In the days of 10 blue links, getting a #1 ranking on Google was the ultimate goal. As advertising becomes more prominent, local and vertical results become more complex, and Knowledge Graph and other rich SERP features become more prevalent, though, a #1 ranking isn’t always what it used to be. We’ve seen a lot of anecdotes over the past year or two, but I thought it was time to ask the question – where, on average, does a #1 Google ranking appear on the page?
Visualizing 10,000 #1 Rankings
I’ll dig into the methodology in a minute, but let’s cut right to the chase – we measured the vertical (Y) position of the #1 organic ranking across 10,000 keywords during business hours (roughly 10am-5pm ET) on Wednesday, February 12th. The following visualization shows what we found:
Embed this image:
I’ll spell out a few stats, for the sake of accessibility and because not all of them fit neatly in the visualization:
- Y=157 – Top position without Google Plus Bar
- Y=221 – Average position of SERPs with no ads
- Y=358 – Average position of SERPs with 1 ad
- Y=375 – Average position across all 10,000 queries
- Y=482 – Average position of SERPs with 2 ads
- Y=493 – Average position of SERPs with 3 ads
- Y=976 – Lowest position in our data set (see below)
Vertical position was well correlated with the number of ads that appeared at the top of the page (r=0.80), not surprisingly, but that doesn’t paint the whole picture. Rich SERP features are occupying more and more of the real estate.
The Big “Winners”
I thought it might be interesting to look at a couple of specific examples, so here are three “winners” – the queries with the lowest vertical positions for the #1 organic spot:
2nd Runner-Up: “Myrtle Beach Weather” (Y=869)
Here’s an example of the latest weather forecast widget – add in just one ad, and the #1 organic listing on this page is almost nowhere to be seen. Note: all of these screenshots have been cropped horizontally but are displayed in their actual vertical size.
1st Runner-Up: “Family Portraits” (Y=876)
This SERP combines two ads, both with links/extensions, plus a mega-block of images:
2013’s Winner: “Disney Stock” (Y=976)
Our winner pushed the #1 organic position down to nearly 1,000 pixels, well below the fold on many screens. This was a perfect storm of ads plus an enhanced stock ticker plus News results:
The Basic Methodology
I want to briefly explain how the data was collected, for transparency’s sake. The 10,000 keywords were taken from Google AdWords keyword research tools, split evenly across 20 categories. Naturally, these keywords are probably more commercial than the “average” keyword, but they do represent a wide range of volume, competition, query length, etc.
We did not count News results or Places blocks (local results that specifically say “Places for…”) as “organic”, but we did count video results (these are integrated now), and blended or “Pack” local results. The problem is that pack results are, at least within the DOM, very difficult to distinguish from organic – Google seems to count some as blended and some as “pure” local. This also gave Google the benefit of the doubt, which seemed only fair.
The actual technology was a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster. Queries were crawled from a variety of IPs (and, presumably, data centers) with personalization off, and rendered automatically in a Chrome browser. The #1 organic ranking was detected programmatically and a new DIV ID was injected. This ID’s vertical position was measured via jQuery’s offset() function and was passed via AJAX to the proper database. We spot-checked measurements against screenshots – the approach was crude but effective.
How Much Is #1 Worth?
To be fair to Google, most of the #1 rankings we measured that were really pushed down were in the bottom 20th percentile. Many #1 rankings still have reasonably good on-screen real-estate. The trick is knowing where your own rankings fall. This is a very dynamic situation, and non-standard SERP features are becoming more common and more diverse. If you only see what your rank tracking tool tells you and celebrate staying in the “top” spot, but the top spot is below 3 ads, a stock ticker, 3 news links, and a Places block, you probably don’t have much to celebrate. This is why it’s critically important to actually look at your SERPs in the wild, and to keep an eye on “downstream” metrics, like your organic traffic.
Seems like Google is really pushing for such a diverse range of possible results that is nearly impossible to reverse engineer. I think they really want there to be a major shift to paid search.Thanks for the tracking and keeping us updated with these SERP changes.
Indeed, they would love more Adwords customers...
There is plenty of worse examples in the travel industry. Just try Google UK for example and search for most destination type keywords such as "hotels in kuala lumpur".
