A simple phrase that answers so many questions about SEO has not raised many discussions and debates: Google ranks web pages, not websites.
I will tell you the SEO facts that will answer so many questions about how Google operates that I can’t even cover it all in this article.
It is also a great way to arouse debate in a better SEO discussion forum.
Google ranks web pages, not a website.
Yes, it is a different discussion, but fortunately, many others have stated the same thing.
After you consider this seemingly simple statement strength, you will see how to remember it. When you develop an organic search strategy, you can simplify a lot of your decisions.
Plus, it ended many more popular SEO debates we all suffered for years.
What does it mean?
Look, we don’t need to overcome this here, but let’s take away how this phrase rocked everything, and sometimes it was unfortunate for some of my SEO colleagues.
Basically, “Google ranks web pages, not websites,” means that Google treats every webpage that robots are crawling and indexing like a world of content, code, and a less independent link.
While other web pages affect the world, where this world is on a larger Galaxy, it doesn’t matter to Google.
Therefore, as far as ranking and indexing, the web page can live on any domain it likes, and Google will treat it in the same way.
Why do some SEO violations hate this innocent expression?
Because its existence violates many concepts they hold – and because their business depends on people who believe that their ideas exist.
Let’s not focus too much on that side.
Instead, we will see how this idea explains how we know the rankings on Google Works.
I have never used a lot of phrases “on-page” or “off-page” SEO, or “technical SEO” in this case, so let’s destroy this into the three areas that I use for my SEO audit (and more): Content, web page design, and authority (link).
Contact
While I wrote this article, I received a request to answer from quora, which line up with the “Google Ranks Webpages, not websites,” Concept in SEO content areas: “Can blog about the same topics the same blog to endanger my ranking?”
It is a good question. I even saw one of the best SEO professionals in the world who asked for something similar to his Facebook friends.
When I raised “web pages, not a website” in my answer, it pretty much ends the discussion.
Every day, you might read some of the best examples of why blogging (or other writings for publications on the web) about various topics do not damage your Google rankings: news sites.
Dozens of topics live in harmony in the same domain, without doing a little damage to each other.
Why?
Google ranks web pages, not a website.
If you think about it, we don’t want to live in a world where Google is on a web page based on a single topic of all websites.
As did Joshua Hardwick from Ahrefs,
“Just because your business makes a stained glass window that doesn’t mean that every page on your site has to rank for a query, ‘Patri glass window.'”
Web page design
If you are already in the search engine optimization game for a long time, you may have heard all the debate “subdomain versus subfolder” at least once. I swear the bubble to the top of the idea of a discussion of SEO once every year.
Why is it not necessary?
Because Google ranks web pages and not a website; Therefore, web pages can live in subdomains or subfolders, and Google will treat them in the same way.
Again, we don’t want to live in a world where a one-page error on your website drags the entire site.
For example, most likely, you experience cases where one of your web pages is slower than all your pages.
This single page does not drag all your websites, only one page.
Authority
One of the more popular and effective SEO strategies around these days is the Content Hub. The process, also known as the pillar-clusters model, is based on the idea of creating a “hub” or “pillar” topic that connects to another sub-form or subtopic “cluster,” which provides more excellent details on hub/pillar levels.
This strategy works well because it allows for an easy method to pass the authority obtained from the entrance link to your central topic hub to Subtopik (or vice versa).
Why does it work well?
Could you not write me again? Google will think my keyword is in.
While the internal link may not be as strong as an external link, they still have a lot of power because Google sees everything as individual pages with their authority.
Sometimes, I will see someone claiming that this content strategy also helps create a “topical authority” as a whole for your entire website but remember the rules of “webpage, not a website” confirmed by Google; we know this is not true.
This brings us to the overall authority concept for your entire website, or the domain if you want.
While some SEO tool companies have made a name for themselves pushing this Concept, Google will be the first to tell you that it doesn’t exist.
You can now ask: if the authority metrics throughout this website do not exist, why spammy link building strategies such as “parasitic hosting” works very well?
Because it didn’t work.
Parasite Hosting is when a link builder sells a link from the content buried on a well-known and more knowledgeable website.
However, the only size that this “hack” is useful is a domain level authority metric, which is influenced by other domains with high domain-level metrics, not actual ranking changes.
