A frequently asked question in the SEO world is whether or not branding plays a part in Google's ranking algorithm. There's a short answer with a big asterisk, and in today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand explains what you need to know.
For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard. Click on it to open a high resolution image in a new tab!
Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week I'm going to try and answer a question that plagues a lot of marketers, a lot of SEOs and that we ask very frequently. That is: Is brand or branding a ranking factor in Google search engine?
Look, I think, to be fair, to be honest, that the technical answer to this question is no. However, I think when people say brand is powerful for SEO, that is a true statement. We're going to try and reconcile these two things. How can brand not be a ranking factor and yet be a powerful influencer of higher rankings in SEO? What's going to go on there?
What is a ranking factor, anyway?
Well, I'll tell you. So when folks say ranking factor, they're referring to something very technical, very specific, and that is an algorithmic input that Google measures directly and uses to determine rank position in their algorithm.
Okay, guess what? Brand almost certainly is not this.
Google doesn't try and go out and say, "How well known is Coca-Cola versus Pepsi versus 7 Up versus Sprite versus Jones Cola? Hey, let's rank Coca-Cola a little higher because they seem to have greater brand awareness, brand affinity than Pepsi." That is not something that Google will try and do. That's not something that's in their algorithm.
However, a big however, many things that are in Google's ranking algorithm correlate very well with brands.
Those things are probably used by Google in both direct and indirect ways.
So when you see sites that have done a great job of branding and also have good SEO best practices on them, you'll notice kind of a correlation, like boy, it sure does seem like the brands have been performing better and better in Google's rankings over the last four, five, or six years. I think this is due to two trends. One of those trends is that Google's algorithmic inputs have started favoring things that brands are better at and that what I'd call generic sites or non-branded sites, or businesses that have not invested in brand affinity have not done well.
Those things are things like links, where Google is rewarding better links rather than just more links. They're things around user and usage data, which Google previously didn't use a whole lot of signals around that. Same story with user experience. Same story with things like pogo sticking, which is probably one of the ways that they're measuring some of that stuff.
If we were to scatter plot it, we'd probably see something like this, where the better your brand performs as a brand, the higher and better it tends to perform in the rankings of Google search engine.
How does brand correlate to ranking signals?
Now, how is it that these brand signals that I'm talking about correlate more directly to ranking signals? Like why does this impact and influence? I think if we understand that, we can understand why we need to invest in brand and branding and where to invest in it as it relates to the web marketing kinds of things that we do for SEO.
One very clearly and very frankly is links. So when we talk about the links that Google wants to measure, wants to count today, those are organic, editorially earned links. They're not manipulative. They weren't bought. They tend not to be cajoled, they're earned.
Because of that, one of the best ways that folks have been earning links is to get people to come to their website and then have some fraction, some percentage of those folks naturally link to them without having to do any extra effort. It's basically like, “Hey, you made this great piece of content or this great product or great service or great data. Therefore, I'm going to reference it." Granted, that's a small percentage of people. There's still only maybe two or three out of a hundred folks who might visit your website on the Internet who actually have the power or ability to link to you because they control content on the web as opposed to just social sharing.
But when that happens, in a lot of cases folks go and they say, "Hmm, yeah, this content's good, but I've never heard of this brand before. I'm not sure if I should recommend it. It looks good, but I don't know them." Versus, "Oh, I love these folks. This is like one of my favorite companies or brands or products or experiences, and this content is great. I am totally going to link to it." Because that happens, even if that difference is small, even if the percent goes from 1% to 2%, well now, guess what? For every hundred visits, you're earning twice the links of your non-branded competitor.
Social signals
These are pretty much exactly the same thing. Folks who visit content, who have experiences with a company, with a product, or with a service, if they're familiar and comfortable with the brand, if they want to evangelize that brand, then guess what? You're going to get more social sharing per visit, per exposure than you would ordinarily, and that's going to lead to a cycle of more social sharing which leads to visits which probably leads to links.
User and usage data
It's also true that brand is going to impact user and usage data. So one of the most interesting patents, which we'll probably be talking about in a future Whiteboard Friday, was brought up recently by Bill Slawski and looked at user and usage data. It was just granted to Google in the last month. It talked about how Google would look at the patterns of where web visitors would go and what their search experiences would be like. It would potentially say, "Hey, Google would like to reward sites that are getting organic traffic, not just from search, but traffic of all kinds on a particular topic."
So if it turns out that lots of people who are researching a vacation to Costa Rica end up going to Oyster.com, well, Google might say, "Hey, you know what? We've seen this pattern over and over again. Let's boost Oyster.com's rankings because it seems like people who look for this kind of content end up on this site. Not necessarily directly through us, through Google. They might end up on it through social media, through organic web links, through direct visits, through e-mail marketing, whatever it is."
When you're unbranded, one of the few ways that you can get traffic is through unbranded search. Search is one of those few channels that does drive traffic, or historically anyway did drive traffic to a lot of non-branded, less branded sites. Brands tend to earn traffic from a wide variety of sources. If you can start earning traffic from lots of sources and have the retention and the experience to drive people back again and again, well, probably you're going to benefit from some of these potential algorithmic shifts and future looking directions that Google's got.