Massive PPC ads, Hotel Finder, Google 7 Box
Of course TripAdvisor are now the Wikipedia of the travel industry so they get nice visibility above the 7-box, but everyone else has been shafted to obscurity.
Dear BenRush, you are correct, Hotels in london, hotels in paries, hotels in aberdeen I need to research on its CPC , I think high competition is there. Few optimized websites are dominated there with huge volume of pages and content
Very interesting post, and thanks for including the screenshots. I can't seem to replicate it from my non-US location :).
It's amazing how much any given SERP can fluctuate, even in terms of the features displayed. Ad positions and counts change a lot over time, even for the same keyword. I often measure something, go back a few hours, and then can't find it. The SERPs are incredibly dynamic.
Then again, it is entirely possible that some features are US only. What do you see, out of curiosity?
https://imgur.com/a/xoWKD
Here you go! I think it mostly has to do with no targeted advertising. I've made the screenshots by going to "google.com/ncr" and searching for the term. All in a new ingocnito browser, just to be safe.
Ah, got it - yeah, I think paid shopping results are still US-only, or at least not fully rolled out internationally. That's having a surprising impact already - I track it on about 20% of queries, either near the top ads or in the same space as Knowledge Graph (right-hand column, top). It's make the entire advertising landscape more diverse.
Nice analysis, Dr. Pete.
Not only is the #1 position being pushed deeper, but the probability of a searcher's eyes getting that low before clicking or leaving is much less.
Too bad we don't have yearly shots going back for a decade. It would show #1 positions being pushed deeper and deeper.
"Nice work, Dr. Pete, but why don't you have data for 10 YEARS!!" ;)
Yeah, I really wish we could see how it's changed over time. I'm starting to track that for more and more features (like ad density, Knowledge Graph, etc.), but, of course, we can still only move forward in time. My "20% projects" are getting gradually more ambitious, but time travel is still going to be a while.
@EGOL
For me you are SEO God and who speaks now.
And SEO inquiries have been changed, see below
Now days we are getting more inquiries for recovering Google penalty see below one of our inquiry
Hi,
We hit by Google penguin update please provide me proper solutions.
As we responded to the client once the client is in SEO board
Hi
I would advise you make your Google account for webmasters and give that to us. We would need to add a file to verify that you are too a webmaster of your website and we shall work on disavow from that.
If we are to use ours then whatever work we do you won't have access to it as we have many clients on the same webmaster.
So anything official I think you should create it and give us the access and always have access to it.
And I believe we will also get many inquiries for the same reason in 2013 because many websites is getting hit by this update including panda and penguin.
Loving all the data. Another reason to have well rounded marketing efforts. Just dominating the serp's will not make you king. One piece to a very large puzzle.
Agree with Hansen. It's so seductive to get point-focused on some aspect of a tech arms race while neglecting the larger picture (from a business perspective more than tech perspective). It just seems to me, for running a business, touch all the bases and treat clients well. Even if we do master one aspect, the tech slope tilts another direction later.
Nice one Dr. Pete. I'm just wondering if Google isn't just testing what other web properties would be nice verticals to move into, ie what should the develop to keep the user on a Google web property. Sure, first and foremost it's the user experience, but my bet is they are also looking into buying other web properties to earn even more money.....
I think that's a good point - Google has a serious engagement problem. They get tons of traffic, but then everyone leaves. This is where Facebook crushes them. Google+ is part of their solution, but engaging people in other Google properties (like Google Finance) is probably another part.
I think they might looking to use Google search as their first step of their funnel into Google owned properties (Youtube, G+, Google news, frommers etc. to monetize non commercial (non adwords) searches even better...Interesting to see what other peoples views are on this...
I think Google is making so much money off of Adwords that at this point it's not about buying other web properties to increase cash flow but they want to keep users coming back to Google for everything imaginable so they can make even more from Adwords and all of its offshoots.
Dr. Pete, I love how you're scraping this data. This is taking the simple scraping of SERPs and determining a particular position of a SERP to a whole nother level. I'd love to see some of these capabilities for advanced scraping in the PRO campaigns - to know on average for my terms appearing on page 1 where they actually are showing up on the page, and similar data that you guys seem to be collecting for Mozcast. I'd also love to know the relative volatility of the SERPs I'm watching in my campaigns compared to general volatility in all of the SERPs you're watching.
