I wasn’t one of the dolphins caught in the Panda update but I do know some people who were. They’re not evil, either, just trying to get by by building as many sites as possible (which of course means none of them are very good). This is a tough and unforgiving business.

Hi John, you are correct. This post does take some Google general statements and apply assumptions to reach conclusions. But I wouldn’t rush to say these statements are unwarranted.

There will always be examples of older sites that rank well. The simple reason being that Google’s algorithm doesn’t base its ranking solely on “freshness.” As mentioned in the post, old principles still apply—site age, number of backlinks, trustworthiness with Google all still affect your ranking. And based on your comment, the page you use in your example has been around for at least 3 years, indicating that it has had an opportunity to build up credibility in areas that Google deems important.

Would love to hear what others have found as well.

Thanks for the comment!

If freshness has any impact on SERPs then it possibly only kicks in when Google has previously stated that “freshness” kicks in. What have others found?

SERPs based on a person’s past searches or interests will make it difficult for marketers to see the world as others see it. Such a feature should be configurable by the user depending on how they use search. The idea sounds like a separate kind of search to me, maybe a separate company.