Click-through rates
Same story a little bit when it comes to click-through rate. Now, we know from experience and testing that click-through rate is or appears to have a very direct impact on rankings. If lots of people are performing a search and they click on your website in position number four or five, and they're not clicking on position one, two, or three, you can bet that you're going to be moving up those rankings very, very quickly.
Granted there is some manipulative services out there that try and automate this. Some of them work for a little while. Most of them get shut down pretty quick. I wouldn't recommend investing in those. But I do recommend investing in brand, because when you have a recognizable brand, searchers are going to come here and they're going to go, "Oh, that one, maybe I haven't heard of it. That one, I've heard of it. That one, I haven't heard of it."
Guess what they're clicking on? The one they're already familiar with. The one they have a positive association with already. This is the power of brand advertising, and I think it's one of the big reasons why you've seen case studies from folks like Seer Interactive, talking about how a radio ad campaign or a billboard ad campaign seemed to have a positive lift in their SEO work as well. This phenomenon is going to mean that you're benefiting from every searcher who looks for something, even if you rank further down, if you're the better known brand.
So is brand a ranking factor? No, it's not. Is brand something that positively impacts SEO? Almost certainly in every niche, yes, it is.
All right. Looking forward to some great comments. I'll try and jump in there and answer any questions that I can. If you have experiences you want to share, we'd love to hear from you. Hopefully, we'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.
Video transcription by Speechpad.com
UPDATE: Bill Slawski's latest post - Brand Entities at Google: Crowdsourcing Their Identities in a Social Network - is a good addition to the topics covered here. Check it out!
Rand, great Whiteboard Friday -- I completely agree that "brand" is not a quantifiable metric (and therefore not a ranking factor) but that big brands have high rankings that come from the associated elements the come with good branding.
1.) Large companies have advertising, marketing, and PR departments that work 24/7 to get people talking about them via news coverage, online discussions, social media channels, and more. And all of that results in countless links that are 100% natural and 100% authoritative as by-products -- which, of course, helps rankings.
2.) Large companies indeed also have the resources to invest in UX. And that's become increasingly important. I summarize SEO with this line: Build, promote, and publicize a website that delights its target audience. I don't want to embarrass our humble hosts, but Moz is a great example. I'm a digital marketer -- and Moz is my favorite digital marketing website because here I can read the best digital marketing guides and essays, ask questions in the best digital Q&A forum, and more. If your target audience is people who like widgets, then build a website that delights people who like widgets in whatever way would appeal to them. It's building a brand among your target audience.
One basic example I like to give: Take the query "best restaurants in Chicago" -- I'd bet that Google's goal is not for the SERPs to reflect that top ten restaurant websites based on keywords or links. I'd wager that Google's goal is for the SERPs to reflect what the human beings who live in Chicago think are the top ten restaurants. And that comes from having the best food and the best prices and the best staff and the best atmosphere -- and then getting the online news coverage and reviews and discussions that reflect all of that. You know, building a brand.
In the end, it all goes back to the common refrain that I probably repeat all-too-often: Stop thinking about building high rankings directly and start thinking about building brands -- the rankings will come as by-products. (Assuming all of the technical SEO stuff has been done first.)
In my opinion, Google is an algorithm that wants to think like a human being. So, "marketing to Google" and "marketing to human beings" is increasingly becoming the same thing as Google becomes smarter and smarter. So, we need to build brands among human beings that deserve to rank highly.
Very, very well summarized Samuel. I think for the SEO community and for SEO professionals, our job is to try and get as close to understanding not only Google's final behavior (the rankings), but their process too (the algorithms that power that behavior and the data upon which they operate). Knowing what elements of branding can directly vs. indirectly influence human behavior and search engine behavior is what we strive for, and part of what I wanted to start the conversation about in this video.
Totally agreed with Samuel here, if the brands accompanied with a complete digital marketing tactics and staff (SEO, SEM, SMM) go for it then it would be almost impossible to defeat them in SERPS, which in most of the cases does not happen (at least it is going to take some time in Sub-continent). PR Activities and traditional marketing channels already provide them with enough exposure, mentions (social shares/links) and in conjunction with proper SEO they would be flawless.
I love your attention to detail Samuel, in that not only are we building a brand, and a UX, but we are building the brand among the target audience. Delight them, with the things they enjoy, in every area, and they will return... and bring their friends.
Really smart here to link the idea of offline marketing (you mentioned billboard advertising) and SEO influence. One of the first questions we ask prospective clients is what other forms of marketing they are doing - or will be doing. A good brand will stand the test of time, becomes more trusted, more talked about and shared.
Focussing on brand also helps people to steer away from spammy SEO tactics because you're always asking the question: is this activity good for our brand awareness and image? If the answer is 'probably not' then don't do that thing
Simples :)
Agreed. And, I think we're going to see more and more case studies of branding activity boosting search rankings and SEO results (CTR, engagement rates, conversion rates, etc). The reality is that increased branding creates increased trust (when done right), and more trust means more clicks, conversions, and happy visitors, which is precisely what Google wants to accomplish in the SERPs.
Hey Rand,
After the updates of penguin and panda it is seen that Google favors brands because of the reasons you stated above also because of trust (Big Brand maintains it well). Do you think there is something called trust rank that is used by Google as stated by Bill https://www.seobythesea.com/2009/10/google-trust-ra... ?
