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Went Hot: July 24, 2008 - 2:37 pm
Posted By: northrock 167 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://searchengineland.com)
Category: Google Other
70 Comments
Went Hot: July 24, 2008 - 2:37 pm
Posted By: northrock 167 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://searchengineland.com)
Category: Google Other
70 Comments
Comments
Very interesting post and a little worrisome, what happens when google has 9 other sites and suddenly the only thing ranking in the top 10 are google properties...
It's the only way they can ever hope to become as popular an outlet as Wikipedia. Not that they're trying, right. ;-)
The best part about this whole Knol business is the Dutch steamcleaning equipment company that owns www.knol.com and apparently are not selling. :)
^^i feel bad for that company, you know there bandwidth bill has def. gone up.
Danny, aren't the results of this experiment affected by the freshness effect? That is, as you know, fresh pages rank better for a time after they're created.
I think Google made a poor choice naming this "Knol"
I just searched for "Knol" in Google, and the KNOL stock ticker appears at the top, then news results for Knol (this could be skewed for relevance because of Google announcing it yadda yadda thinks its important and then the news results will appear lower again), then Google Blog, then Wikipedia's entry for Knol, and then, finally Knol!
Not the best user experience for those looking for the site.
Also, when you type in "Google shopping" or "googe blogs" to get the sub-search engines, they are also not the top results.
I'm just sayin...
The Google Knol I created just yesterday entitled 'How to Read the Russian Alphabet in 75 Minutes' is already appearing on Page 1 of a Google Search for "read russian" with 12,300,000 results following.
I have updated the title within Knol from the one showing in the Google index, but that's still a pretty impressive result for content that I created and put online only yesterday.
So many of my clients pages reside in 3rd for their optimized keyword search term. (Brands using term within URL or company name #1, Wikipedia #2, client #3. Now i've gotta explain why they are now going to be #4...
Exact match shows only 57 results for "firefox plugins for seo" and 119.000 for "read russian". Nice, but not really shocking in terms of ranking, is it?
@bertifuel - Not shocking, I agree, but it's the speed of ranking that I was talking about.
The fact that one can CHANGE the titles and meta-data in Google Knol at any time, but still have
the content served up in google's search results when the description and URl has changed is also quite interesting.
Seth, query deserved freshness could indeed be a factor. Like I said, there are lots of caveats that you have to consider. Still, it felt like more than that.
Bertifuel, yes, good point, the fact so few pages have that exact phrase can help explain why this particular one might be doing better.
The use of robots nofollow tag in the source code and nofollowed links on the page is interesting to see since it is a Google property. No problem ranking fast, the links are followed and seem valued. Kinda goes against the idea of nofollow.
I would think stuff like this leads to the demise of Google's trustworthiness. If nobody trusts Google, they'll start jumping off the ship. Google is pretty impervious at this point, but not so much so that they shouldn't have SOME fear people will start going elsewhere.
On the flip side, I've had a few knols up for three days now, and they don't show up at all in search results. I tested a few other recent submissions (none from the front page) and it's the same deal...they don't show up.
I don't know if Google simply isn't spidering its own Knol site, or has put in some sort of lag (if so, it's a long one!).
One possibility is that they are withholding indexing Knol articles that have signed on to Adsense (as I have), until they go through some sort of clearance process that Google says could take up to two weeks. (I'm not new to Adsense...I've had my account for several years).
If you want to take a look for yourself, to see what I mean, here are two of my knols:
http://knol.google.com/k/david-sarokin/online-newspaper-archives/l9cm7v116zcn/5#
Online Newspaper Archives
and
http://knol.google.com/k/david-sarokin/earning-money-on-the-internet/l9cm7v116zcn/3#
Earning Money on the Internet
neither of which show up in any search results. Search on [ sarokin knol ] and you'll see what I mean.
It's interesting that Danny's article rose to the top of the search page like a rocket. Other folks can't even get an appearance at all. I'd love to hear folks thoughts as to what they think is going on.
Cheers, all.
