Who Won SEO in 2020 and Why?

| @lilyraynyc
Who is Winning SEO in
2020 & Why?
#DMOSummit |

| @lilyraynyc
Lily
Ray
SEO
Director
#DMOSummit |

| @lilyraynyc
I’ve become
somewhat of
an SEO
meteorologist.
#DMOSummit |

| @lilyraynyc
Recap:
what caused changes to SEO visibility recently?
#DMOSummit |

| @lilyraynyc#DMOSummit
Methodology:
Analyze organic visibility (VI) of ~1,500
domains in U.S. index over time.
Maintain categorized lists of high-traffic
domains and changes in traffic patterns.
Cross-reference organic performance with
Sistrix data, look for link-related anomalies.
Analyze how sites have changed over time.
#DMOSummit |

#DigitalEliteDay | @lilyraynyc
#DMOSummit | @lilyraynyc
The master list of SEO visibility

• Organic visibility =/= organic traffic
• None of the following brands are my clients
• Small sample of websites (~1,500)
• My theories about their performance are speculation
• 3rd-party tools are not 100% accurate
• VI change date range: 1/1/20 vs. 10/1/20
• Correlation =/= causation*
Disclaimers:
*(not a relevant disclaimer here, but would this
really be an SEO presentation without it?)

| @lilyraynyc
So, who are the
big winners?
#DMOSummit |

Greatest Total VI Change by Domain
Jan 1 – Oct 1, 2020, Sistrix U.S. Visibility Index (VI)

Domains with Greatest % Change in VI
Jan 1 – Oct 1, 2020, Sistrix U.S. Visibility Index (VI)

| @lilyraynycJan 1 – Oct 1, 2020, Sistrix U.S. Visibility Index, Similarweb Domain Categories #DMOSummit |

Category:
Right place, right time.
Category:
Right place,
right time.

+332%

Zoom appears in #3 position for “meetings” during COVID, likely due to Google’s QDF algorithm
(query deserves freshness) & rapidly changing search intent.

University and museum sites lose rankings, as their locations are currently closed. Online art courses
take up the first 3 positions.

COVID-19 winners
Category:

How Google Fights Disinformation (2019)
matters most
when a crisis is developing.

Highest traffic keywords

Web Stories

COVID-19 Conspiracy Sites:

Some of the biggest
winners of SEO visibility
this year:
• Highly authoritative institutions (i.e. hospitals)
• Official .gov, .uk and .org sites
• Data-driven & science/evidence-based
• Heavily researched and well-sourced content

“MedicalXpressprovidesthemostcompleteand
comprehensivedailycoverageofthefullsweepof
science,technology,andmedicinenews”
–theiraboutpage
Ranksonpage1for:
• Virus
• Bunion
• Percocetonline
• Freeradicals
• Safron
• Cancernews
359%visibility increase in 2020
Medical Xpress

| @lilyraynyc
The real winners:
#DMOSummit |

Date Article
04/03/2020 Google Says They Are Not Filtering Out Sites For Coronavirus
Searches
04/06/2020 Google Logo Says Thank You Coronavirus Helpers
04/07/2020 Google Summarizes Its Search Changes For COVID-19 In Tweets
04/07/2020 Google Search COVID Announcements Feature To Be Live Soon
04/14/2020 Google Throttling Crawling Of Sites During The Coronavirus
Outbreak?
04/17/2020 Google Now Supports Government Benefits Schema For COVID-19
Announcements
04/21/2020 Google Local Services Ads Enables COVID-19 Highlights
04/22/2020 Google Testing Questions Box In Search Results In US For COVID-19
Queries
04/23/2020 Google Offers Free COVID-19 Posters For Your Business
05/01/2020 Google Question Hub - What Is Your Question Is Wider Than COVID-
19 Searches
05/04/2020 Google Has Not Slowed Crawling Your Site Because Of COVID-19
05/05/2020 Nooglers First Day As A Google Employee During COVID-19
05/05/2020 AMP Not Required For COVID-19 Related News In Google Top
Stories Carousel
05/07/2020 Google My Business Adds COVID-19 Responder Policy For Hotels
05/07/2020 May 2020 Google Webmaster Report: Core Update, Google
Shopping, LinkedIn & COVID-19
05/07/2020 Google Adds COVID Testing Center Details To Local Panel
05/12/2020 Google Posts Prioritizing COVID-19 Posts Over Other Google Posts
05/18/2020 Google AdSense Unable To Review Some Sites Due To COVID-19
05/26/2020 Google Asks SEOs How COVID-19 Changed SEO Work
06/19/2020 Google Ads Begins Issuing COVID-19 Credits
06/22/2020 Google Internship During COVID-10 Pandemic
07/20/2020 Google Ads To Ban Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dangerous Ads
07/24/2020 Google Search Showing Flight & Hotel COVID-19 Impact
Date Article
03/04/2020 Google I/O Cancelled Over Coronavirus Concerns
03/09/2020 Google Asking Businesses To Update Business Hours & Details For COVID-19
03/10/2020 Google Search Relations Team Grounded During Coronavirus
03/13/2020 Googlers Taking Work Stations Home During Coronavirus
03/13/2020 Google My Business Asking Is The Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Affecting Your
Business?
03/16/2020 Should Google Halt Search Algorithm Updates During COVID-19 Outbreak
03/17/2020 60% Of SEOs Would Like To Pause Google Algorithm Updates During COVID-19
Outbreak
03/23/2020 Google Stops Accepting Local Reviews & Q&A During Coronavirus Outbreak
03/25/2020 Google Advice On E-Commerce Sites Closing Due To COVID-19
03/25/2020 Google My Business Not Functioning Properly During Coronavirus Outbreak
03/26/2020 Most SEOs Claiming Organic Search Traffic Declines Due To COVID-19
03/26/2020 Google Ads Offers Advertising Advice During COVID-19
04/01/2020 Google Ads New Policy Prevents Profiting Off Sensitive Events, Like COVID-19
04/01/2020 Google COVID-19 Announcements Beta Structured Data
04/02/2020 Google Posts With COVID-19 Updates
04/02/2020 April 2020 Google Webmaster Report: COVID-19, Algorithm Updates, Mobile First
Indexing & More
04/03/2020 Google Search Console COVID-19 Announcement Feature
04/03/2020 Google Doodle - Stay Home. Save Lives. Leads To Coronavirus Tips Results
Timeline of Google
updates related
to COVID-19