Also, I think best practice on Branding would be using Branded anchor texts and using the keywords as co-occurrence i,e placing keywords around the branded anchor texts and adding some trusted sites (co-citation with your site) (though it is important that whole content is valuable to user), will that be a help https://www.semrush.com/blog/link-building-what-are... ?
Whats your thought on using Brand with co-citation & co-occurrence?
-Gaurav
Totally agree with most of what's been said here and found some additional great insights. Now I'm pumped to get back at improving the CTR ;-) That's such a hard battle.
This is something I have been thinking about a lot this week due to an experience I have just had.
I have a client who is very much an unknown brand and are just starting out with their SEO. They recently popped in Google for a seriously competitive keyword. We sorted out their on-site SEO a few months back and recently selected a particularly profitable topic area to try and push. At this time the rankings for the keywords in this topic area were sat pages and pages back in Google.
We decided to use some PPC for a quick hit which started to convert seriously well for our spend and all of a sudden the SEO ranking comes through for said highly competitive keyword a few days later. We aren't just talking page three either, we popped all the way up to page one in organic SERPs. There isn't any links pointing to the page and yet we are sat there on page one in the organic results alongside some massive brands. We can see that the products being sold due to organic traffic are all related to this topic area and is therefore sending some great signals that people are liking what they see on our page.
So I do believe that even if you are a smaller brand, if you are converting well then you do have a chance to rank alongside the big players. If you sell a good quality product on a site with a good user experience and your selling for a good price which keeps Google users happy enough to part with their cash, it would make sense that Google would want you to rank no matter how big your brand is.
Happy Friday folks :)
Wait, are you saying that your organic rankings jumped a lot directly following a well-converting AdWords campaign? If so, then the implications are enormous and I'm sure a lot of people will have a lot to say about that! :)
Well, it does make sense, doesn't it? A well converting PPC campaign will boost the overall performance of a page/set of pages and brand awareness will go up. This should create more traffic from direct, e-mail (if they signed up for newsletter when they bought) and social (if they go to like the page).
Then you'll end up getting the signals that Rand is talking about here, shouldn't that result in higher rankings?
But the implication would be that people could essentially pay for higher rankings by running AdWords campaigns (that would still need to convert well).
The other thing is that ad campaigns typically send people to a landing page and not to a website as a whole. So, the conversion rate of a landing page would have little to do with Google's judging of the "branding" and UX of the website as a whole.
I agree on that point, absolutely. So I'm not saying PPC = Higher organic rankings. But if you have some good campaigns running it will boost your user and usage stats indirectly. If they like you enough to come back (which will probably happen through another channel than PPC) then you get more signals from there and if Google truly uses these signals (which it sure seems like) then that would likely end up in higher rankings.
In my personal opinion PPC is just like any other marketing channel as it helps you create brand awareness and through that it will boost your organic rankings.
Edit: I agree on that, it's not the first interaction that I think plays a part in boosting rankings. It's what happens after there's been a conversion through the PPC ad. If it was a good experience, then what are you going to do the next time you need products of that kind? You go directly/search for brand name? You go on their social profiles?
Heck, maybe you even recognize their brand name when you do an unbranded search and click on them because of that? Then you end up with the brand as a ranking factor as Rand described here.
Hello,
Interesting conversation here :)
Samuel, I am sure you are absolutely right that a lot of people would have a lot to say about a well converting PPC campaign impacting the SEO rankings! I never really held an opinion about it until I saw this eyebrow raising incident this week with what we did. I'm going to test it on another part of the site and see what happens - but of course the product offering is going to have to be bang on or else it is not a fair experiment.
I'm going to ask this question in fear it might be a stupid one but I'm going to ask it anyway. If you don't have e-commerce/goals/event tracking collecting nice data in GA, does this actually hamper your progress in the SERPs because they cannot see what is going on conversion wise? Just a thought, but it makes sense to me.
Google has repeatedly stated that they do not take GA data into account at all when determining rankings. Interpret that as you will. :)
Yeah I saw that too......hmmmmm!!! Thanks for the chat :)
Aside from Google saying that GA data isn't a factor, Dr. Pete makes a strong argument for why it couldn't/shouldn't be "I think the arguments against using analytics directly as a ranking factor are much more practical in nature…" https://moz.com/blog/the-2-user-metrics-that-matte...
Re: which data Google uses. I think when they say "we don't use GA data to calculate rankings" they're not lying, they simply have other and better ways to collect all that (Google Chrome usage, Android usage, data from wifi and from ISPs, data from people visiting pages from SERPs and returning, data from pages that host Google ads, etc). IMO, we should assume any behavioral data from web users can be seen and interpreted by Google at this point without needing to touch GA.
As for AdWords positively affecting SEO - I've seen examples in the past that looked correlated, but were never causal (e.g. shutting off the AdWords campaigns didn't tank rankings). If I had to guess, I'd say this might not be about AdWords per se, but about the optimization work you did to make that pages/those pages work well for visitors. Google saw the change, boosted the rankings short term (which they often do with pages that rank in the top 50-100 and get changed), saw high CTR and high engagement/user satisfaction, and now you continue to rank well.
That's just a theory, but it's one that could also fit the data.