David
I left a comment on Dare's blog urging caution before people jump to conclusions: http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/CommentView.aspx?guid=7fb38fd2-a79d-41fd-823e-e87c48c00543#commentstart
Apologies if there are any typos. I've been up late trying out cuil.com. :)
Using SERPs as proof or even a reference to claims about Google algos is sloppy.
Danny made the same mistake in his PageRank post, for example, when he claimed a TBPR 0 page outranked a TBPR 10 page so PageRank doesn't matter, which would be true only if PageRank is the only ranking factor (and TBPR accuraltely reflects PageRank). That example doesn't prove PageRank is irrelevant to rankings; it only proves PageRank (provided TBPR is a good indicator of internal PageRank - which we can't assume) is not the only ranking factor.
The recent second anchor link text also highlighted our tendency to assume we can isolate a ranking factor and draw conclusions about its effects. If there are other unknown factors effecting results, any conclusions you draw based on that assumption won't be reliable.
Been trying cuil.com too - interesting presentation on results, and can see Google testing some inspiration with that - but aside from that, cuil doesn't seem to have much to give. Nothing to give Google nightmares over. :)
My debunking post:
Google Knol Ranking - Google NOT favoring Knol (the way you think ...)
seth your "debunking" is basically your opinion with no backup data whatsoever.
@halfdeck, Using SERPs as proof or even a reference to claims about Google algos is sloppy.
"Danny made the same mistake in his PageRank post, for example, when he claimed a TBPR 0 page outranked a TBPR 10 page so PageRank doesn't matter."
What I've said is that PageRank is not the primary factor for why a page ranks well. Sometimes people think the page with the highest PageRank wins. That's not the case. PageRank is relevant, but it's one of many factors.
@sethfinkelstein, to be clear, I didn't say Google is overtly favoring Knol. Of course that would be stupid. I was saying that the site seems to have gained authority rapidly. And as an authority site, content within it -- in my opinion -- might rank better. That gives Google an inherent confiict just as they have with other sites like YouTube and Google Book Search. It's a difficult path to walk, because as I said in my article, there are good reasons why they need to host content on YouTube and Book Search. There aren't good reasons why they need to run Knol (someone else could do it, and there are alternatives).
"Sometimes people think the page with the highest PageRank wins."
I'm not disputing what you said Danny. I'm disputing the way you went about trying to prove your point.
"Still don't believe me, that PageRank isn't the most important thing when it comes to ranking well on Google? Here's a way I've been proving it for years."
The SERPs don't prove PageRank isn't the most important thing. It does show PageRank isn't the only factor at play, just like running similar "tests" on keywords in TITLE will show keywords in TITLE isn't the only ranking factor (just because you have [seo] in your TITLE doesn't mean you'll rank #1 for [seo] - and yet we advice people to optimize their TITLE tags). Beyond pointing out the obvious (that PageRank isn't the only ranking factor), what does that years-old "proof" prove?
@halfdeck, I think you're going way too much into depth about why I use that example.
Look, I get people who say "I'm PR5, I should beat a PR4." So you want to show them that no, it's not just that the page with the most PR wins.
For them, it's PageRank beats all. I try to illustrate that it's a factor. Yes, perhaps it is the most important factor in the overall mix, but that other factors can still cause a lower PR page to rank better. But that's not the leval most people are thinking about.
"I think you're going way too much into depth about why I use that example."
Man, ok, but frankly the example annoys me to no end because I see people repeating it over and over on forums.
"Look, I get people who say..."
Danny, yeah, I get that. I know where you're coming from. What I'm saying is your "proof" doesn't prove anything except PageRank isn't the only ranking factor. You're claiming it also proves PageRank isn't the most important ranking factor - your example doesn't prove that. That's all I'm saying.
Am I mincing words? Maybe. But SEOs have a habit of drawing the wrong conclusions based on a given set of facts (e.g. subdomains will be treated as subdirectories, second link never passes anchor text, knol pages receives an automatic ranking boost, googlebombing algo is bugged). I don't see anything wrong with encouraging people to think with a little more care so they think twice or three times before jumping to conclusions just because they want to believe something is true.
