2 builders who never spoke to each other

Buy a site that already ranks instead of starting cold

Rankings can be acquired. Buying a small product with proven demand and existing search positions, or a content site already appearing in Google News, skips the years that authority normally takes and usually brings age, links and direct traffic bundled in. This is the honest route into features where a fresh domain simply does not appear: independents hold a small fraction of them.

The method

1. 01

   Buy and relaunch an existing small product instead of starting from nothing, choosing ones with proven demand that already rank well in search.

2. 02

   When you shop for a content site to buy, filter for ones already appearing in Google News and Top Stories, since that presence usually comes bundled with age, links, direct traffic and a social following.

3. 03

   The fastest route into Google's Top Stories is inheriting a domain that was already there: buy or consolidate an existing news property and redirect it rather than starting a fresh domain.

4. 04

   Size the prize before committing to news SEO: the feature is worth chasing but independents hold a fraction of it, so budget for a small slice rather than a breakthrough.

What it returned

• 1999

  Rob Walling built five products between 1999 and 2005 with no traction, then had his first success buying DotNetInvoice, and went on to acquire CMS Themer, Just Beach Towels and Wedding Toolbox.

• 1,000

  Checking registration dates on all 1,000 ranking domains left only nine near five years old and four under three. Northern News Now was built on a two-year-old domain but had several other Gray Local sites redirected into it, and KFF Health News picked up traffic only from March 2023 after KaiserHealthNews.org was redirected to it.

• 45

  Across roughly 45 million keywords showing Top Stories, the 1,000 most prominent domains took 97.3% of listings, and the top 100 sites alone receive an estimated 200 million clicks a month. Independents were 147 of the top 1,000 domains, 14.7%, but only 3.3% of market share. Five brands, Gannett, Nexstar, Vox Media, Hearst and Tegna, own 188 of those thousand sites and the top ten brands own 284.

• Several sites in the research took almost all of their traffic from Top Stories at times, which makes the buyer less exposed to standard ranking swings. Glen Allsopp has suggested this filter to people currently buying content sites.

Sources

• The Sites Dominating Google's Top Stories SERP Feature in 2024 - Detailed.comGlen Allsopp · detailed.com · Finding Independent Sites in Google News / Top Stories Feels Like a Smart Acquisition Strategy · 2024-08-29
• It's not enough to build a product that people wantJustin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Get to market as fast as you can · undated