Big Sites Don`t Automatically Rule Search Engines

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Amazon, eBay, Wal-Mart, Wikipedia and other huge sites seem to consistently hit the first page of search engine results. The thought overwhelms and discourages many owners of small web sites. If size matters so much on the Internet, what hope do they have? They'd be better off asking if size really does matter so much.

I was inspired to write about this after seeing Michael Martinez raise this point in his blog on SEO theory a while back. He holds himself up as an example, having worked on both large web sites and small web sites, and successfully ranked with both. He insists that “Size doesn't matter and anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't have a clue about search engine optimization.”

At the risk of putting enough innuendo into this article to make at least one of my bosses (all male) twitch, size really does matter to some degree. Even Martinez admits to seeing the “so-called 'large domain effect' many times, where you add a new page or section about a new topic and you get almost instant rankings success.” Surely no one can deny the attraction of a large...web site. All that content, waiting to satisfy your every desire. Amazon never lacks for admirers, and neither does Wikipedia. Who can compete with that?

Still, to trot out another hoary cliché, it's not your size, it's what you do with it that matters. I'm going to give you an example. It's admittedly obscure, but I'm sure you can think of versions that relate to your own field.

I've been to visit Disney World many times, and the park within it that I've visited more than any other is Epcot Center. Every time I go, I visit the World Showcase and hit the shops in Italy so I can drool over the Venetian masks. Being a crafty person, I wanted to learn how to make those masks myself, but I couldn't afford to buy one and reverse engineer it. I could take pictures of course, but they frown on you handling them too much. What could I do?

Next: Going the Narrow Route >>
 

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