt Cutts answers: How reliable is the site: query and why does the total count sometimes change from page 1 to page 2?)
  - jfoster 13y ago
    Note that I linked directly to the second page of results, as that was where the Google+ profiles were. Google's results certainly are customized, but are you saying that even your first page of results is full of Google+ profiles?