Rand Fishkin's presentation from Be Wizard, San Marino 2011 on the evolution of Google's rankings and how marketers can optimize for the next generation of ranking signals.

1. The Evolution of Google RankingsHow Google’s algorithm has changed over the years and where it’s heading in the future Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz CEO, March 2011

2. At SEOmoz, we make SOFTWARE!! We don’t offer any consulting.

3. Ranking in Google: 1999-2002

4. On-Page Optimization http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

5. PageRank http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.elliance.com/aha/infographics/Google-PageRank-Explained.aspx

6. PageRank http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-science-of-ranking-correlations

7. Ranking in Google: 2003 - 2005

8. Anchor Text http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/anchor-text

9. From 1999 – 2008, What Page Ranked #1for the Queries “Exit” and “Leave”? http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://searchengineland.com/google-kills-bushs-miserable-failure-search-other-google-bombs-10363

10. From 1999 – 2008, What Page Ranked #1for the Queries “Exit” and “Leave”? http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://searchengineland.com/google-kills-bushs-miserable-failure-search-other-google-bombs-10363

11. Keyword Match Domain Names http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited

12. Registration & Historical Information http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=1121

13. Topic Modeling LDA correlates w/ Google rankings better than any other on-page feature http://www.seomoz.org/blog/content-optimization-revisiting-topic-modeling-lda-our-labs-tool

14. Ranking in Google: 2006 - 2009

15. Domain Authority http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-domain-authority-page-authority-metrics

16. Diversity of External Link Sources http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links

17. Nofollow, Sitemaps & Webmaster Tools http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-says-yes-you-can-still-sculpt-pagerank-no-you-cant-do-it-with-nofollow

18. Search Quality Raters http://www.seobook.com/archives/000915.shtml

19. Ranking in Google: 2009 - 2011

20. Twitter Data Danny Sullivan: If an article is retweeted or referenced much in Twitter, do you count that as a signal outside of finding any non-nofollowed links that may naturally result from it? Google: Yes, we do use it as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by marking how many people shared an article http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389

21. Twitter Data Page A 646 links from 36 root domains 2 tweets Page B 1 link from 1 root domain 522 tweets http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-do-tweets-influence-search-rankings-an-experiment-for-a-cause

22. Twitter Clearly Influencing Google Page B – the tweeted version – ranks #1! Page A 646 links from 36 root domains 2 tweets Page B 1 link from 1 root domain 522 tweets http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-do-tweets-influence-search-rankings-an-experiment-for-a-cause

23. Twitter Data is Very Powerful in QDF http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tweets-effect-rankings-unexpected-case-study

24. Don’t Try Abusing Twitter for SEO http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tweets-effect-rankings-unexpected-case-study#jtc133590

25. Author Authority Danny Sullivan: Do you try to calculate the authority of someone who tweets that might be assigned to their Twitter page. Do you try to “know,” if you will, who they are? Bing: Yes. We do calculate the authority of someone who tweets. For known public figures or publishers, we do associate them with who they are. (For example, query for Danny Sullivan) Google: Yes we do compute and use author quality. We don’t know who anyone is in real life :-) http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389

26. Facebook Likes & Shares http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-marketing-ultimate-guide

28. Have authentic, followed social accounts

29. Display obvious, robust contact information

30. Register with government/civic organizations

31. Receive traffic from diverse sources

32. Generate branded search query volume

33. Run offline marketing/advertising campaigns

34. Often exist only online

35. Rarely have significant social accounts

36. Frequently use email forms only

37. Stay “under the radar”

38. Search is often 90%+ of traffic

39. Have little-no branded search demand

40. Ignore the offline worldhttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals

41. Entity Association http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals

42. User & Usage Behavior http://www.quora.com/Did-Bing-intentionally-copy-Googles-search-results

43. How the Search Ranking Factors Have Changed in the Eyes of Experts

44. http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

45. New data will be available on SEOmoz in April, 2011

47. Social Data is perceived to be a significant player

48. Page-Level Link Metrics Fell the Most (43% - 22%)

49. Keyword-Level Domain Metrics, Brand Data + Social Rose

50. The Survey itself asked for more detail/specificity(which may be responsible for some of these shifts)The new version of the ranking factors will be online in April, 2011

