TRAFFIC
PULLING RANK
There’s only one officer giving the orders on Google’s ranking battlefield –
and that’s the search engine general itself. But why do some sites rank well
and others crash, and is there anything affiliates can do to influence matters?
SEO expert Nick Garner has the answers
CALL ME PEDANTIC but I love
being specific about terminology.
To me, SEO means ‘search engine
optimisation’ and that means
optimising your website for search
engines. Why? In my view, ranking
isn’t just about optimising for
Google, it’s more about optimising
for Google’s users. Perhaps a better
acronym could be SUO or ‘search user
optimisation’, since it’s clear to me that
getting rankings is all about optimising
your website for people using Google.
So this article is framed around
search user optimisation. In it, I will
try to explain why some sites rank and
others crash.
User engagement and rankings
If you’re familiar with the articles I’ve
written over the years, you’ll know I
keep going on about user engagement
driving rankings. The first meaningful
data I saw on this was in 2014 from
Searchmetrics, a German provider of
SEO tools. Searchmetrics analysed
10,000 of the top key phrases by
traffic volume in the US and found
overwhelming evidence that click-
through rate and low bounce rate
correlated with rankings. For more,
search for ‘Searchmetrics ranking
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iGB Affiliate Issue 72 DEC 2018 / JAN 2019
report 2014’. If you’d prefer some
more accessible content, try reading a
number of articles from Moz on the
subject. A quick search for ‘Moz user
engagement rankings’ will do the trick.
You may go, “Duh! Of course,
top results get more click through
than bottom results!” And that’s
true, but that’s not the point of the
Searchmetrics and Moz findings. They
are saying if you’re getting higher than
expected click-through rates and dwell
time relative to everyone else on that
search result, you will rank higher.
Snake oil and links
What do snake oil and links have in
common? Well, years ago people used
to think snake oil would cure their
ailments, and these days people believe
links will help rankings even if you
have a subpar search user experience.
It’s easy to believe in links because
once upon a time they worked; and
since there’s a whole industry around
acquiring them, those link sellers
aren’t going to suddenly start saying
that their ‘link snake oil’ doesn’t work.
When do links work?
The confusing part about links is
that at certain times they do appear
to work. When? If a domain is fresh
and Google doesn’t know about it,
Google will audition that domain on
search results to see how users like the
content from the site.
However, Google needs a signal
since it doesn’t have search user
engagement as its primary indicator
for ranking a website. Dump a bunch
of good links (in my book a good
link is one from a website that ranks
on Google) and you’ll get auditioned
more quickly. By definition Google
trusts a website it ranks, so links from
ranking websites should pass page
rank. And yes, page rank does exist,
Google just doesn’t disclose those
numbers any longer.
So you have got your fresh site,
added those links and Google is
getting traffic through to your website.
It’s now judging you based on how
satisfied its users are.
Gaming Google is dead
I think SEO (on-site optimising your
website for search engines) is very
relevant, but SEO is a rotting corpse
when it comes to optimising your
website to ‘game’ Google. That’s why
I talk about search user optimisation.
Google just wants satisfied users; if