We're talking about how this fits into the broader rankings picture, but it's going to take some engineering to do it at large scale. We're very aware of the idea that "#1" isn't as simple as it used to be. I'm doing a lot of research on the non-organic "features", and it's an incredibly complicated picture.
(a) Once again, it seems you'd better be holistic in your approach. As mobile, personalization, localization, and Google's business interests play with the SERP real estate, the more sound fundamentals will help maintain stability through new changes. Without a solid foundation, adaptation can be tricky. I confess that one of my frustrations is that with the various changes I mentioned above, the principles of business have not changed. People, for the most part, have not changed. Putting labels aside for a moment, the whole idea is still applying these principles of business to meet human needs and wants that are in demand. So, I will continue to try to asses each unique set of conditions and funnel things down to the simplest strategies and actions that are effective.
(b) I think the changes in SERP pages are showing that Google is in a state of flux / experimentation / transition. Clearly, they want in on the prime real estate for their own business reasons. Also, the lower #1 sits on the page, the more people desperate for eyeballs and conversions will pay for ads to gain a better position.
(c) As long as people care about where they are positioned on a results page, SEO is not dead. The name of the game may change and evolve, but the game and results sought will remain the same. It's using search engines to the best of your ability to improve your business results. Why stop this as long as search engines are still relevant?
( I don't usually leave comments this long. Sorry about that.)
A good point well made.
Aside from increasing the prominence of AdWords adverts - with a proportionate reduction in the prominence of organic listings – it’s also interesting to analyse how other core search products and functionality help funnel searchers towards Google properties and meet their commercial goals.
Pairing conventional PPC adverts with other visually distinct search products, such as Shopping, News & Local – all of which will no doubt be paid-for services within 3 years – is evidently a core part of their strategy, helping them fight banner blindness (which is as relevant today as it was in 2003).
Google Suggest, too, helps corral searchers and search behaviour into the relatively competitive, controllable and lucrative short-tail and away from the un-policeable and difficult to measure long-tail.
Thanks Dr. Pete for this report and the data supplied. I believe SEO and search marketing will continue to be a strong tool in a marketer's bag, but similar to the offline world, each business will have to look at it's market and consistently measure which marketing strategy produces the best ROI. Presently and going forward, I think it makes sense to build several avenues of traffic to your website in the digital world and try to go where your audience / target market is and where they are looking to connect with you or your business. Some businesses might do better getting to the top of search engines while some might get higher conversion rates participating in discussion groups on Linkedin or Q&A websites such as Quora. I think the thing to keep in mind as technology continues to advance is that the ultimate goal of marketing will always stay the same. Marketing for companies since inception has always been about finding the most effective way to communicate with their audience or consumers or reach new ones in a target market to get their message / branding across.
Downvoted to the fact that this looks like a C/P'd comment and has nothing to do with the post.. it's just a general thing about SEO - Most of your comments seem to be automated b/s - This guy's probably using articlewriter or some software like that xD<3 SEOmoz..
Hey Dr. Pete
I have just finished a quick meeting with a client who works in a fairly competitive space when it comes to PPC and all of the desired terms are going to see heavy advertiser and SEO competition. So, even if we can get some 1st, 2nd or 3rd places long term there is still a hell of a lot of other places for that user to go before they ever get chance to hit up the clients pages AND it's a new site in a tough niche so there is a long road to travel before we even get there (if there is even a good place).
But, this is where things get interesting and there is really no strong blog content in this area and if we look at some of the opportunities out there and the possible scope for this kind of content we see that there is frequently less and often no PPC for the informational searches.
So, not only is the blog content easier to rank it also tends to have a higher position not only in the SERPs but on the search results page in general as there are not so many distractions above.
Another reason why we want to look at content as a tractor beam to bring people in and expose them to the brand and then complement that with other means to bring people back. Currently, combining this kind of content led approach with some PPC on the big terms and some simple re-targeting is proving pretty damn successful for a bunch of my clients.
Interesting and informative post as ever.