I wrote this about the theory about the relation between Adwords and Ranking: https://www.stateofdigital.com/adwords-ranking-factor-google-search/.
Linking because I think it fits well with all this thread and may offer some answers (or inspire you new ones).
Totally agree with Rand on this. The PPC campaign was a great way to get your name/brand out there but the site/product you are working on must be a product people love plus you must have did some great SEO work ;)
Rand, I'd have to find the data on a computer I don't use any longer but back maybe 3-4 years ago I did a very narrow experiment on Adwords helping SEO - I would LOVE to redo it in a few months when I get a bit of time.
The test was: Take 2 sites brand new. Put similar but obviously not duplicate content on both, build a few directory links (same ones, similar content) I did everything as even as possible except I started a $20 a day Adwords campaign on one for some really cheap keyphrases. I was getting about 500-1000 hits a day (.02 - .04 per click).
I ran this test for about 3 weeks and turned it off. Nothing had changed in the results. The sites were virtually even for similar keyphrases and they were both "mid page 8" type results.
Then I turned Display network on for one site and left the other off. The Display site went up to page 2 in about a week. It stayed there for(ever) as long as I left the sites up. Eventually they were deleted in a purge.
I am not going to go as far as say "it helped" - what I know & remember is all I have left. But I'm very certain that the site with Display network on was the site that flew up +5-6 pages/50-60 ranks.
IMEC maybe?
Again, I'm not making the claim that it helps ... but it appeared to help me with no other interference on a stable-ish site. At the time, my best guess was that the way some webmasters were displaying their Adsense / display ads, it was acting almost as a "follow" link. Maybe if they had a dofollow plugin or were somehow force-overriding nofollow, etc? I really don't know.
I also had this discussion a few times, and in my opinion a very strong factor here is the branded queries volume which is often affected by PPC campaigns.
So let's say a completely new site (at SITE.com) was just launched. And it is simply GREAT. It provides a great user experience and real value to any new visitor. The only problem? Nobody knows yet it exists.
From all the options the company has to start with, they decide to start with an Adwords campaign. Spending tens of thousands of dollars every single day for the next 30 days.
Some of the users who are exposed to SITE.com today, love it so much that they decide to get back to it tomorrow once again. Directly, or through a branded search.
I believe that this exponential increase in branded queries is the main factor that affects rankings in short periods of time. Even before the first links/social signals appear.
Great point, Igal!
You left lighter than water. Totally agree with you Igal!
Right Igal, agree too that Branded Queries also affected by PPC Campaigns.
I also felt the same way but little bit more digging dipper, that reversed my views. The Higher organic visits while running PPC campaign is probably due to last attribution model of analytics. So a user clicked once on ad and landed on website then after personalisation and search history start working to give organic visits. My analysis is based on also practical. More visits through PPC also increases the organic visits while reduce in PPC budget also reduces organic visits.
It was the most complicated post i ever had in Moz. What i was believeing that Social Media Score (Klout) was one of the few rank impact factor to the issue. If im wrong please Zip me up.
Hi Rand,
Ok, so I've been having people tease me on Facebook and Twitter about how my name is misspelled in the transcript on this week's whiteboard Friday, however Rand, your pronunciation of my last name was perfect, so it's all OK (even better than that - it's an honor to be mentioned in a positive tone on a WBF). I do appreciate the mention, and I have a guess at which patent you are talking about, and I'm excited to hear that you're considering spending more of a whiteboard Friday involving the topic behind that one. If I have the right patent in mind, it's definitely worth talking about, and I'm looking forward to it.
Brands likely are not the subject of too many discussions between search engineers at Google, but if brand builders are doing their job well, and people who work with them help to create a mindset that permeates their company, and surrounds how people think of them and write/talk about them, that can have a positive impact. We likely do see how Google treats specific entities in queries and search results as being special, and since a brand is an entity, that does happen to them. Build a brand, and Google may treat your business as a unique entity and provide you with a knowledge panel, and other indications that they recognize the uniqueness of your brand. That's a good outcome in most instances. Follow that up by finding ways for Google to associate quality and authority with your business, and that's even better.
Again, thanks.
Bill
Psst... your name is fixed! ;)
Thanks, Jennita!
Sorry about that Bill! Looks like it was fixed before I even woke up this morning :-) Totally agree with you on these fronts - Google's search engineers probably aren't saying "how do we rank bigger brands higher?" but are much more likely to say "how do we get results more searchers like, trust, prefer, and are delighted by into the results?" The odd thing about human behavior is that familiarity and trust (which branding can create) will lead us to prefer known brands in results, and thus, Google inevitably observes those patterns and their algorithms begin to conform to our psychological preferences.
No problems on the name, Rand. It's fixed now, and alright.
I remember shopping with my father for a DVD Player once, and watching him choose a Sony DVD Player over one that was half the cost, with the same or better features, and asking him why he didn't choose the less expensive model. He told me, "I've heard of Sony, and I like their products." That's the kind of loyalty you hope to build as a brand. I suspect that also leads to more links and more clicks as well.
Great WBF, Rand!
I think you are spot on with this, as it has become obvious now that social signals and engagement are huge when it comes to ranking. I couldn't help but wonder though, is there a correlation between search volume on "brandname" and ranking? That would be a way to indicate to Google that a lot of people want to see search results from this brand, couldn't that play a role in their overall ranking then?