The June 22 “Wear a Mask” Update*
*my very unofficial name for it

The FDA takes the top two positions for “hand sanitizer,” despite
previously being owned by transactional pages.

International Google Glitch?
Category:

| @lilyraynyc#DMOSummit#DMOSummit |
Yes, this
belongs here

Domain
% Change
(U.S Index)
pinterest.ca 1,912.55%
ebay.ca 700.28%
pinterest.co.uk 687.47%
pinterest.fr 490.39%
pinterest.de 469.83%
pinterest.ru 420.71%
pinterest.it 273.60%
pinterest.es 267.14%
rtve.es 166.58%
amazon.ca 154.46%
diabetes.co.uk 134.11%
walmart.ca 99.01%
allegro.pl 89.96%
cbc.ca 89.66%
rae.es 85.24%
onet.pl 82.68%
filmweb.pl 74.59%
scielo.br 72.23%
google.ca 62.02%
amazon.it 59.59%
google.co.uk 53.78%
olx.pl 52.28%
homeaffairs.gov.au 50.10%
ebay.co.uk 48.93%
raisingchildren.net.au 46.56%
Notice a
pattern?

The Problem
(May Core Update)

“We’ll look into it*”
(*May 22)

Surge in Indian Sites (in the U.S. index)

Stock Images
Category:

| @lilyraynyc
NSFW warning.
#DMOSummit |

Huge growth in stock image websites

Pinterest (Canada) & Shutterstock

Change in Intent?
Transactional pages used to rank for “girls in panties,” now
it’s largely stock image sites.

E-A-T Winners
Category:

I talk about
a lot.
Google it if you don’t know what it is.

421% 275% 256% 182%
170% 148% 85% 77%
Jan 1 – June 1, 2020 SEO visibility changes,
Sistrix U.S. visibility Index

These companies have
been investing heavily in

What have they done
to improve ?
• Improved “About Us” pages
• Drastically improved content quality
• Hired expert reviewers
• Updated facts and figures
• Implemented better sourcing
• Substantiated claims with evidence
• Removed underperforming content
• Consolidated content
• More transparency with users

E-commerce
Category:

Biggest e-commerce winners
by total VI change

(if you’re )

Meanwhile, on

• Free shipping
• Robust product descriptions
• Thousands of product reviews
• Extensive product specifications
• Call & chat about products
• Product highlights
• Similar item cross-sell
• “You might also need” & “Frequently bought
together” up-sells
• “Visually similar items”
• Customer photos
• Extensive product Q&As
• Expected shipping date
• Solid structured data
• “Shop the look” and product videos
• Related search widgets
• Everything you could possibly want to know
about a throw pillow

Real Estate
Category:

• High-quality images
• Great usability
• Fast page load times
• Links to top markets on homepage (basically mini
HTML sitemaps – highly crawlable)
• Robust neighborhood guides
• Extensive attributes about every property,
building and neighborhood
• Content is targeted to searcher’s location
• Thoughtful website architecture
• Dedicated agent pages with amazing E-A-T

| @lilyraynyc
What have we learned:
• E-A-T matters more than ever, especially for YMYL/controversial/crisis topics
• Pay attention to changes in search intent to make sure your page is eligible
to rank
• Leverage the latest Google features i.e. FAQ Schema, Web Stories, and
optimizing for Google Discover
• The biggest sites can get away with breaking the rules, but that doesn’t
mean you should copy them.
#DMOSummit |

| @lilyraynyc
Lily Ray
@lilyraynyc

Who Won SEO in 2020 and Why?

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