Cheers
Marcus
Great Point! Painful, but it reaffirms my current "reinvention". In the past we've all thought of ourselves as "SEO Professionals" ... that job title is all but gone (IMHO) - yes we are highly skilled at SEO, but that simply isn't enough anymore. I have continued to rethink this for myself and my clients over the last 6 months. It's about leveraging the whole of online marketing, not just about ranking #1. We have to position our clients in front of targeted eyeballs, in whatever venue that is ... not just in the SERPS.
Good post. But i would like to say that SEO will never die. There are changes through SEO Algorithm updates but even Google wants the quality work on website then the SEO work will be fulfill as in ranking.
Amazing information , As i have seen few other had good discussion SEO Death , when the word will come true then Google,Yahoo and Bing like search engine will close the web site and keep silence after that you can say seo death never before that .
What you say all of my friend ? I am right or not ?
Thanks for great article Dr Pete! Could you explain what "20th%, 40th% etc" at the main picture mean?
Sorry - those are percentiles - so, 20% of the keywords fell in the dark green range, 40% in the greens, 60% in green or yellow, etc. The red zones are the bottom twenty percent.
Oh, now I see. Thanks a lot!
Thanks for this interesting post. I've also found it useful to understand the difference in display between Mobile and Desktop. We have some clients who rank "above the fold" easily when searches are done on a desktop computer, but on a mobile, the organic results are placed "below the fold". I'd say that your campaign needs to take into account the other useful verticals in addition to organic.
Awesome details, as I have seen few others had good conversation SEO Loss of life, when the phrase will come real then Look for engines, Yahoo and Look for engines like online search motor will near the website and keep quiet after that you can say SEO death never before that.
What you say all of my buddy? I am right or not?
If you would like to rank at top position in search engine organically then you must have to follow all rules and regulations along with make use of free / paid services provided by them then there are more chances of getting a higher position in search engine result pages.
You will surely get penalized for the violations of any rules, so be clear while doing SEO for your website.
This is a sore subject with many of our clients who ranked #1 last year and still do this year, but have seen traffic fall off for that term as much as 30%. Shopping results are killing traffic to those smaller companies who can't compete with the big 3 in commercial retail (wal-mart, target and Amazon) who buy most of the shopping results.
Certainly, the extreme examples shown here are a bit concerning, but our own data suggests that to a certain degree even position 1 is no longer the most important factor. People want results that are relevant to them.
One recent anecdotal example is a wedding venue. A client's website shows up as the #3 result for an inexpensive wedding venue term and yet the conversion of traffic is many times what google suggest's it should be if it were in the #1 position. Reason being, the first result is wedding wire followed by 20somethingfinance which are articles that talk about how to have an inexpensive wedding, but are not businesses providing wedding offerings at an inexpensive cost.
We've only been working on the term for a very short time, but it makes me wonder just how much these blended results matter in the context of what you are trying to achieve rank. Certainly if your clients destination site is serving up info similar to that contained in the various kinds of blended results, it could be problematic. My experience has differed somewhat as we primarily work for businesses who are selling some kind of product as opposed to competing to have information in the top spot. As suggested, it is important to look at more than just positional results only.
Great read.
I think this is where CTR studies are so difficult - every SERP is different, and the click-through of #3 depends a lot on the relevance of #1 and #2, not just on position. That's why looking at the big picture is so important. I think rankings are still a vital part of that picture (especially for diagnosing what happened when traffic went up or down), but it's dangerous to get obsessed with being "#1" for just a handful of keywords.
I believe it also depends on rich snippets and good meta descriptions. In general, nice looking SERP-s attract more clicks.
I still feel, than unless someone is specifically searching for items relating to these google SERP widgets (news, images, local, wiki etc), the overall impulse is to scroll down and look at the actual search results.
However, Google's tendency to show the relevant SERP widgets (considering how they've made it more prominent over the years) makes me wonder if they are converting to a single search result page:
Because if you're searching for something, you're 95% likely to find it on the first page anyways.
Only time will tell.
You forgot to mention that Google places can be pain in the *** as well :-(
Interesting experiment Dr Pete, When searching through Google I would only come across these types of situations when I'm looking for the time or an obscure keyword that I wouldn't normally go after targeting.
I think the keyword examples you have showed is an example of this, but not the type of keyword you would go after.
Interesting to see how this developments in the future, and how you could loose a majority of your traffic even though you hold the #1 spot.
