Benefits of Being the First To Post
There is clearly a bias regarding search engines giving the webpage that exists (aka is indexed) first a boost in the search engine rankings. Another way to look at this ranking factor is as the age of a webpage. An older webpage is given more authority by search engines, like Google.  By being the first or one of the first to post regarding a new upcoming topic or keyword phase, that webpage is given an advantage over a webpage that is posted a week or a month later. When a new keyword phase first comes about, there are a few webpages in existence referencing or mentioning it. As word starts to get around, there is a huge influx of new webpages that are created that will target this keyword phase; then the amount of webpages that are created drops down and stabilizes to a constant level, until a new fade or popularity occurs and repeats the same process.Â
If you are one of the lucky and few people who first post and provide information regarding this keyword phase, your webpage will have a distinct advantage over all of the webpages that target that keyword phase. I have seen instances where a website with little authority or age itself and a moderately aged review post with no links pointing toward it and little on page optimization outranks a well optimized and linked to post on a more authoritative domain.Â
The first review post had little going for it aside from being one of the first to write a review prior to the huge spike of posts that followed. The second website posted their review after this spike and likely ranked for this keyword phase because of their quality on page optimization, links, and the authority of the website. In addition to the benefits provided by search engines, being the first to post also give other advantages. When that huge spike occurs and even after as the topic dies down, people that write about it will be more likely to cite and/or link to your webpage because of its age and the visibility of it in search engines.Â
Better visibility in search engines essentially means that the higher you rank for a keyword phase, the more likely people will be to link to you simply because you rank for that phase. Granted having quality content helps increase the chances of people linking to you, even if you content is sub par compared to other websites in the rankings, people will still link to the higher ranked website more often than not. The benefits of being the first to post are important with regards to search engine rankings and linking. Instead of trying to catch up with all of the runaway popular keyword phrases, try to be one of the first to post about a new up and coming topic.