Danny, halfdeck, seth, darkmatter, anyone...!
Don't folks think it strange that Google isn't indexing the vast bulk of knol content? I wrote up what I'm seeing in a bit more detail: http://web-owls.com/2008/07/29/google-knol-the-new-invisible-web/
I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks.
dsarokin, your experiment's results doesn't surprise me at all. You're doing closer to a random sample on knols, and it's utterly believable to me that none that you've tested currently rank. Knol pages are regular web pages and they should (and I expect them to) rank depending on whether someone links to them as well as on-page factors like keywords, title, etc. Danny picked an interesting example in that he looked at all the knols on the front page, which received not only links flowing PageRank from the front page of knol.google.com, but also quite a few links from lots of people who were writing about knol.
If you look back at Danny's "The day after" article, when Danny mentioned the searches he tried, he linked to the knol pages with that anchortext, not to the Google searches for those terms. So Danny's write-up is partially contributing to the knols that he's writing about continuing to rank highly. As our crawl/indexing system has adjusted so that we know knol.google.com shouldn't get any of the authority of google.com, knol rankings will vary. For example, I see the mostly often-discussed (and linked to) knol about "How to Backpack" ranking #6 right now. But I expect most knols would be much closer to your experience--they aren't getting a bunch of links from people talking about them, so of course they aren't ranking highly.
LMAO.. patience.
Thanks Matt Cutts
By the way, I've been looking into this issue more tonight. I thought I'd take the "how to backpack" knol that was featured on Knol's launch and dig into that case. That specific knol has over 100 links pointing to it. I see plenty of reputable sources, e.g.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/23/AR2008072302098.html?nav=hcmodule
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/google-launches-wikipedia-killer-knol-everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-toilet-clogs-tooth-pain-more-goog-
I saw plenty of techie and news sites pointing to that specific knol, e.g.
http://content.zdnet.com/2346-9595_22-212076-10.html
http://technologizer.com/2008/07/23/knols-well-googles-encyclopedia-looks-cool/
http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2008/07/24/google-knol-launches
I saw regular bloggers linking to the backpack knol, e.g.
http://www.greghughes.net/rant/KnolGooglesNewPlaceToExplandYourKnowledgeOfWellEverything.aspx
I even saw a bunch of international sites linking to this knol, e.g.
Russian: http://www.lenta.ru/articles/2008/07/24/knol/
Polish: http://ireporter.blox.pl/2008/07/Knol-czyli-Google-dla-wolnej-kultury.html
Croatian (I think!): http://tihomirs.blogspot.com/2008/07/knol-google-ova-online-enciklopedija.html
Right now I see that knol ranking at #6 if you query for the title of the knol (how to backpack). It's ranking there because of its own merit (on-page keywords as well as off-page backlinks), not because of the authority of google.com. When knol.google.com launched, a lot of people linked to the front-page knols as they were writing up their reactions, so that certainly helped that first set of knols. But my experience closely mirrors that of dsarokin. I don't see the backpacking knol in the top 100 for the query [backpack] or [backpacking], for example.
I repeated dsarokin's experiment by looking around my place. I've got Rock Band drums, a quilt, and a bike within sight. I did a search on knol for [drums], [quilt] and [bike] and selected three knols:
Title: Sonor drums, url: http://knol.google.com/k/rob-van-putten/sonor-drums/3j3t0x6beqpop/3#
Title: T-shirt Quilts, url: http://knol.google.com/k/beth-sullivan/t-shirt-quilts/3lrmtn3usod1n/2#
Title: Bike Across Nevada, url: http://knol.google.com/k/john-schwaner/bike-across-nevada/35rurl1jm04qb/4#
I did the queries [sonor drums], [t-shirt quilts], and [bike across nevada], then I checked the top 100 search results. No knol urls were in anywhere in the top 100.
Just to reiterate, if you create a knol you won't get the trust/authority of the google.com domain.
thanks for the infos and the testing Matt Cutts.
Who cares if Google gives Knol a pagerank advantage? I certainly do not. Unless, Google allows participants to SPAM Knol, how does it benefit anybody on Sphinn?