51. A Look at Google’s “Farmer”(aka “Panda”) Update

52. Sites that Lost Visibility http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-farmer-update-analysis-of-winners-vs-losers

53. Sites that Gained Visibility http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-farmer-update-analysis-of-winners-vs-losers

54. From the Mouths of Googlers Wired.com: How do you recognize a shallow-content site? Singhal: (W)e asked the raters questions like: “Would you be comfortable giving this site your credit card? Would you be comfortable giving medicine prescribed by this site to your kids?” Cutts: (Using) a rigorous set of questions, everything from. “Do you consider this site to be authoritative? Would it be okay if this was in a magazine? Does this site have excessive ads?” Singhal: And based on that, we basically formed some definition of what could be considered low quality. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/all/1

55. From the Mouths of Googlers Wired.com: But how do you implement that algorithmically? Cutts: I think you look for signals that recreate that same intuition, that same experience that you have as an engineer and that users have. Singhal: You can imagine in a hyperspace a bunch of points, some points are red, some points are green, and in others there’s some mixture. Your job is to find a plane which says that most things on this side of the place are red, and most of the things on that side of the plane are the opposite of red. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/all/1

56. Links Didn’t Seem to Have Much Impact http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-farmer-update-analysis-of-winners-vs-losers

57. How Google’s Interface Has Evolved

58. Old Google SERPs

59. Google SERPs Today

60. Google SERPs Tomorrow

61. How Search Marketers Can Evolve

62. Don’t “Look” Like a Content Farm http://www.suite101.com/content/canada-awarded-fifa-2015-womens-world-cup-of-soccerfootball-a356303

63. Don’t “Look” Like a Content Farm http://hubpages.com/hub/WomensFashionsofthe1920-FlappersandtheJazz-Age

64. Watch Out for “Classic” SEO Tactics Directory Link Building Keyword-Variant Abuse Reciprocal Link Pages Paid Links w/ Manipulative Anchor Text Sitewide, Footer Links Navigation for Engines, Not Humans Low Cost/Quality, Outsourced Content Generic Design and Layout Anchor-Text Rich Internal Links Anonymous Contact Forms Keyword Stuffed Titles + Pages Ad Blocks Dominating the Page It’s great to do good SEO, just don’t look like the only reason the site exists is to draw Google traffic

66. Have authentic, followed social accounts

67. Display obvious, robust contact information

68. Register with government/civic organizations

69. Receive traffic from diverse sources

70. Generate branded search query volume

71. Run offline marketing/advertising campaigns

72. Often exist only online

73. Rarely have significant social accounts

74. Frequently use email forms only

75. Stay “under the radar”

76. Search is often 90%+ of traffic

77. Have little-no branded search demand

78. Ignore the offline worldhttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals

79. Find Where Top Brands Earn Citations Where do these brands earn their links? http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.opensiteexplorer.org

80. Investigate Brand “Mention” Sources Facebook page Blippr? Crunchbase profile App profile on Blackberry Twitter account BusinessWeek Profile Chrome Extension Mashable Article

81. Focus on the User, But Don’t Forget the Engines http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/business/media/11search.html

82. Take Advantage of New Opportunities http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/05/introducing-rich-snippets.html

83. Take Advantage of New Opportunities http://www.9e3k.com/9e3k/monday-meme-yoda-spreads-some-9e3k-love/

84. Take Advantage of New Opportunities http://outspokenmedia.com/social-media/quora-hipsters/

85. Embrace All of Inbound Marketing News/Media/PR SEO Email Research/White Papers Blogs + Blogging Infographics Comment Marketing Social Networks Online Video INBOUND MARKETING!(AKA all the “free” traffic sources) Webinars Forums Document Sharing Social Bookmarking Word of Mouth Podcasting Direct/Referring Links Type-In Traffic Q+A Sites

87. Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog

88. Email: rand@seomoz.orgYou can now try SEOmoz PRO Free! http://www.seomoz.org/freetrial

90. New Signals in Google: Social Media, User Data & Brand Signals

91. The Evolution of the Search Engine Results Interface

92. What Marketers Must Do to Keep Up with Google’s Evolution