Search Rankings Are Dead
I came across this great article on Search Engine Land a few weeks ago that explains why search rankings and SEO ranking reports no longer matter—something I have thought for a very long time. It’s nice to hear other SEO professionals agree that search rankings are too inconsistent and inconclusive to be used as a SEO success metric.
Here are a few reasons why website owners shouldn’t be so focused on where they rank:
1. The search engines personalize the search results.
I don’t know about you, but I am constantly logged into my Gmail account. That means that whenever I search for something online, Google is able to see and remember my search activities and preferences. Google also has the luxury of being able to see your computer’s IP address, and is therefore able to tailor the search results to your location. You’re more likely to see local businesses and news in the search results that way. As time passes, the search giant starts to personalize the SERP I see based on what it knows about me. My search results for a certain keyword might be completely different than the results you would get for the same search simply because Google is trying to offer the best individual results for each user.
2. Social signals impact the search results.
If you were to search for “SEO” in Google, chances are you would see a “People and Pages on Google+” box on the right hand side of the search results. By including Google+ pages in the search results, Google is placing a lot of importance on social signals. Other social signals in Google include the +1 button, which lets you know which pages have been given the “thumbs up” by people in your social circle. Bing and Facebook joined forces back in May 2011 to create the “Friend Effect,” which would essentially rewrite the search results if you were logged into your Facebook account to reflect the pages/websites that your Facebook friends had liked or share. All of these (and other social signals) factors mean that search rank is subjective based on the preferences of your friends and how the search engines use that data.
3. Websites aren’t the only things listed in the search results.
Go ahead and do a Google search for “Chinese food.” What kind of results do you see in the SERP? For me, everything above the fold is local business listings for Chinese restaurants in my area. I have to actively scroll down to see any websites about Chinese food, and even then the results are broken up by pictures and videos and even a few news results. So even if your website is ranked #1 for a certain keywords, it may actually be placed halfway down the results page. There are a lot more things for searchers to click on than just the top 10 websites, and rank is no guarantee of a click-through.
In my opinion, rank is not the most important SEO metric; visitor growth is. The search results are going to change day-by-day, maybe even minute-by-minute, because of a combination of 200 ranking factors used by search engines. Some of these factors are completely beyond your control! It’s more important to focus on visitor growth because this is a much better indication of how well your SEO is working.
14 Responses to “Search Rankings Are Dead”
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Hi Nick…
It’s morning, so this could come across aggressive…
Right, Rankings aren’t dead, and reports certainly aren’t.
Rankings give a good average, they also directly correlate to the amount of traffic you receive for particular terms. Sure that number will drop, but don’t forget that not everyone is going to have personalised search… People won’t always be +1 “ing” websites, and rankings for the moment, won’t be drastically effected.
In fact, I think you will find that any #1 rankings terms that you do have, probably receive a similar amount of traffic that they used to, same goes for all terms that have been in the same position on page 1 for a year.
This is an SEO’s way of attempting to bridge a gap between SEO and UX, where in all actuality there is no gap.
By stating that some sources of SEO are irrelevant, pointless or “DEAD” shows you are trying to push yourself into another sector, that you don’t need pushing into…
Instead use your brain to explain to clients or prospective clients how SEO can encompass a large amount of other areas within online, and dear god, don’t say something is “DEAD”…
Jesus… Page Rank “Died” a long time ago didn’t it? Oh wait, people still use it everyday…
Also, wouldn’t a more helpful and proactive way of titling this be “How to Combat Personalization and Retain Your Rankings / Obtain Visibility”…
Also… Google local results are rankings! How about helping to improve those too…
As for the Social Signals… Jesus, why not provide information on how to improve rankings in this sector.
Even if rankings are not as “important” as they used to be, they are still there, definitelty not dead, and reports can still provide useful information.
Rant Over.
Thanks Marcus for sharing your rant!
You make some great points.
Thanks again & take care,
Nick
No problem,
Thanks for publishing
Best of Luck!
I was just picked up on my use of effective and affective by a team mate… Terrible grammar…
Rant ruined…
While what you say it partly true, rankings are still very important. For a huge amount of search terms the vast majority f people will see the same website at No. 1. For all my sites the traffic I get correlates with the ranking position. If a site is popular then it will rank well for lots of reason, so of course it’s relevant. It’s not like it used to be, but it’s still very similar. People are always to quick to think things have changing. Yes, social media’s playing a bigger part these days, but backlinks still work very well and are far from dead.
I was going to say something similar to what Marcus said,b ut he covered most of my viewpoints already.
However I would like to add one. Just because “social signals” are now impacting serps, that doesn’t equate to rankings being dead? We will still have the rankings, We will need to be more involved in social to impact rankings in the future, but that just doesn’t equate to rankings being dead.
Great debate guys, it just goes to show how broad SEO is. what works for you might not work for someone else,but the most important thing is the traffic and the conversions.
I’ve always felt confused as to which direction to take with regards to building a business. Coming from an Internet marketing background where ‘link building’ is key to growth. I’ve felt very confused as to who to listen to. So many people are advising different things with regards to traffic generation.
Some people say it’s all about the brand, others say it’s all about the keywords and SEO.
In all honesty, i think neither one of these matter. I’ve come to the personal conclusion that as soon as you place a direct emphasis on a given strategy or technique, everything about your business will begin to fall apart because it’s simply a poor foundation and mindset to be coming from.
I think if we start to approach it more along the lines of how actual traditional business people think (Treat the customer with care and provide value), you will set yourself up with a solid foundation for a future proofed and reputable business.
It’s simply a matter of time before all of this gets recognised by the online community. The Internet and the search engines are simply a tool to help aid your business and not the magic bullet.
Marcus, though you are correct and I agree with you that rankings are not “dead” you cannot discount what Nick is doing in the article beyond delivering the content and information. He has to also make it interesting, maybe even a little controversial (like this article) so that people will actually want to read his content. With a title like “How to Combat Personalization and Retain Your Rankings / Obtain Visibility” I would maybe read it, maybe not depending on how much I needed to know about the ‘how-to’ topic at the time. However, with a title like “Search Rankings Are Dead” then whoa! wait a minute, I HAVE to read that! You cannot discount the marketing factor. With our short short short attention spans these days, you have to have a catchy title to draw people in or they’ll never even give it a chance.
The bottom line is that those of us in the SEO software business have to keep on developing our tools to reflect the changing search experience.
You’ve said it all beautifully and I am agree with you. Thanks for sharing this post because this post is really effective and knowledge full. I am very inspired.
Keep it up…..
Thanks everyone for your comments!
Take Care,
Nick
Really interesting debate here. I think Onder’s points are good too. Yes, it is about increasing visitor numbers and SEO has not been the only way to do this. And building a business on one strategy is definitely flawed.
But in the end, people don’t go past the first page of search results (many not past the first listing), so ranking will continue to matter to anyone with a website. The more niche the market (assuming that means smaller), the more important it is to be the number one listing. So ranking 1st continues to be really important. Of course you could get that ranking through Places listings and in fact that could be a whole lot easier.
Just shows that local businesses are likely to be the winners in Google’s quest to personalise everything to the nth degree.
I’ve been focusing a lot with rankings and it helps me with my SEO job. Didn’t realize that it’s more important to focus on visitor growth.
Your post is very informative and I’m very thankful for learning about this article.
Thanks again!
Thomas
[...] few weeks ago I wrote a post for the Search Engine Optimization Journal called “Search Rankings a Dead.” I wrote it because I was inspired by the topic of another blog post I had found on Search [...]