Matt, I guess I'm not being clear. I'm not talking about knol articles not getting a good ranking in search results. I'm talking about them not being indexed. Period.
They're not simply low down in the search results. They don't show up in search results at all because they don't exist in Google's index. The pages are never spidered (or at least, haven't been in the week or so since Knol's been public).
Maybe I'm being unrealistic. But I'm used to new content (from anywhere...even the most obscure sites) showing up within a day. An exact-phrase search on a telltale phrase from new content will show up in search results very quickly.
But none of the Knol content that I looked for (with exact phrases) is showing up. It's just not being visited by the Google bot.
I don't know how else to put it, but I hope I've clarified a bit.
@dsarokin
they probably aren't getting indexed because they don't have any links, unlike the examples Matt showed. Usually, a page doesn't get indexed until it's discovered through a link on an indexed page.
"I'm talking about them not being indexed. Period. "
Indexing issues are usually about lack of PageRank (though you can get a few pages indexed using RSS and zero backlinks). No backlinks = no gass = car stuck on the side of the road.
Right dsarokin. They're probably not getting crawled right now because they don't have any links.
Matt, as you saw from my article, I dug into the backlinks and couldn't find much. And I couldn't find much at that time because (1) it was a week ago, so there are new links that have emerged since then and now from when you're looking and (2) more important, Google wasn't reporting much. If Google itself would just fully report links, as I pointed out in the story, you wouldn't need to debunk. I or others could do it ourselves.
Here's weirdness. That pack was ranking at 19 for "backpacking" a week ago with fewer links than it has today -- and today, it's like not in the top 50, from what I can see. So it has all these new links now that it didn't have the day after (or which weren't reported properly by Google) and it's ranking worse?
The main thing seems to be that it's not listed on the Knol home page itself, I'm guessing. And that goes back to what I wrote -- that the Knol home page has a lot of PageRank authority that in turn helps pages listed on it do better. OK, so those will come and go. But I keep coming back to the fact that Google has created this problem for itself. Google didn't need to do Knol, and each time a Knol page ranks better, some folks are going to assume overt favoring. And other folks are going to understand there's just natural ranking that happens for all the right reasons but it's still Google that takes up another slot in the search results (and yep, I know it's actually the author getting the spot, and they can get the AdSense revenue in part). But it still leads back to a Google property.
an influx of links, good rankings, then over time adjustment of link value and consequent decrease in locations... now what does that remind me of ?
"If Google itself would just fully report links, as I pointed out in the story, you wouldn't need to debunk. I or others could do it ourselves."
The lesson simply is don't assume. Whenever we publish something we put our credibility on the line. That's the gamble we take. But if you turn out to be wrong, don't blame Google. You can avoid being debunked by leaving a back door open. A title like "knol does indeed give pages a ranking advantage" is difficult to back away from.
Obviously people are afraid of knol, Wikipedia, and YouTube taking up 3 slots on every SERP. But the fact that Google is wrong to release knol doesn't justify publishing false claims presented as fact backed up by blind fear and sloppy testing.
If you don't like knol, why not just publish a post showing a million ways how knol blows? All you've done with this post is create FUD.
My title also was: "The Day After: Looking At How Well Knol Pages Rank On Google." It's not the title of what was here on Sphinn.
My opening paragraph was, "I came away feeling that being on Knol does indeed give pages an advantage they might not get if they'd been hosted on some other brand new web site."
You can disagree with that, but that was my feeling -- qualified as my feeling. Indeed, further qualified in the story:
"There are lots and lots of caveats to consider. For one, doing a backlink lookup in Google is pretty useless...."
My issue with Google undereporting links is long-standing, and there are many examples where because they fail to do this, people can make mistaken assumptions. I think Google should fix that, and I think they do share part of the blame if there are mistaken assumption out there because of this.
"It's not the title of what was here on Sphinn."
My bad Danny. I didn't notice.
"I think they do share part of the blame if there are mistaken assumption out there because of this."