Good Post Dr. Pete.
Adding to it, the awareness about the kind of SERPs would also help in designing the content strategy accordingly. Actually I faced a situation in my job because of it. It was that though couple of our pages were ranking in top 10 but we were not getting traffic from them. And all of us were perplexed as to what is happening. Our keyword research was in place, content was good, link building was fine yet zilch. And we were finding it difficult to figure out the reason. Then a chance observation on SERPs of those keywords revealed that organic results were pushed way below because of different reasons mentioned in the post above and all of it resulted in skewed click behavior. This then guided us to include more of images (as those were occupying more estate) and the result was evident pretty soon.
Since then, I use this a lot to design my content strategy.
No doubt it's a great post, Thanks for discussiong about SEO facts
Hi Dr. Peter! Another great post from you. I like the data you presented here. I believe that by just dominating the SERPs will not make you the best. Looking forward for another great and very informative posts of yours :)
Great post, Many times I have wondered on these kind of things connected to ranking. Now I got some sort idea, Thanks a lot for publishing this post sir
guys you all have come to the great conclusion and that is SEO is hard and is getting harder. It is also interesting that we all seem like spending most of our time to find solution for the formula that was not given to us when we were in google SEO classe and entered the world of search engine . After all we all being played by Mr google and hoping one day we can find a easy way to be the #1 place. In my opinion it's all cash game that google are trying to play to get more sites to give up on how the SEO game played and make businesses that depend on traffic to make sells or generate revenue use paid postion and they have been successful so far.
Very interesting post...:)
Interesting post, thanks.
Very interesting post, and thanks for Sharing
Very cool way of showing that data!
The rate its going natural results are going to end up appearing on the second page. Google needs to realize that natural results deserve a place as well. Another addition to this post is the new release of Google Shopping that takes more space away from the natural results. Makes sense to Google in the fact the reap more advertising income...
It is a sad reality, and your examples bear it out well...you can be #1 organically and be buried on the page well away from the visitors view.
The problem is that from Google's own research, they know that highly-educated users will eschew paid search results and scroll down to the organic results. I know it's true because I do it, and many educated people I talk to do the same, because they know all the "paid" ads are exactly that ... paid ads.
I would not count SEO out for the count in any measure.
Love a Dr Pete post. Always very interesting. Thanks
Thanks for a highly informative post. The screen shots, in particular, convey your message loud and clear!
Definite food for thought!
Great post! Thanks for sharing.
I think we all have to be open minded to all that is going on these days.
Catching those eyeballs from these top spots is getting harder and harder.
I now find that I'm spending an equal amount of time between organic SERP and PPC campaigns for my site.
Very interesting post. I wonder what percentage of users end up clicking the paid ads and various widgets instead of the top organic search result. Between SEO becoming more complicated and paid ads becoming more dominant, it seems like Google is hoping every advertiser will spend money on AdWords.
Of course, PPC is its own can of worms with Google's quality and relevance scoring. You need to do your homework before spending $ on AdWords. I don't suppose Rand is planning to start "PPCmoz" anytime soon? :-)
I did an update on my blog about this INTERESTING statistic of how low no.1 can go - not in as great detail as you guys thought :-)
Nice! And very true. I like to actually search on different browsers, and ensuring I'm logged out of Google services.
And Yes - your Places ranking becomes big, when searches are localized, as the Places results take 1st spot usually - which also makes a case, for a more active Google Business page profile.
:)
Not surprising having in mind that Google's ultimate (supposedly) goal is to save time to the user. So rich SERPs are the logical thing to be done wherever they make sense. This would also be Google's argument why they tolerate their own products (such as Google Places) - because they show rich data straight to the user. But it is a notable example that in a few occasions in the past Google were testing the display of a so-called "local plus box" (like the finance plus box, ads plus box, etc.) under some of the web results, but they stopped doing it. Why?
We always see the comments about the Death of SEO, which is kind of comical at this point.
Google is actually just getting better at doing what they have been attempting to do all along, and that is provide information that a user is searching for.
You will see that for the top 3 "winners" all of the results appear to be relevant and correct. From the paid ads at the top to the actual custom content blocks (stock ticker, weather widget, etc...).
