Does Search Volume Directly Effect Organic Search Result Rankings?
-
For example, if 20,000 people searched for "seomoz toasters," do you think a page on seomoz.org that mentioned toasters would begin to rank well for the query "toasters"?
-
Not just search volume mind you. Do you think mentions on sites around the web have an impact as well?
-
Yes. That's what I believe.
-
Do you think volume of brand / domain mentions and co-occurrence influence organic rankings as well?
-
Your premise sounds good in a perfect world.
There is a featured post by Rand that asks how to manipulate Google search suggestions.
I believe these same tactics could be used to skew organic results as well. Some tactics suggested were...
Mechanical Turk
Offline Advertising
Online Advertising
For example, if semoz.org had 20,000 Turkers a month search for Seomoz Toasters, The legitimate toaster site may not stand a chance because CTR and bounce rates have been manipulated.
-
Let's say the top page for seomoz toasters is a site on seomoz.org that happens to talk about toasters (say a youmoz). It's got the right keywords and it's on a popular site. But Rand Fishkin has started a Cafepress store that sells seomoz toasters. Being a busy guy, he mentions this on his blog but forgets to link to it. So people turn to Google. People get served seomoz.org as #1. Google doesn't read Rand's blog (like you or I do) so it links to seomoz.org. But you and I, we want that toaster, not some guy talking about link building for toasters on seomoz. So either you will click into seomoz and bounce out, or just click #2, the Cafepress store. And 80% of the people who click into Cafepress never come back. That tells Google that people are finding what they're looking for at #2 and, by the power of Matt Cutts, Cafepress becomes #1 for "seomoz toasters", based on the traffic patterns Google observed.
In a shorter term, this is called "bounce rate".
So to get back to your question, volume tends to make Google notice term traffic trends (like bounce rate) faster. I don't know that this applies to other terms. "seomoz toasters" is a fairly specific term (it's not terribly common), while "toasters" are highly general. You could have people who want the seomoz toaster so badly that they search "toaster" and click to the seomoz site in that result, but that's really unnatural. Most would just search the long tail.
-
I am saying what I believe based upon observation.... and not something that I have proven by testing.
I believe that brand mentions and domain queries are awesome powerful.
I had a site that was getting a few thousand queries per month that included the domain. That site was redirected to a better domain and rankings dropped for those queries that used to include the domain.
However, visitors learned the new domain and within a few months a few thousand queries that included the domain were coming in.... and rankings went back to normal.
This isn't "proof" but enough to make me think that domain queries are awesome.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Ranking drop after image compression across website.
Hi all, Just checked my website in Google pagespeed insights and most of our website pages were required to reduce the images file size for better page loading. So I have compressed the images using https://compressor.io/ and https://tinypng.com/ and replaced the images. Then surprisingly ranking dropped even score improved for all pages with image optimisation. What would be the reason? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
What does it exactly means when Google brings the "brand name" to the beggining of the page title in search results when it was actually given at the end?
We see many times...page titles starts with "brand name: page for etc" where actually "brand name" has been given at the end and keywords at beginning. Why does Google make this change? I noticed this happens when similar title tags are used by multiple websites for high difficulty keywords. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google domain search
Hello all, I'm a newbie to SEO, so you'll have to bear with me. I just started a website LangleyHomeSaerch.com a few months ago and am having trouble ranking with google. When I search "Langley Home Search" with Yahoo or Bing, it comes up on the first page. However when I search it with google it doesn't seem to rank even in the first few hundred pages. The only way I can get a match from google is if I search "Langley HomeSearch" or "LangleyHomeSearch". I know due to google's newer algorithms that there is less importance put on domain name matches, but is this normal, or is there anything I can do to improve it? Thx, Colby Langley, BC
Algorithm Updates | | colbygedak0 -
PPC vs Organic CTR
Hello, I found two studies that seem to contradict themselves about PPC vs Organic CTR:
Algorithm Updates | | Cornel_Ilea
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2200730/Organic-vs.-Paid-Search-Results-Organic-Wins-94-of-Time
http://brandongaille.com/google-organic-click-through-rate-statistics/ Which one is true? Thank you
Cornel0 -
Best approach to ranking locally
Hello, What are the best approaches to ranking locally. Ie a user in Dallas googles "mechanics" and local results return. I understand Google+ local pages to be an important factor for the location based listings on maps. What about about location specific pages on the site? Meaning if we have a page on the site talking about areas we serve in Dallas. Other suggestions?
Algorithm Updates | | CallRingTalk0 -
301 Or Canonical, Which one is more effective for eCommerce Website ?
I have my own eCommerce website. I want to avoid duplicate category pages so which method is more useful 301 redirection or Canonical url?
Algorithm Updates | | yuvastyle0 -
Site name appended to page title in google search
Hi there, I have a strange problem concerning how the search results for my site appears in Google. The site is Texaspoker.dk and for some strange reason that name is appended at the end of the page title when I search for it in Google. The site name is not added to the page titles on the site. If I search in Google.dk (the relevant search engine for the country I am targeting) for "Unibet Fast Poker" I get the following page title displayed in the search results: Unibet Fast Poker starter i dag - få €10 og prøv ... - Texaspoker.dk If you visit the actual page you can see that there is no site name added to the page title: http://www.texaspoker.dk/unibet-fast-poker It looks like it is only being appended to the pages that contains rich snippets markup and not he forum threads where the rich snippets for some reason doesn't work. If I do a search for "Afstemning: Foretrukne TOPS Events" the title appears as it should without the site name being added: Afstemning: Foretrukne TOPS Events Anybody have any experience regarding this or an idea to why this is happening? Maybe the rich snippets are automatically pulling the publisher name from my Google+ account... edited: It doesn't seem to have anything to do with rich snippets, if I search for "Billeder og stuff v.2" the site name is also appended and if I search for "bedste poker bonus" the site name is not.
Algorithm Updates | | MPO0 -
What is the difference between Bing and Google ranking factors ?
I know basic SEO factors and i understand On Page SEO title/meta/content optimzation and Off Page backlinking factors. Yet we see different ranking on both SEs so I want to know what are those? Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | NiceGuy1