I don't mind Google sharing the blame as long as SEOs don't pretend they're blameless. Besides, does Google gain all that much from clueing in SEOs (apparently Matt thinks so, since he provided input in this thread, but I'm not sure about the rest of Google)? I also don't believe its that difficult for people to hold off judgement till a hole's dug deep enough, though I understand when it comes to reporting news, we all want to be first. Report first, research later, right? But then again that kind of atmosphere makes it hard to believe anything, or anyone.
At the end of the day, I think we share the blame in jumping to conclusions time after time. It just makes us look like noobs.
Danny, Google has made a conscious choice to show full backlinks to the owner of a site, and a sample of backlinks to the general public. I understand that some people dislike that policy, but that's a completely independent issue. I believe that we only push new backlink data when we update toolbar PageRanks, so relying on the "link:" operator on the main Google search just a day after a site has launched will almost always report no links. For example, the search [link:http://searchengineland.com/080724-140223.php] doesn't return any backlinks either, even though of course many people have linked to your story in the last week or so.
Responding to "Google didn't need to do Knol" I think Knol can fill a really helpful niche, because not everyone wants to go to the trouble of buying a domain name or setting up a blog when they just want to put a piece of information up on the web. My concern is that even if you add up the two issues of "Google didn't need to do Knol" and "Google should report full backlinks," that does not equal "Google is favoring its own content."
I know that you didn't write the title of this Sphinn Danny, but that was clearly the impression that a few people came away with from the story. I just checked back here because of this comment: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/08/01/cuil-interest-shows-hunger-for-search-competitor#comment-34647 in which an anonymous commenter claims that "google is well on it's way to favoring it's own content over an impartial list from the web."
So now I'm faced with the task of debunking this misconception around the web. Of course, I pointed out that Yahoo is actually ranking the backpack knol higher than Google right now (#3 on Yahoo vs. #7 on Google when I looked at it). It's funny that DaveN is ranking in one day for [how to backpack], but no one claims that Google is boosting DaveN in our search results. :)
Likewise, it's worth pointing out that for the query [how to backpack], the #1 search result on Yahoo is actually a hard-coded shortcut to a Yahoo property due to a partnership with a dictionary company. Did money change hands for that shortcut? We don't know in general with Yahoo shortcuts--all we know is that some Yahoo shortcuts are paid for, because as they mention on their shortcut page: "Some of the content may come from partners who pay to be included in Yahoo! or have another financial relationship with Yahoo!."
I understand that Google is getting more questions about this topic because Knol just launched. And I understand that it was natural to ask whether Knol is getting some unfair advantage by inheriting the trust or authority of google.com, but it's not.
Matt, I have ranked a Knol page in the top 20 for a fairly competitive term with a single link to it. Are you claiming that I could do the same thing with a brand new site or a page on one of my own existing sites?
No offense, but even if you guys didn't INTEND Knol to get a rankings advantage is not the same as what happens in practice. I realize you're all geniuses over there but you've screwed stuff up before.
Also, I notice that you say "unfair" advantage. Does that imply that some advantage is fair?
It's interesting how people always want to assume that Google favors certain types of sites. Before Knol people thought Google gave an unfair advantage to DMOZ pages, and to .edu pages, and to wikipedia pages, and on and on.
I wonder why it's so difficult for people to believe that Google ranks them all by the same criteria?
"Danny, aren't the results of this experiment affected by the freshness effect? That is, as you know, fresh pages rank better for a time after they're created."
It's completely pointless to look at any traditional SEO rules in terms of Knol. Because where do you draw the line? If you are going to look at the rules, then why not look at them all. And if you're going to look at them all, then Knol is ranking exactly as well as it should rank. It's a subdomain of a website with the highest trustrank on the Internet. Can we agree on that? Do you think Google gives Google.com the highest trustrank of any site in the index. Yes, they do.
If a person's argument is that it's unfair that Knol is ranking well, that argument has to be grounded in something other then traditional SEO rules because they all dictate that knol.google should be ranking extremely well out of the gate. And yes, with more backlinks overtime it's easier to claim that they've earned those rankings, but the reality is, based on the rules of the algo, (which is that if you add pages on an extremely trusted site, they rank immediately ie. Digg pages) that Knol is ranking exactly as it should based on the existing rules.