I think Cyrus and Matt Peters from Moz's team will be trying to measure/correlate this in our Search Ranking Factors update this year. Should be cool to see what they come up with!
Maybe it is time for the good old commercial advertisers technique to repeat your brand once you have the attention of your visitors. You reapeat it in the content of you web site, so that it is hard to forget this name. And next time this visitor might go to the search engine like Google and enters in the search box something like this: "brandname + keyword" Which might give you even an extra boost as a ranking signal (I guess).
And thank you Rand for your superb Whiteboard Friday. I love them. Rand is my Brand!
I would like to see a case study on this technique! I nominate you to take the lead ;)
Totally. I think there are some parts of Google's algos that use connections between keywords and entities (of which a company brand can be a kind), so building those up could produce very interesting results. Would be cool to test it, if only the budget requirements weren't so heavy! :-)
In that experiment you should also consider how Entities/Brands relate one each other, for instance with co-occurences and co-citations.
Authenticity.
In an age of plentiful choice, consumers are drawn toward brands with an indigenous story, an engaging identity and a honest commitment to deliver what they promise.
There are billions of websites out there optimized for position number one. On the other side Google wants to provide users with the best search experience. People are looking to connect with things that feel safe, certain and unambiguous. Branding is providing exactly that - being totally clear about who you are and what you do best. In other words authenticity.
So in order to provide users with the best search adventure Google has to put some value on authenticated popularity.
I strongly defend that SEO + Social Media (and, of course, other marketing channels) help us build our digital presence, our digital identity. We must remember the importance of structured data in this 'building effort'. Making connections, giving coherence to our presence (same data on different platforms, not contradictory info) and offering a solid identity (aka 'entity'; call it 'brand', 'person name' or whatever you like) are ways (well, this mix is a way) to earn credit from users who, thanks to our hard work, will probably become our future evangelists.
Thanks for this great WBF, Rand.
I simply love Whiteboard Friday! Thanks for sharing Rand.
Thanks for sharing Rand for another WBF class, Ultimate line "brand is powerful for SEO"
Very interesting concept. I had been thinking recently about how brand translated to SEO. Thanks for the video!
Well said!
Rand,
This is one of greatest editions of whiteboard Friday. I'm sure the topic which you covered that must be in people's mind from last few months. :-)
Anyway let's come to the point, I'd say in some cases brand impact well within google ranking algorithm. From last couple of month ago, I have worked for one of client having implied links with brand mentions and that worked well with some good improvement.
Moreover, you can also see that Google has also granted patent about how they measure the authority.
p.s: A while back, you tweeted about the success of whiteboard of Friday and I have replied with some suggestions and now that all I can see in today's edition. I don't know it's a coincidence or acceptance. :D
Hi Rand,
Thanks for sharing your opinion on this widely talked topic.
I have also experienced personally brand is not directly a ranking factor. Yes, but it has some impact on the rankings indirectly like traffic site is receiving and Google acknowledges traffic in rankings. I have seen very wide variation in the impact, branding has in rankings depending on industry brand relates to and also search query user is putting in.
My concern is:
Can we pre-analyze or measure the impact of any brand on the search query / term ?
Do we guys have ample information to estimate the impact any brand is going to have on the SERP?
One thing Bill Slawski has pointed out in his comment regarding brand selection(Sony DVD player) on the basis of brand awareness or familiarity or trust people have.
Small businesses don't have that much budget to spend on marketing. Search engine is the most important mode for increasing their sales and they can not or have least chance to attain top rank in search engine. What they should do ?
Hi Rand,
I was expecting solution/answer to my doubts. May be my questions/concerns don't have any worth for you. Thanks for the WBF and I'm trying to find the proper solution to my queries.
Couldn't help but relate that I personally click more on those search results in Google which I know is a brand or have been a fan of from years. Indeed they have more click-through-rate and more references from people looking for a certain thing over the web.
Google is always looking for such websites that are engaging more people all the time. So, even if "branding" is not a ranking factor, it tends to trigger other more important ranking factors like high quality naturally earned backlinks and social references. Great WBF again there Rand. You have covered each and every point there, so no questions asked.
As always, great work Rand. Your analyses are always insightful.
Great WBF Rand! I have one question here, If the brands are not affecting the rankings, why do they rank better in search results for long tail searches? We must conclude that brand does not have direct relation but they do affect the CTR in organic results. Brand specific results definitely seem to have better CTR and indirectly that affects ranking. They definitely serve as long click search results and have better authority over the topic. What do you think?
Yup - that's a lot of what this video is about. Brand isn't a distinct ranking factor on its own, but branding and brands probably have impact on searchers, on social sharers, on linkers, on news outlets, and on all sorts of things that can have direct rankings impact.
Awesome edition of white board Friday! This would be helpful for those who feel they don't stand a chance against the big brands in SEO. It just so happens that many of the best brands are following best practice in SEO, and of course brands always play a huge role in user CTR.
Hello rand,
Great insights, meaningful WBF. I wish to share my recent experienced with google on one of my clients website. I was targeting two keywords on the home page, for one keyword, the actual title ranks in google (as it should be), but for the other keyword, only brand name ranks in place of existing title. How it is possible ? Keywords are almost similar. If brand is not a ranking factor then why Google took brand name by default? (I can share screenshots if you need)
I can understand that Google is taking title according to the search term to give users the best experience and even sometimes google is taking H1 in place of title as well. But what information google can give only from brand name? Even my clients brand is not popular, as the website made before 7 months only.
