ranking signals of the future: where engines might be heading by rand fishkin
TRANSCRIPT
Where Engines Might Be Heading
Ranking Signals of the Future
#SMX @Randfish
Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | [email protected]
Ranking Signals of the Future A look at what inputs search engines may adopt in the future
and how it impacts the marketing we do today.
Find These Slides Online at:
bit.ly/futuresignals
#1 Usage Data of Pages and Sites
10,000 visits/day +50% growth last 6 months
3.7 pages/session 3 visits/unique user/month
6,000 visits/day -10% growth last 6 months
1.2 pages/session 1.4 visits/unique user/month
Maybe I should send searchers to the page w/
the greater visitor loyalty & engagement.
Patent, Analysis on SEO by the Sea
Ha!
This type of ranking input could be behind the strong performance of
popular brand sites on queries where classic SEO elements are
lacking
Poor keyword targeting, low relevance, few links, but the sites probably have stronger traffic/engagement than the competition.
Via Searchmetrics’ Ranking Factors
Click-Through-Rate showed a 0.67 correlation
This May Explain the High Correlation of CTR w/ Rankings
#2 Accuracy vs. Popularity of Information
Nailed It! Rank ‘em high, boys.
As Google’s research showed, PageRank and accuracy of
information have a poor correlation on the web.
By looking at multiple sets of data across sites &
pages, an algorithm could determine the consistency
of accuracy shown by a site.
Paper from Google Researchers, Analysis by NPR
Consistently accurate facts could raise a site’s rankings, especially in areas (like health) where
Google weights accuracy more heavily.
Less likely to rank. More likely to rank.
#3 Query Structure as an Anchor-Text-Like Signal
Many searchers using query structures in a particular fashion could connect brands and
modifiers to keywords
Looks familiar
Popular searches around a brand could indicate associations that
manifest in ranking inputs.
That ranking might be at partially, causal, rather than mere coincidence.
#4 Brands as Entities, Entities as Answers
More and more brands are becoming entries in Google’s Knowledge Graph
IMO, these brand dropdowns suggest an
implicit bias toward accumulating brand
associations and showing them off to searchers
In many competitive SERPs, there seems
to be a correlation between brand dropdowns and ranking higher.
Some brands get so tightly connected to keywords, they become nearly analogous
with the query
Suggest also shows us brand queries that earn strong connections to URLs
Even some generic queries bring back branded domain suggestions
an experiment!
Let’s try
Call Out Your Answer:
What site would you expect to see when you searched for this?
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Weird.
Call Out Your Answer:
What site would you expect to see when you searched for this?
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Call Out Your Answer:
What site would you expect to see when you searched for this?
Maybe?
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Maybe?
Call Out Your Answer:
What site would you expect to see when you searched for this?
Maybe?
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Best Way to Rank in 2018?
“Yup.” Find a way to be the first
on everyone’s mind.
#5 Tracing the Visit Path to an Answer
Problem-solving on the web often looks something like this:
Broad search Narrower search
Even narrower search
Website visit
Website visit Brand search
Social validation Highly-specific search
Type-in/direct visit Completion of Task
Google wants to do this:
Broad search
All the sites (or answers) you probably would have visited/sought along that path
Completion of Task
If Google sees that many people
who perform these types of queries:
Eventually end their queries on the topic after
visiting:
The Ramen Rater
They might use the clickstream data to help
rank that site higher, even if it doesn’t have
traditional ranking signals
They’re definitely getting and storing it.
Google was just granted an interesting patent that suggested a similar process
Patent Application from Google, Analysis by Bill Slawski
#6 Weighting Elements of User Experience
Patent Application from Google, Analysis on SEOByTheSea
Ever since Panda, Google’s been trying to surface not just quality
content, but “high quality websites.”
If they aren’t already doing it, Google’s at least thinking about how to measure UX
and rank sites that do it better, higher.
#7 Replacing Flawed Humans w/ Deep Learning Machines
Jeff Dean’s Slides on Deep Learning Are a Must Read for SEOs
Google’s Deep Learning system studied YouTube clips and eventually invented its own classification/
concept of “cats”
Replace YouTube with the Web and cats with any given search query, and it’s not hard to imagine Google creating a
deep learning ranking algorithm
Google knows there’s two, but based on my footprint, it biases to the one matching my behavior, past queries,
geography, etc.
In the future, even Google’s search quality engineers may have no idea
why something ranks or whether they’re using a particular factor in the
ranking algorithm.
The machine will simply ask “what algorithm produces results that searchers engage with
best?” then make it.
strange path… Google seems to be going down a
Total searchers, number of searchers, & searches per searcher are all going up
Via RKG’s Quarterly Digital Marketing Report
Is Google sacrificing ad impressions to make searchers happier?
Are they willing to take away queries that provide revenue?
These searches could have created revenue, but Google’s pre-empting w/ direct navigation to URLs
I am too.
Skeptical?
IMO, Google’s thinking long term. They want addicted searchers providing data about themselves so they can charge more per ad
unit.
Via Search Engine Land
Via RKG Report
Facebook has shown Google that more data about users yields more
dollars per impression and
click.
I think Google will chase better UX to almost any extent in order to keep searchers & get data, even at the cost of their existing model.
Almost unreal that Google
does this w/o AirBnB paying
for an ad.
Via Tom Anthony’s Post
Google will chase better UX to almost any extent in order to keep searchers & get data, even at the cost of their existing model
My Guess:
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