"I would think stuff like this leads to the demise of Google's trustworthiness. If nobody trusts Google, they'll start jumping off the ship. Google is pretty impervious at this point, but not so much so that they shouldn't have SOME fear people will start going elsewhere."
The average user doesn't care that Knol is ranking well. They like it, like they like the fact that Youtube is ranking well. So there's really no fear that the masses are going to stop using Google because Knol is ranking well.
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"I wonder why it's so difficult for people to believe that Google ranks them all by the same criteria?"
Probably because if you make a Digg page, it shoots up immediately, even with 1 backlink. That would tend to indicate that certain sites (like Digg) have a different ranking criteria. Especially when the Digg page temporarily outranks the original artcile. I think it's fairly obvious that sites have different ranking criteria Jill. Why is it that Techcrunch can push itself up the SERPS crazily by creating a few internal links... You don't really believe that all sites have equal ranking criteria, do you?
Skitzzo, no--I don't think there's such as thing as a "fair advantage." We try to rank all our content on a level playing field. I'd be happy to look at your knol example if you want to share specifics. And Jeeb90, I've asked the universal search folks about their ranking and as far as I can tell, they bend over backwards to try to rank and return non-YouTube content. There's just a lot of video content out there that is on YouTube, you know?
Jill, you forgot to include ".gov" links in the list
Matt, I'll go one more round to save the back-and-forth and give you the last say, if you want it....
As for what Yahoo does -- this isn't about Yahoo. Pointing out that for a query at Yahoo, they have a hard-coded shortcut doesn't dismiss concerns people have about Google. It just distracts from the bigger issue as if to say, hey, if you think we're bad, these guys are worse. I know there are plenty of people worse than Google. That doesn't mean I want you worse at all (nor am I saying you are).
Google's decision to deliberately unreport links is not an independent issue. Because you do this, it is impossible for someone to tell from Google itself whether a page has much link authority pointing at it or not. I couldn't do this for some of the knol pages I looked at, for reasons that I explained.
It's news to me that you only update link: data when toolbar PageRank data is updated. Since that happens on a roughly quarterly basis, wow. But then then that data is already of little use, so I guess it shouldn't make much of a difference. But then again, it sounds like backlink data is updated more than a quarterly basis, because you were demonstrating how that knol page eventually did show more backlinks within a week.
I think all this underscores what a problem Google's underreporting of backlinks is, even for those who might want to help Google in debunking things about it. I wish you'd provide better reporting. That wish isn't new. Yahoo manages to do it. Google could too. And I'll leave it at that.
In terms of the issues, I'm not saying Google is favoring Knol. I don't believe I ever wrote that. People, as you know, will come away with whatever they want.
I did have the impression that Knol was being seen as an authority site according to Google's own ranking algorithms -- just like I feel Google sees many non-Google sites as authority sites, and pages within those sites seem to have in general a better chance of ranking than those on unknown domains.
That's not Google favoring itself. That's Google favoring authority sites in general. But Google now seems to have gained another one, and as those pages rank, they inevitably may push other pages aside. And Google then looks to be helping itself, however it happens.
And to further clarify, I'm not saying (and never did) that knol.google.com does well because it's part of google.com. I'm saying that knol.google.com seemed to have, when I wrote this, quickly gained enough authority ON ITS OWN that pages within it did better -- that a page I never mentioned, which seemed to have practically no links pointing it -- shot to 28 out of 755,000 pages. Sorry, that's just not something I think you'd see happen on most brand new sites. And again, not because Google did anything to favor itself. Just because the Knol site rapidly gained authority.
In terms of the debunking you have to do, with respect, that blame lies not with my article but to the fact that Google ran this program at all. I'm not the only one who raised questions with ranking. And plenty of people will just assume regardless of articles that Google is favoring itself, if they see knol pages there. Heck, plenty already assume you must have a deal with Wikipedia, and you don't even own them.
