Like most DP members, I am constantly reading new (and sometimes old) theories about Search Engine Optimization. We are all out for the same thing - SUCCESS. In that, we all believe optimal search engine rankings are the path to achieving this success. I found the following quote from a blog to be very interesting. And though, I am not sure I agree even a little bit (with this quote or the entire post), it did make me stop and think. I want to know your thoughts; beginners, novices, and experts alike. Are we all wrong about search engine rankings? Could this person be right? The quote... "Rankings are old school. The search marketing industry has evolved so much in the last 10 years that you can no longer use search engine rankings as a metric of success." Read the full post here: http://hrsearchmarketing.blogspot.com/2008/07/search-engine-rankings-are-old-school.html It is my opinion that if we have a web site designed with the user in mind, and fully optimized for the best user experience possible, search engine rankings are the ONLY metrics for success! How can search engine rankings not measure our success? If we have a site, good or bad, visitors are still the most important factor in its success...some sites don't even require a highly targeted audience to become successful. Sites that run AdSense are only looking for a click, so they can cash in. The visitor just needs to find something relatively close to his or her original search to click a Google ad on any given web site. I absolutely understand that there is much more to online success than ONLY search engine rankings, but I can't agree that we shouldn't strive to achieve them; nor can I agree that attempting to achieve search engine rankings is "old school". I am very interested to hear what you all have to say about this.
My main question with personalized search is this... Bruce Clay uses the example of how users can search for 'java' and get results for code, coffee, and the Caribbean. Personalized search will base my results on a previous search I performed for 'java' and on the web site I clicked in those results; whether it was for coding, coffee, or the Caribbean. What if I am actually looking for information about JavaScript code the first time I search the term 'java', and I am actually looking for coffee the second time...or the 10th time? In this case, personalized search doesn't work to serve the BEST results for my query. I am assuming that over time, and after many searches, the personalized search function will learn more about my habits, and ultimately give me the best results. Is this correct? Furthermore, what if I don't want to get the same set of (or similar) results every time I search for something I commonly search for? Won't my results get stale?
The people claiming 'ranking is dead' or 'rankings not a metric for success' are just using webmasters' fears to get people to read their article or blog. It is true that search engines are headed towards more personalization and geotargeting, but that doesn't mean good rankings don't mean anything. Of all the people using Google, how many people do you think are actually logged into a Google account? I would think it would be less than 1/3. That is a lot of people who won't use the personalization features. It's not so much that rankings are dead, it's just that it is no longer as simple as having one ranking for each search engine/keyword. Now when you claim to have a ranking, it essentially needs an asterisk to state that the ranking may only exist on one data center without taking personalization into account. That ranking can still be used as a benchmark and a sign of success, but site traffic and income may now be more accurate benchmarks.
From a business point of view, that's the worst metric for success. It's like saying PageRank is a measurement of success... The success metrics are traffic and revenue. You could be optimized and ranking for all kinds of keywords which are hardly searched for. In a large company, you go to your business owners and say, we're ranking number 1 for these keywords. They'll say "so what?"... What the article is saying is that search engine algorithms, and user behaviour is evolving. You might be ranking position 1 in Google and achieving 5% CTR of all search queries in that particular search engine, however different keywords can have a different CTR at position 1. Also, you have to factor in the new widgets that Google have over the years started to put in. Previously, if you had a movie times service website, you might have achieved position 1 for the phrase "movie times", over time, things like Google Desktop search as taken over position 1, and Google's own mini search widget where put in the postcode of where you live. This will only continue to happen as more and more niches are covered by Google's own mini search widgets which pull together high profile and high brand websites. I believe that is what people are getting at when they say rankings are dead as a metric. It's important to get good rankings, they aren't disputing that, they are simply saying that it isn't a success measurement. The only metric you should measure is traffic. If you're placed at position 1 for all the keywords that you're targeting, and not hitting your traffic targets then you need to diversify your content, or check that you're targeting correct keywords, or syndicate your content in different ways. If you were using rankings as a success metric, you'd think you had a successful business.
I suppose I was taking for granted that high 'rankings' were automatically for great, often-searched, often-clicked keywords. Aided by the fact that the keywords our web sites rank for are highly-targeted, and bring us traffic with conversions. Thanks for clearing this up!
Ranking is dead? I don't necessarily think that the end-all-be-all of success is to have your website listed at #1 for your keyword. In fact, we all know that some keywords will produce better results than others, so reaching #1 isn't always a huge feat. However, I think it is important to continue link building when possible, to hopefully help your site rank better for a wider variety of keywords, and build/sustain the ones you are already ranking well for... I guess it is more about the link building than it is the on-page SEO. But I think the statement is somewhat misleading as if Search Engine traffic is not important. It is for a good portion of websites today.
PR, rankings ... nothing wrong as long as it leads to more traffic and conversions. "Ranking id dead" is just another slogan to alert webmasters to not only focus on rankings + serps which are or becoming more & more personnalized (after PR not so far ago ... folks are so focused ), but to understand and use analytics more often ; now it's not saying a good & solid leading position cannot generate qualified traffic ... No need in the near future to be logged in (e.g. see flash cookies) for Google to return custom results. In addition and as a matter of fact, data from only a very small percentage of a well identified population (the case with search wiki, GWT and all these Googlegoodies) can yield excellent stats (e.g. polls mechanism). Having said that, there are also some drawbacks to more personnalized serps as you are rightly pointing out . However customizing serps and giving less weight to back links may allow Google to deal more effectively with spam
Hello, i would like to appriciate your effort to give us tips about search engine services, but I want to know week-to-week and month-to-month how my organic traffic is growing and, more importantly, how many conversions I’m getting from the overall search traffic.any one can help me to solved out my queries?
Yh u said it, without SE ranking and traffic the site is nothing and no use...bcz not much knows. Also me suggest all the off -page optimization than on page except the content updation...keep updating the content weekly atleast to get crawled the site in fast rate...
Search engines are the ones that are giving us some targeted visitors so I say that they are search engine ranking is the best.
The point isn't that improving ranking isn't successful. Of course it is! The point here is that measuring your success by your ranking is not good. Your ultimate goal is traffic and revenue. If you are optimizing for the wrong keywords, your "report" will say ranked well for all your keywords, but in fact, you've overlooked the fact that you've been optimizing for the wrong keywords. Therefore, your Google ranking is not the way to measure success.
Sheppyc is correct. The point is missing some of us. My original post was meant to ask just why anyone would ever say it's not important to rank in the SE's; or to put a lot of effort into ranking in the SE's. As for our company, we have found our high niche keywords long ago; ones, which bring us conversions. We have worked for years in achieving and maintaining our search engine rankings for our high-performing keywords. My assumption was that Bruce Clay is saying it is a futile effort to focus on ranking high in SE's for any keywords; even high-performing keywords, due to the fact that Google in particular, will not be delivering the same set of results to everyone. And that personalized search will replace our organic results of the past. It is a given, to me, that it is never good to focus on ranking for keywords that do not perform. I have been on top of my Google Analytics for a couple of years now. I check my account daily, studying the performance of our keywords (paid and non-paid, alike), their goal conversions, leads that come from them, etc. In our case, rankings are a metric for success.
Believe we all agree traffic + conversions is what matters. Ranking on appropriate keywords is certainly yielding qualified traffic... so has to be on your scoreboard ...but not the ONLY point to focus upon ... as some SEO services have done or are still doing