Google PageRank and SEO: Sacbee.com vs. KCRA.com on “Sacramento” and “California” news

When I was a reporter at the Sacramento Bee, I always wondered why the Sacramento Bee, the region’s only major newspaper, was always ranked lower on a Google search for “sacramento news” than KCRA, the area’s leading TV site:

I can’t say which news source reaches the most people, owing to network TV’s reach and KCRA’s dominance in the news ratings. More than on a few big stories I would interview people and they would make reference to what they saw on KCRA rather than read in the paper. But the Bee unquestionably has the larger news staff and copy on the web. On Alexa’s not-quite-solid-gold ranking system, Sacbee.com is ranked #5,674 and has 8,879 sites linking in; KCRA is #34,285 and 1,527, respectively.

Today, I randomly did a search for “California” and “news” and this was the result:

Apparently, the title used for Sacbee.com and KCRA, “Northern California local news and information from The Sacramento …” and “Sacramento News, Stockton, Modesto Breaking News, Weather & Sports …” makes all the difference. Neither site has “sacramento” in the actual address (sacbee.com wins in a Google search for “sac news”). But KCRA has “Sacramento news” as the first two words, whereas Sacbee.com has those words in the 4th and 9th positions. However, Sacbee.com, with “California” as the second word in its title, comes in behind the LA Times in a search for “California news,” as it should, given the two papers’ respective circulation and sizes.

It’s well-known that the earlier a word appears in the copy, the higher Google values it. In this case, it was enough to make up for Sacbee.com’s greater traffic and number of inbound links. I bet if they put “Sacramento” in the title higher, the Bee would top that search. On the other hand, it probably wants to be known more for being the region’s newspaper (as well as the capitol paper of record), rather than just metro coverage.

Interestingly, the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, sfgate.com, with an Alexa ranking of 636 and the state’s third-largest newspaper, is not even on the first page of results for “California news” or “Northern california news.” Its page title is: “San Francisco Bay Area — News, Sports, Business, Entertainment …”

And surprisingly, despite having “Sacramento” as its 9th title term, the Bee is the top news site for a Google search for just “Sacramento”.