The debunking you have to do is primarily due to the fact that Google itself has decided to run and operate a site that can have content on any topic and which inevitably raises these questions. It's the same issue Google has to deal with in terms of AdSense -- that people will think Google favors AdSense sites. Google knowingly made decisions to do things that raise issues of inherent conflict. In terms of AdSense, I think Google is seen as having a good track record. In terms of Knol, you may well be found to have the same way.
I'll leave with these questions, which is what Jeeb90 stressed about Digg. It, like many sites, seems to have authority to its entire domain that helps any page within that domain do better than if they were outside of it and on a less trusted site. They're not guaranteed to rank, but they have a better initial shot.
- Are some domains seen as "trusted" by Google, so that any page within them gains some of that trust in ranking mechanisms.
- If so, is this trust transmitted to subdomains of a domain?
I think the answer to the first question is yes and the answer to the second is no. But I'd like Google to give us an on-the-record answer. It would help with the debunking.Yes, I did think of that while writing it, and that would fall into the same category.
I'm certainly not Matt, but yes, of course some domains are seen as trusted. But not because of who they are or what they are but because they've earned that trust. So of course, pages on the google domain as a subdomain, i.e., knol.google.com will have whatever trust a subdomain on any other site would have. Only they have the power of their sub-domain being Google.
But it's not any more of an advantage than any other site that did the same thing.
Does seem like this could backfire though, in that knol sites can be created by anyone and therefore not truly have the same trust factor that google.com has.
I personally haven't even looked at knol yet as I'm waiting for the hype to die down, but it sounds like from the other posts here that they're using nofollow in all the links? If so, then that should lessen the problems that might be associated with anyone being able to create a page there.
"That's not Google favoring itself. That's Google favoring authority sites in general."
"Authority" sites like Wikipedia have only one advantage: higher concentration of PageRank. Trust is just a way of monitoring PageRank flow. High Trust means juice flows undevalued. I'm not saying PageRank makes pages rank higher. I am saying higher concentration of PageRank means deeper index penetration. More pages in the main index = more power to internal anchor text and more Google real estate = insanely high rankings for thousands of terms.
If knol.google.com's link juice flows out to the individual knol pages so that the backpage page turns into a TBPR 6 page (like it often happens on Wikipedia) you got something to worry about. But otherwise knol page is just like any other page on a relatively frequently crawled/indexed site.
BTW, I do believe "should Google reveal more accurate link data" and "is Google out of its mind in releasing knol" are off-topic to the question "do knol pages receive a auto-ranking advantage" to which I think now we all know the answer.
You folks are having a very interesting discussion. But from the point of view of someone providing content to Knol, I'm still really stumped. If I post a new page on eHow (where I contribute regularly), or on my own website or blog, the content is indexed and shows up on Google searches within hours.
My Knol content, on the other hand -- with backlinks, ratings, and internal Knol cross-references -- remains totally invisible, even after a week. And again, I'm not talking about it being on page 5 or 10 of search results. I mean it just doesn't exist in the Google index at all.
It seems to me that, far from favoring Knol content, Google is doing just the reverse...keeping most of it out of view, and allowing only a few articles to appear in regular search results.
Am I missing something?
dsarokin: I'd ask Matt Cutts if Google is using 'quality raters' to review some/all(?) published knols: maybe one of them didn't like your content?
"Am I missing something?"
Yeah...links.
Read the answers to your previous comment dsarokin; your question's already been answered.
halfdeck.
I've been reading all the comments...believe me.
Here's the thing, though. (1) New content at other sites I frequent shows up very quickly in search results, even without links. Links are critical for high rankings in search results. But I'm not sure links are as critical as folks seem to think they are to simply being anywhere in search results in the first place.
That said, my knols have links. I've added them in several places: my web pages, some blogs, eHow, other knols, and right here: http://knol.google.com/k/david-sarokin/online-newspaper-archives/l9cm7v116zcn/5#
This knol (about newspaper archives) contains the phrase: "archives generally take three forms". A search on that exact phrase should bring up the knol right at the top of the search results. But it's just not there.
Had I published that exact same article at any one of a number of other places, it would show up within hours.
Kapish?