Lastly, Why it is needed to make unique titles as google is taking the best title by default their-self? I think the best practice is to leave the title and meta blank, google will take title from body according to the search query.
Waiting for helpful thoughts.
Google does this a lot - replacing title tags with low CTR or with content they don't think searchers will want with a raw brand name instead. I'm not sure we know all of the reasons, but one might be that you're trying to overly "optimize" the title and stuff keywords in there that look funny to searchers or won't promote the highest possible CTR. Trying something more minimalist with the brand and a brief description may get Google to adopt your title in the SERPs.
Hello Rand,
Thanks for the explanation, let me try to make some changes in the title which could help users and SE both.
Even if you make up a nonsense word and use it as a brand, it helps Google definitively identify what someone is likely looking for if they search said word, especially over time.
Great WBF Rand. You're right the "Brand" power doesn't matter in SERPs and it should not ever be unless it deserves.
For the practical implication, I'd like to know have you or anyone come across to any "branded" site(in past or now) which is poorly optimized and yet ranking on top just because it's getting lots of direct and social traffic?
Thanks!
For many years, many parts of Amazon.com (not all, but plenty) have been pretty poorly optimized (thin or duplicate content, many versions of the same page getting indexed, terrible navigation and internal link structure, few external links to the detail pages, etc) but ranked extraordinarily well. Part of that, IMO, is because searchers want Amazon in the results, expect it, click it, and are satisfied by it.
Ah that's great to know about it. Thanks for the heads up Sir :)
Remarkable idea Rand, you did it again! What I learned is while brand is not a quantifiable metric in Google, but with branding, it can promote awareness about your company and thus leading people to search for your website in natural way (which is a BIG factor in Google algorythm). Right?
Hmm... We're talking about better 360 degree campaign for big dogs here right? And better Social Media engagement for small businesses, right?
Completely agree, Rand
But what remains vital are aspects like on page seo, positive user experience, many quality backlincs , visibility on social networks, suitable CTR and excellent content.
Good Job!
So I think one need to make strong brand offline to get advantage in online marketing.
I have 85% keyword data is in "not provided". only 15% showing with only brand name related keywords. If that is true, then the statement is also true :p
Love to your article, Thank you for sharing
Actually i do not care about ranking factors which are generated by keywords or brand.. we should only think and produce such type of websites which will give very high value to users. According to me if your website is giving valuable content and it is totally user friendly (without doing any spamming) then i do not think... we should care about google.linkbuilding,ranking or algorithm...etc.If people love it then search engine will love your website automatically. What do you say @rand ?
It's nice information. Thanks
Interesting! It's taken a while for digital marketers to grasp the importance of brand creation. Early on in 2013 I posted a short article that covered the importance of brand creation. https://optimiseweb.co.uk/search-engine-optimisation-for-2013/
You need to build a brand with the help og google not the other way...
Thank you for discuss this topic. It is very useful for my. A greeting.
All you really have to do is type in any letter of the alphabet into the Google search bar and see if branding is a ranking (search engine) factor.
Hi Rand,
Is there any way we can find out eather google has sandbox the website because of brand issue. Although the web site i am concerned is Nike Turkey Distributor. Since the web site has 6 months history. Its not in the google search results even with the very long tail keywords.
Is there any way we can find out the realy problem behind the issue. Is there any Moz paid analysis we can buy and solve the problem.
Cheers guys,
I totally get what you are saing and on a SEO and Marketing perspective it totally makes sense...however, it doesn't feel rigth, in a sense that Search and Internet used to be a more open field with this equal opportunities feeling (even tougth they have always been more utopic than real).... but now it feel more of the same, those who already have big names and resources will do better then those who don't, and... will this be perpetuated or can you see a way out of the loop, for a small bussines, for example?
I remember when Google was pushing branding, and all the SEO "experts" were preaching that the days of keywords in domain names or URLs were therefore gone. Google Authorship was also supposed to be a game-changer which would help identify and consolidate good content under specific "brands" (i.e. "authors"). With Google Authorship now dead and gone, and with no observable change in SERPs for certain keywords and phrases, I'm skeptical that branding is as important as the SEO "experts" ever claimed it to be.
It can be very difficult to compete with the brands when they have so many more resources than smaller companies. They clearly also have a significant advantage if they are already a household name, although this clearly also requires a lot of time/effort/money to achieve. There are clearly advantages smaller companies can offer, if you can translate this into a positive web experience for the user then sales/interactions and rankings may benefit.
Hello Rand Fishkin sir, I am (Mangesh Singh from Mumbai, India) great fan of you. I just like this post because some day before I am thinking about the correlation between brand and search engine ranking and I got some output from my R&D. its seems like you cover up all aspects which i diagnosed from my research. It's amazing. Thank You sir posting such great post and looking more informative tips by MOZ Team in future.
Essentially this is article is about “is your brand working for you?” or “are you having to work for you’re brand?”. Whilst its an interesting point I feel it potentially posed an issue without a solution or indeed a way to measure if people have a problem or not. The seed of doubt may have been planted with some people who may be considering;
- How do I measure.
