I admit, I’m jealous. I wish my content was good enough to be given in-depth article status. For now, I can only strive to do better, and see what the winners are doing.
A few weeks ago I analyzed a few dozen Google queries that displayed in-depth article snippets for the purpose of better understanding the why and how of it.
This week I set out to find 5 unlikely domains that were given in-depth article status, and to find out a little more about what makes them tick.
Also note that I am not by any means calling these domains non-authoritative or unworthy. They simply occur much less in the in-depth article listings (IDALs) than sites such as the New York Times and other mega-brands that seem to own the listings.
Domain: Babble.com
Title: Flying With Babies: People Can Be Douchey
In- depth query in title: no
Number of keyword occurrences in body: 2
Framework: WordPress
Backlinks to Article: 0
Moz Page Authority: 39
Domain Registered: 1994
Word Count: 827
Comments: 29
Social Shares: 8+1s
Schema: none
on-page SEO: good
Date: September 2011
Domain: WilsonQuarterly.com
Title: The Call of the Future
In-depth query in title: no
Number of keyword occurrences in body: 41
Framework: Drupal
Backlinks to Article: 8
Moz Page Authority: 52
Domain Registered: 2000
Word Count: 3,535
Comments: 14
Social Shares: NA
Schema: some
On-page SEO: bad
Date: April 2012
URL: TheNation.com Title: Fracking Our Food Supply
In-depth query in title: yes
Number of keyword occurrences in body: 25
Framework: Drupal
Backlinks to Article: 862
Moz Page Authority: 78
Domain Registered: 1995
Word Count: 4,610
Comments: 87
Social Shares: 16k likes, 3000 Tweets, 187 +1s
Schema: none
On-page SEO: some
Date: December 2012
Title: The Stupidity of Computers
In-depth query in title: yes
Number of keyword occurrences in body: 75
Framework: HTML
Backlinks to Article: 231
Moz Page Authority: 64
Domain Registered: 2004
Word Count: 7363
Comments: none
Social Shares: 670 Tweets, 955 Likes, 296 +1s
Schema: none
On-page SEO: some
Date: July 2012
Title: How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam
In-depth query in title: NO
Number of keyword occurrences in body: 35
Framework: HTML
Backlinks to Article: 1,347
Moz Page Authority: 70
Domain Registered: 1998
Word Count: 6,643
Comments: NA
Social Shares: NA
Schema: None
On-page SEO: minimal
Date: April 2011
URL: MotherJones.com
Title: America’s Real Criminal Element: Lead
In-depth query in title: Kind of
Number of keyword occurrences in body: 65
Framework: Drupal
Backlinks to Article:
Moz Page Authority: 84
Domain Registered: 1995
Word Count: 4,962
Comments: 792
Social Shares: 7000 Tweets, 72,000 Likes
Schema: None
On-page SEO: minimal
Date: January 2013
Not too much more than we already know. In-depth article status is given to brands that have a ton of authority, very lengthy content, and tons of trust.
Something new that I did notice is it does seem that most of the IDALs are at least 1 year old. Very rarely have I found an in-depth article from the year 2013 but there are exceptions.
We are still yet to see a domain that does not already have an in-depth article listing obtain one through schema (or content length, etc) manipulation, but I am sure someone will make it happen soon.
