1. The Evolution of Google Rankings
How 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.htmlhttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

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

6. PageRank
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlhttp://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.htmlhttp://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/anchor-text

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

10. http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html
From 1999 – 2008, What Page Ranked #1
for the Queries “Exit” and “Leave”?
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
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/content-optimization-revisiting-topic-modeling-lda-our-labs-tool
LDA correlates w/
Google rankings
better than any other
on-page feature

14. Ranking in Google: 2006 - 2009

15. Domain Authority
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlhttp://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
http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389
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

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

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

23. Twitter Data is Very Powerful in QDF
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlhttp://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.htmlhttp://www.seomoz.org/blog/tweets-effect-rankings-unexpected-case-study#jtc133590

25. Author Authority
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlhttp://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389
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?
Google: Yes we do compute and use author quality. We don’t know
who anyone is in real life :-)
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)

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

27. Brand Signals
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
Brands Generics
• Have real people working at a physical address
• Have authentic, followed social accounts
• Display obvious, robust contact information
• Register with government/civic organizations
• Receive traffic from diverse sources
• Generate branded search query volume
• Run offline marketing/advertising campaigns
• Often exist only online
• Rarely have significant social accounts
• Frequently use email forms only
• Stay “under the radar”
• Search is often 90%+ of traffic
• Have little-no branded search demand
• Ignore the offline world

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

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

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

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

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

33. Big Changes from 2009 to 2011
The new version of the ranking factors will be online in April, 2011
• Link-Based Factors are no longer 60%+ of the equation!
• Social Data is perceived to be a significant player
• Page-Level Link Metrics Fell the Most (43% - 22%)
• Keyword-Level Domain Metrics, Brand Data + Social Rose
• The Survey itself asked for more detail/specificity
(which may be responsible for some of these shifts)

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

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

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

37. From the Mouths of Googlers
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/all/1
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.

38. From the Mouths of Googlers
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/the-panda-that-hates-farms/all/1
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.

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

40. How Google’s Interface Has Evolved

41. Old Google SERPs

42. Google SERPs Today

43. Google SERPs Tomorrow

44. How Search Marketers Can Evolve

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

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

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

48. Become a “Brand”
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-next-generation-of-ranking-signals
Brands Generics
• Have real people working at a physical address
• Have authentic, followed social accounts
• Display obvious, robust contact information
• Register with government/civic organizations
• Receive traffic from diverse sources
• Generate branded search query volume
• Run offline marketing/advertising campaigns
• Often exist only online
• Rarely have significant social accounts
• Frequently use email forms only
• Stay “under the radar”
• Search is often 90%+ of traffic
• Have little-no branded search demand
• Ignore the offline world

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

56. Q+A
Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-Founder, SEOmoz
• Twitter: @randfish
• Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog
• Email: rand@seomoz.org
You can now try SEOmoz PRO Free!
http://www.seomoz.org/freetrial

57. Summary of This Presentation
The Evolution and Future of Google’s Rankings:
• Where Google’s Been in the Past (1999-2010)
• New Signals in Google: Social Media, User Data & Brand Signals
• The Evolution of the Search Engine Results Interface
• What Marketers Must Do to Keep Up with Google’s Evolution