Haven’t had time to read the SEO Ranking Factors and Rank Correlations 2014 – Google U.S? That’s OK; we’ve got you covered! Check out the slides from our one-hour live webinar, where we will cover the highlights from the report.
10. What is a Ranking Factors Study?
The relationship between two variables - namely the
ranking on the one hand and the occurrence / existence of
each factor on the other
• 30 search results for 10,000 keywords = 300k URLS
• Keyword sets from consecutive years (90 percent from the
previous year)
• Searchmetrics database is always current
• Line charts: y-axis indicates the average value for all
10,000 URLs studied at position (ranking) X (x-axis).
• Bar charts: Calculated on the basis of all available data
per feature
10 www.searchmetrics.com 11/5/2014
Low correlation, but in fact, nearly every URL in the Top 30 has a Description -> seems obligatory!
Consistently high average values. 2014 nearly 100% - even encreased from last year. Seems a „Must-Have“.
Correlation even decreased slightly, but only because even more URLs in Top 30 have this Feature and therefore, the differences become even smaller.
Brand Factor - „Keyword in Descritpion“ seems a rather rampant feature (weit verbreitet)
Brand Factor - „Keyword in Descritpion“ seems a rather rampant feature (weit verbreitet)
Last year: higher average of pages had KW in Description. Brand Factor was not that strong a year ago
On average increased per Pos. about 12.5% (in comparison to 2013). Very interresting
There seems to be the trend to have more and longer content. Is it a disadvantage to be short?
Word Count increased about 20% on average (compared to 2013)
Number of Backlinks as such has increased! (Although correlation declined slightly)
Absolute Number (average values) actually decreased! Penguin?
Immensly increased (compared to 2013). Better rankign URLs have more links from pages with a high SEO Visibility
Backlinks of the last 30 Days to Homepage of respective URL
NEW Definition of the Brand-Factor in 2014: 1. Small (niche) Brand / 2. Big Brand / 3. Wikipedia (universal Brand)
-> URLs on second half of SERP 1 (Pos 4/5 to 8/9) seem to have more fresh Backlinks (directed to Homepage) -> Big Brands
Obviously, (Niche) Brands get significantly fewer new Links to their Homepage, compared to pages ranking behind Pos 4. In contrast, these (Brand)pages have significantly more and better links
Share of „Brandlinks“. Z.B. spiegel.de / wsj.com
URLs with more Brandlinks rank better.
Z.B. Spiegel Online / Wall Street Journal (Share of the most frequent Anchor Text, being not the exact Domain Name with TLD compared to all Anchor Texts of the URL)
Ca. 30 - 40% smaller
Texts are shorter
Correlations calculated on Top 15 (not Top 30)
Low correlation. Top rankings have some 20 to 40 seconds more
Quiet stable average values over all positions. Pos 1-5 perform slightly better.
Very high correlation. Actually the highest, we have ever measured.