If I was searching for "Myrtle Beach Weather". I would have found what I am looking for.
How many enhancements to Google's services have put other smaller companies out of business? This is on going and will never end.
I do not need to visit or bookmark a weather website anymore as I can just use Google and get my answer.
"Google and your done!"... Or was that some other search engine's slogan?
Great job Dr. Pete, on articulating your point about the value of #1. Convincing certain clients is a whole other topic itself, but in our organization, we are definitely moving the focus away from the rank position and narrowing in on the organic search traffic as a key indicator of performance (which it is anyways). In today's time, it is actually easier to wrap your head around the traffic data than it is the rank position.
Thanks really Dr.pete, I just want to continue your thinking that #1 ranking is most important in today work for increasing your business, #1 ranking is most important to enhance or establish better online business.
And Thanks again for including these images which clearly speak your mind. !
For non US residents this is what the future holds for us :) At least we get to plan accordingly in time that eventually hits us in the local market.
Usually I am always complaining how US gets every thing first ( tech product releases ) but this is one time I am NOT going to do so :)
Thanks for the post. Great topic and great findings.
I think the interesting part here is the Non Standard Search Results Page Layout (that we can't do much about). I might be useful to evaluate the difference/shifts in the click through rates (position-wise) on pages with these layouts and also analyzing if there can be a trend spotted in what kind of searches generally trigger these layouts. E.g. - Weather related, Currency Conversion related, Stock related.
Eye-opening post as usual Dr. Pete. Just goes to show that there's more to rankings than rankings!
Very interesting... one more think to keep in mind when adjusting SEO efforts for ROI.
Very informative article thanks for sharing it.
Very informative and the screen shots make it very clear what's going on.
Let me know when you want to come out to Myrtle Beach and enjoy our weather. :) We are headquartered here!
I'm in Chicago, so 55 deg. F is looking pretty good right now :)
Hahaha I'm glad to know I wasn't the only one who payed attention to the weather screenshot. Thanks a lot for the post Dr. Pete!
Great job Dr Pete.
I recently discovered https://www.dashthis.com which has helped me keep an eye on our "downstream SEO metrics" like organic traffic super-duper-easily.
It was quick to set-up and lets you create multiple dashboards for any Google Analytics data point from multiple profiles, using standard and/or custom GA segments.
Each KPI shows:
1) 12-month trends in a nice little graph,
2) % change on last month, and
3) % change on same period last year
Just what I was looking for.
This tool deserves some attention.
I want to pass this article along to all of my clients. I've tried to explain this exact concept to many of them on more than one occasion--just because you're ranking #1 that doesn't mean you're the first thing on the page. And depending how much other "stuff" is in the SERPs spots 5-6 might even be on page two!
Wow. Great data Dr. Pete. I loved the description and transparency of the methodology used. With personalization, localization and blended search results, ranking analysis relative to above the fold has become even more important which is why this data is interesting. Who would have thought that being #1 spot in the SERPs could put you below the fold like "Walt Disney Stock"?
For keywords where #1 is mid page or lower, synonyms and related searches can be important, though key phrases with high commercial intent will always be competing with ads for screen space. I assume long tail key phrases can be valuable here as well.
Thanks for sharing.
Good for searcher experience. We can always get some rankings in images and places
Dr. Pete strikes again
your pal
Chenzo
I find its an effective post but as per my latest research and experiences, to be very frank and very practical, we can't predict anything in the current scenario, even Google is updating on regular basis and has mind makeup to demolish the SEO Industry.
The death SEO... hmmm bold statement and I'm also interested to know who these so called veterans are who are predicting the death of SEO. Have they been living in a cave since Panda and Penguin to think that? SEO is just getting good!
i3MEDIA
As being an Internet Marketing Expert, i know that SEO can't die, without SEO there is no existence of Paid Services in Google. But if you see the current ranking positions on some highly competitive keywords you will findout that lots of Free Blogs, Linkedin Pages and Facebook Pages are visible and they are getting better ranking than proper websites. In simple word - Google is just manipulating the ranking to increase the sales of their paid services. This is really harmful for SEO. If we are following the Google Algo effectively then we must expect the proper result.
"If we are following the Google Algo effectively then we must expect the proper result."