- How we change.
- What is the tipping point.
But actually what needs to be answered is!
Although brand is not a direct ranking factor… Is it important enough to the overall digital strategy to consider changing your brand if its not working for you?
Whist it was not suggested that someone should change their brand what would be the other solution if its not working for them? I'm assuming you believe it to be important hence creating a substantial and professional presentation. If you take it back to a level where I assume more of the people who are reading this are (Not “super brands”). How does one quantify if a brand is working for them and at what point does a company consider changing their brand or do they leave it?
Changing brand obviously has a huge impact on a businesses operations and potentially comes with a significant cost in terms of capital outlay and time for a company. So the question is do you believe the ripple effect of substantial change warrants the outlay and expenditure that comes with this change?
Awesome topic and Informative content, We can learn many thing from your article Rand. Thanks for shearing your knowledge with us.
Thanks for your great info Rand. You just created an awareness on branding. Currently i'm looking for a expired domain to replace my marketing consultancy. Soon i'll establish a Brand.
Key (interesting) question - We all know how critical branding is to a business in general. However, in regards to digital media, it's exponentially important. Question of the day - If you trademark your brand, will Google give your site more authority?
Nice post Rand. I'd have to agree- although, directly, brands are not ranking factors, indirectly, there are a lot of influences which large brands benefit from and do positively affect ranking.
Great post Rand, I think brand doesn't affect directly on SEO ranking, but some things like social factors, links, CTR affect on branding, so indirectly affect on SEO , don't you think?
Great WBF!
Great Video. Good points but ultimatly I think Google is favoring brands because it is getting better and better in detecting natural links (as opposed to fake links old school SEOs make).
Rand, sometimes I think you're reading my mind. It seems like whenever I get asked a question like this a few days later you got a Whiteboard Friday video on that very topic. I don't post comments too much, but I just wanted to let you know that you do an amazing job with these videos. I love that you speak in a common vernacular that make it easy for anyone to follow and understand whatever topic you're speaking about. I also can't count how many times one of your videos have helped me prove myself to a client. Thanks for everything you do!
As always a great whiteboard-friday.
Success begets success.
Everyone wants to be associated with a winner and they tend to trust the winners. Thanks for pointing out that this phenomenon is applicable to search as well as the world in general.
Great video Rand!
I wonder if Google assiociate a brand name with a specific topic even when there is no link to the brand website. For example if a lot of people mention Coca-cola talking the same topic (without any link), would that be considered as a ranking signal? If so, would Google analyze the sentiment for a brand as well related to a specific topic?
Arnaud
I believe there are parts of Google's algos that do use unlinked mentions (certainly they use this in Local for citations of businesses). However, we've been trying to test on this for a while and struggled to get results, so I suspect it's relatively hard to do and requires a lot of scale, reach, and probably some degree of "natural-looking" activity (like mentions in major news outlets that then spread to blogs/forums/social in a manner Google's seen before from validated activity).
I don't know, but my gut suggests me that that was why Google at first created G+ and Rel="Publisher" and now has returned so strong on Twitter. Social mentions and signals, in fact, can surely help understanding the nature of a cited Brand.
I know... it's gut and not science :-), but it is quite ironic that few weeks after rolling out Tweets in Search Google has been granted a patent about how to identify spam in Social Networks: https://www.seobythesea.com/2015/05/how-google-might-fight-web-spam-in-social-networks/.
Thanks for clear information.
Hey Rand,
In my opinion it would actually make sense if Google did favor brands in their algorithm specially now in the internet of things, knowledge graph, with it's advanced machine learning, and because it's seems more authentic to be a brand then not, don't you think?
I think it makes sense, but not directly. Google should keep wanting to look for the signals that lead to searcher happiness and satisfaction, and when that involves elements correlated with brand, we'll see that (but sometimes it may not).
This is where influencer marketing can be very useful. Not only to create brand awareness but also by helping people find your brand across various platforms. Companies like Webfluential do a great job at connecting brands with online influencers that fit the brands needs.
Hi Rand,
I agree with you that brand is no matter for ranking but brand Getting more CTR then top rank Unknown Brand websites !! it is correct or not?
Rand,
For once I have to disagree with you, buddy. Unfortunately due to some quirks with Google Maps which I have no interest in delving too far into in this comment, Google's Brand Awareness is almost solely a function of the name field in Maps in conjunction with the categories selected for the listing. If you have a business name and it happens to correspond to one of the categories you've selected for your listing directly (1 to 1), you will see the effects of Brand power when people search generically for that category in your vertical -- because Google mistakenly believes they're looking for your company by name.
Outside of the situation I just mentioned, Google doesn't care about Brands over anyone else and I agree with your WBF.
That's a good counter-example Scott. I agree that sometimes, Google can totally get fooled into thinking a generic name is actually a brand (this happens with anchor text bombing too, sometimes - Local isn't the only example). That said, I believe they're trying to fix this and to get better about it. It's not an intentional brand bias, but rather a misunderstanding of the connections between topics/concepts and brand/generic.
Agreed, the recent google maps fiesco proved that.
Very good WBF!
