The other day I reported how Google said there is no such thing as the top three ranking signals despite what may have been said before. I said it is likely because some queries weigh some signals more important than others, such as QDF (query deserves freshness – Google it) and other things.

But what about having different signals with more weigh based on the industry or topic of the query? John Mueller of Google said “I think it makes total sense” to have algorithms that weigh different signals dynamically based on various of factors. He said there is no one-size fits all approach to ranking signals. He said Google “probably” does value links less in some industries that are more susceptible to link spam but he qualified that saying that was from his “limited point of view.”

This several minute conversation between myself and John Mueller starts at 40 minutes into the video. Here is a partial transcript, it is a lot to transcribe and my fingers hurt.

I then brought up how Yandex dropped links for some queries because of spam asking “would Google pull a Yandex and weigh links less for certain industries?” John Mueller responded “I don’t know, I think that would totally make sense from my limited point of view. I don’t know the specifics around what Yandex recently announced there.”

John said this is why it is hard to say these are the top three ranking signals in Google.

I should note that back in 2013, Matt Cutts of Google touched on this topic – so it is not exactly new.

Here is the video embed from yesterday:

Forum discussion at Google+.