I agree we should be... Here's the thing people are still wanting to manipulate Google. So until they stop surely Google rankings are going to be all over the place while they perfect the algo to cut out the black hat stuff that is still quite clearly going on. Not a day goes by where I get a email from someone offering me link packages. And it makes you think if I'm still getting these emails people must still be buying the packages from them.
It's just pretty simple actually! Google loves authority websites that's why you are seeing social media sites like Facebook page, Linkedin, Pinterest and etc on Google SERP's. Having a profile account for your online business to these high authority websites with your website link, this will surely improve your search engine rankings as long as you are using it properly or not spamming. Also, placing your website on local and authority web directories will still improve your search engine rankings.. Authority = High Quality Content.
I've seen a lot of directory sites or Facebook/Linkedin profile type sites jump in rankings for generic keyword searches but I'm not seeing them taking over the businesses homepage when people are searching for the actual business and not what they do or sell.
Exactly. AJ1534
Ans SEO is going just so intensive and progressive. I agree that all the SEO roads now lead for content drivers, but that has also proved to be a big boon for the web industry. There would be no more fakes and spams. And all quality will be here to stay (a positive for the consumers too).
Fairytale, look a little Google search results ...
It's funny because I have been hearing about the death of SEO, and link building for that matter, for the last 4 or 5 years but I think maybe it is because it is getting more challenging without the quick easy wins people are just giving up or it. I'd have to agree with i3MEDIA SEO is just getting good!
Couldn't agree more... Give it time and the true SEO Google set out to achieve will shine through and the SEO's who put the hard work into their job will see the results come in.
Google is moving in circles, with each update they improving one one aspect of the search and the other spoil. Nightmare for webmasters....
This all depends on the persons given perspective on what SEO is.
If you think SEO is manipulation by link building and creating auto generated pages that differ by only a tiny aspect (location / service etc) then yeah, SEO is dead and buried.
If you think SEO is finding ways to maximise traffic to someones website from people using search engines then, well, yeah, it's just starting to get interesting.
Traditional SEO still has some way to go before it, if it ever dies and folks with big, technical websites still need advice on how to best organise it and follow best practices but from a traffic generation perspective, I find Inbound Marketing is an improved and more descriptive title that people can better understand once the concept is explained.
"If you think SEO is finding ways to maximise traffic to someones website from people using search engines then, well, yeah, it's just starting to get interesting."
Do I think SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is finding ways to maximise traffic to someone's website using search engines...... Errrr yes of course even people manipulating the link building etc. are trying to achieve this. SEO is getting interesting because people who have been using poor linking tactics are now paying the price and the smart SEO's are starting to shine through.
That was not targeted at you chief and was a response to Paul - I think we are saying the same thing here.
LOL, only 4-5 years? I can remember when Google Adwords came out, that was the 'death of SEO'... Actually, thinking back, when Google launched with its shiny new pagerank algorithm way back in '98, I'm sure that was the 'Death of SEO' too!
SEO seems to be taking the long way out :-D
haha I'm obviously a bit of a newbie ;)
I hope it stays I'm only 22! I'll have to go back to my job playing proffesional football.
The death of SEO is a joke. If SEO dies, Google will die too. What people mean when they say that is what we call SEO has changed. But sites still need to be optimized and relevant, quality content still needs to get to the screens of users.
Every good SEO has the goal to make the internet better. To provide the information consumers need to them quickly and easily.So yes, keyword stuffing, EMDs, cloaking, and other shady practices or quick fixes no longer work. That's good for us! It weeds out the lazy and untalented. It keeps us on our toes and pushes us to create better content and get it out there in a non spammy way that people will enjoy.
"If SEO dies, Google will die too."#FAIL?No, if SEO dies Google won't magically die over night, my nan, girlfriend and sister will keep using Google to find the new shoe sale or a cheap bargain on my new socks for Christmas.. Just because Google puts 0.0001% of it's Users (The SEOs) out of business and we stop using it, doesn't mean that other people won't..
Its an intresting post, but in future SEO Marketing is vey important that linkbuilding.
truely agree with dravid, with the change in its algorthm google is focusing more on marketing or user oriented compared to link building
the 1st guy i've ever seen with - mozPoints xD
Ill add to that! :)