As well you have mentioned, a very large company, it can have a great marketing department, you can spend much money on advertising. This makes them much more known and when you go to the Internet and see, inevitably you click rather than less known. It's hard to compete with an enormously well-known brand, but that does not mean that we can not position our good too, although we have the same resources. It is a matter of hard work (by this I do not mean that we can compete with Coca-Cola or Nike, for example, but if we can have a good positioning).
Thanks for sharing great information. Branding with good seo and good services will result in rankings.
I have one doubt. I have recently see one site. That site PR(Page Rank) is 6 but their DA(Domain Authority) is 1. Is this is a quality site or not? I have asked community sites also but I didn't got correct answers.
Please help me to find out the answer.
That PageRank score is very, very old (18+ months) as Google no longer updates PageRank. My guess is that the domain might be faking its toolbar PageRank, the site could have had many links previously but no longer does (perhaps a powerful domain was redirecting there and is no longer), or all the links pointing to it came from very hard to find places (which is why the Mozscape index isn't finding them - even possible they're from spam sites that block all crawlers except Google).
Thanks Rand Fishkin. I have one more question. What are the skills required for SEO Specialist?
Ask yourself instead of asking others.
For me the best Ranking factor tutorial in the 2015!
Thank Rand
Best Regards
How does the Vince update fit into all this? Was that a misinterpretation by SEOs? Or did Google have a brand booster that they later pulled the plug on?
Once again great video.
I think branding is the most important to small companies operating on a small niche market. Google can associate a domain and/or a company pretty well to a search phrase or keyword even if the phrase is not present in the site content. The power is in the audience and linking.
If you are making and selling slick tires to racing car hobbyist, those people are linking your company when talking about slick tires. Google will pick this up, associating your "brand" to slick tires.
It's also good to remember that this might also backfire on you if Google associates the domain on company to a negative search phrase according to links and postings found online.
I agree with what is said, but big brands also have a lot of people searching directly for the brand name. A significant number of those searches may also have a keyword attached to relating to a service or product which the brand may sell. In terms of directly measuring how important a website is, I can't think of anything better than people directly searching for it. I'd be amazed if Google doesn't use this as a ranking factor.
As usual something fresh from you Rand! Thank you for the information, very helpful!
As I am still relatively new to the SEO field, your WBF videos continue to help me in every way. Thanks Rand for all your insights into digital marketing and helping me grow in the online world.
What about a product page for a major brand's e-commerce site but has ZERO links pointing to it and only a handful of social mentions whereas the sites ranking below it are exceeding it all the metrics that we consider ranking factors? Then it looks like brand is the ONLY ranking factor. I think this is very common and gives SMB the sense that no matter what they do they cannot compete.
That's not just brand - it's also likely to be the relevance and authority Google considers the domain as a whole to have. E.g. for books, Google thinks sites like Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com are highly relevant, so queries that include "books" or queries that look like they're for book-related concepts may give a boost to pages on those sites. To compete, others will need to build their own domain authority and topical relevance - check out this Whiteboard Friday for more: https://moz.com/blog/topic-modeling-semantic-conne...
Thanks for discussing excellent details. Marketing with excellent seo and excellent solutions will outcome in positions.
I have one question. I have lately see one website. That website PR(Page Rank) is 6 but their DA(Domain Authority) is 1. Is this is a top quality website or not? I have requested group websites also but I did not got appropriate solutions.
Please help me to discover out the response.
Very good article. SEO now a days i would say is no more a Technical job tobe done for content writing, link building and all other stuff. It should be seen a as total approach towards your customer's experience with your products and services. If you can delight your customer with your product they will provide good reviews. You have contribute something better to the knowledge of user she would link you back. If you can have more customer advocates they would refer your website to other people as well. With all these factors you will keep increasing your brand value and SEO ranking as well.
So to conclude Brand and SEO rankings would go in parallel, whether upward or downward. Stay conscious for all the factors which builds a good brand and you will start enjoying good search rankings as well.
Hi Rand, I think when it comes to purely global brands with no local presence, there is truth to what you are saying here. I also work in a niche where I deal with thousands of local brands and watch them gain favor for their terms without Geo qualifiers included, just brand names. In fact, I think you remember that book store from New Zealand that you posted about on Google Plus recently? Hard to Find Books? It was given a ranking boost from that very same brand factor.
What seems to occur is that Google recognizes the local brand name as a whole and gives preference on the name even without qualifying the location. So while a global brand that isn't Brick and Mortar might not rank well on a generic name that they are attempting to brand, this will happen with local brands because Google actually recognizes them as an organization. If you make a site called "TheNewestCarModels.com" then chances are the EMD update would stop that from ranking on "The Newest Car Models" and Hummingbird would probably cause Google to favor another site that used synonyms for that phrase but was better suited for ranking due to other signals.
Finally, I also have to point out that for Desktop at least, Google has openly exclaimed UX is not a ranking factor. Of course we know that the UX is tied to link generation and social signals.
Love your work man, would have gotten to replying sooner but I was tied down with a busy schedule since late last week and haven't had the opportunity until just now.
Keep it up!
Great article, thanks! I would like to know if anyone out there has ranking success by utilizing branding! Thanks
no spam please!!!!!!
great insight that people tend to go for what sounds familiar to them anyways. Again, the holistic approach is reccoemended, including on and off-line campaigns.