So What If All Things Indeed Are Equal

[morestar]

I'm wondering, has anyone thought about what the Google search results would look like between three websites of all things were equal onsite and off site?

If all three websites have the exact same copy, virtually the exact same structure (not design elements - only data presentation) the exact same internal linking scheme AND the exact same links, with the exact same anchor text from sites that are also exactly the same, which one would win?

Would Google burp? I wonder if this scenario has been taken into consideration (it must have) and if they have a fail-safe setup in case it does occur.

[julien_simon]

The oldest domain name, the one which was crawled first perhaps.

It's worth the try but would be impossible to control as people may link to it that we don't know about.

[mjtaylor]

But all things never are ... so Google doesn't need to plan for it.

[kgun]

Worst case scenario:

Two of the sites were deindexed and the owner(s) would get a picture on n sites with copycat in his forehead.

[williamc]

But all things never are ... so Google doesn't need to plan for it.

I disagree. Google has billions of pages in its index. The situation where the tallied scoring matched precisely has had to come up at some point in time. Of course we will never hear of it or know which sites it happened on. We DO see some sites that jockey around for position in the SERPs sometimes, that may be what we see when that occurs....

[mjtaylor]

You could be right, but the idea that one site is really identical to another just seems unlikely to me ...

[deepsand]

I'm wondering, has anyone thought about what the Google search results would look like between three websites of all things were equal onsite and off site?

An impossible case.

Such would require that everything about the sites be precisely the same.

But, were such to actually happen, the ordering would simply be determined simply the sorting algorithm(s) used. No sort chokes on identical sort keys; a subsequent record with a key identical to a previous one is always placed either before or after the previous one, according to the algorithm's rules.

[williamc]

Such would require that everything about the sites be precisely the same.

Correct, the OPs premise is not feasable in the least. And even were it possible, duplicate devaluation of one would likely occur.

You could be right, but the idea that one site is really identical to another just seems unlikely to me ...

The sites do not need be identical to have the sum of all scoring be exact.

[morestar]

Correct, the OPs premise is not feasable in the least....

Hey Will, what premise? Care to quote my premise? I asked a question. Didn't you read the post?

[williamc]

This premise:

If all three websites have the exact same copy, virtually the exact same structure (not design elements - only data presentation) the exact same internal linking scheme AND the exact same links, with the exact same anchor text from sites that are also exactly the same

Definition of premise: a basis, stated or assumed, on which reasoning proceeds