Google is Watching YouHow Google Spies on Search Behavior to Rank

Websites

Aug 3, 2015

John Crenshaw

• Founder of Razorlight Media• Acquired by Oodle in April 2015• Director of Content, Search, & Media @ Oodle

Oodle – Oodle.io

Phone: 513-549-4003 x716johnc@oodle.io

Website: http://oodle.ioBlog: http://www.razorlightmedia.com/blog/

About

An engagement agency, specialized in fueling experiences and brand development in the ever-changing digital realm.

In other words, we do digital design, development, and marketing.

Clients

UC HealthMercy HealthTrihealth

Cincinnati Children’s HospitalNathan’s Famous HotdogsCaptain Morgan BBQ

FastPark & RelaxLindner Center of HOPEPearle Vision

Before we start, let’s try an experiment

Pull out your mobile phone, go to Google.com, and search for “cincinnati mechanic”

Then click on “WITHER’S IMPORT AND DOMESTIC AUTO REPAIRS”

Should be about the 7th result.

You may have to click the blue “more” button…

Try not to use Google after that until the end of my talk.

Warning: Circumstantial evidence ahead

Because things are constantly changing and there are so many factors that influence search rankings, SEO is notoriously difficult to test or experiment with.

The info here is far from scientific. It’s based on circumstantial evidence and imperfect ad-hoc studies.

Nobody really knows exactly how Google’s algorithm works.

Google: The answer machineAsk a question, get an answer.

So…what makes a good answer machine?

1. LOTS and LOTS of information

“To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” – The Google

Google processes something like 20,000,000,000,000,000 bytes (20 petabytes) a day

*That was in 2013 (http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/02/50-things-you-didnt-know-about-google/20-petabytes)

2. It just gets you

No really – it understands what you’re REALLY asking it.

It understands the meaning of content and whether it matches up to what you’re asking for.

The PageRank Algorithm:How Google Took Off

Search Engines once used basic on-site factors:• Meta titles, descriptions, keywords, page content

How PageRank works

Links: The PageRank currencyLinks as votes

Counterfeit Currency

Anything valuable will be counterfeited. Links are no exception.

Link Spam: How SEO Worked Until 2012

Link Spam: How SEO Worked Until 2012

Link Spam: Links created for the sole purpose of manipulating search engine rankings. Usually accompanied by terrible, auto-generated content.

But it worked, because a solely link-based algorithm is easily manipulated.

The Evolution of Link Spams

Phase 1: Blog comment & forum spam

Phase 2: Private Blog Networks

Phase 3: Aggressive Guest Posting

“Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.”

- Matt Cutts, Jan 2014

Penalties Changed the Game

• Google used to be reluctant to penalize because then negative SEO would be possible.

• They aren’t reluctant anymore.

Machine Learning Changed the Game

“Machine Learning for SEOs” - Tom Anthony, Distilled, https://moz.com/blog/machine-learning-for-seos

Machine learning helps with tasks that are hard to explain...• Facial recognition• Optical character recognition• Natural language processing (Siri on the iPhone)• Identification of email spam• What makes a spammy webpage?

Machine learning is “expensive”

It’s resource intensive, especially when your data set is billions of web pages.

Caffeine infrastructure update (2010) likely made machine learning practical for Google

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

What’s missing?

Penalties & page analysis using machine learning won’t answer 2 questions:

1. What do users truly want when they search?2. What do users truly think about a particular

search result?

What do users want?

<- OR ->

What do users think?

What makes a page “high quality?”

Grammar? Unique content?

At first glance this page seems ok but how can Google determine if this is truly a quality page / site?

The Old Method

On-site stuff:• Grammar, spelling, related images, meta data,

internal linking

Off-site signals

• Backlinks

The New Method

^^ All that stuff plus…

• Brand building• Brand + Keyword searches• Click-through rate• Pogosticking• What else…?

Brand building

“So if it turns out that lots of people who are researching a vacation to Costa Rica end up going to Oyster.com, well, Google might say, "Hey, you know what? We've seen this pattern over and over again. Let's boost Oyster.com's rankings because it seems like people who look for this kind of content end up on this site.”

Rand Fishkin – Is Brand a Google Ranking Factor?https://moz.com/blog/is-brand-a-google-ranking-factor-whiteboard-friday

Brand + Keyword Searches

When that random guy called me about moving this page…

“razorlight web design companies list”

More people searching for that phrase and clicking that result = improved position.

In-SERP Click Through Rate

https://moz.com/rand/queries-clicks-influence-googles-results/

In-SERP Click Through Rate

https://moz.com/rand/queries-clicks-influence-googles-results/

In-SERP Click Through Rate

http://www.slideshare.net/darrenshaw1/darren-shaw-user-behavior-and-local-search-dallas-state-of-search-2014

In-SERP Click Through Rate

http://www.slideshare.net/darrenshaw1/darren-shaw-user-behavior-and-local-search-dallas-state-of-search-2014

In-SERP Click Through Rate

http://www.slideshare.net/darrenshaw1/darren-shaw-user-behavior-and-local-search-dallas-state-of-search-2014

Also moved intoPosition B in the local pack and they’re still there today.

“Pogosticking”

Social Shares?

Does Social Media Affect SEO?http://www.rlmseo.com/blog/do-social-signals-impact-search-rankings/

Probably not now, but maybe in the future.

Can you manipulate this?

Can’t we build an evil robot to manipulate all these signals?Yes in the short term.

But it might be difficult in the long term…

• IP address• User location• Logged-in users• Ability to sustain signals• Google still has machine learning

Fighting Manipulation:Back to machine learning…

Does this user behavior match what we already know about user behavior in this industry, niche, website type, etc?

How might pogosticking behavior be different on an auto glass company website vs. an instructional blog post

Fighting Manipulation:Back to machine learning…

Is this a trusted user? Does this user’s behavior match what we already know about trusted users?

Does this user click on results other trusted users don’t click on? Is their click behavior random / erratic?

Is manipulation impossible?

Remember this? It still ranks today.

Imperfect data might lead to “default” rankings

Especially in lower positions and for lower traffic searches (like page 2 local searches).

More people are visiting page 1; far more measurable user metrics. If the top results aren’t terrible, might stick by default.

But…

If Belltown Bride is a legitimately good result, and manipulation gets it to the first page, it might actually stay there: Google can now measure that users are satisfied with that result.

How to use this info?

Step 1: Build a brand

Stuff you do offline may impact search rankings online.

Step 2: Publish awesome content

Figure out what visitors want, give it to them, and do it better than anyone else.

Step 3: Get a higher organic CTRby treating your meta titles &

descriptions like advertisements

Step 4: Minimize pogosticking by aggregating intent

Think of everything searchers could possibly want and give it to them.

Visitors should never have a reason to go back to search…even if that means linking to your competitors.

Aggregate intent!!http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/aggregating-intent

Bonus step: Don’t forget that backlinks are still important

In most cases, backlinks are still important, but shoot for extremely high quality / low quantity.

Plus, if you do the previous steps backlinks will be much easier to build.

Thanks!

Oodle – Oodle.io

Phone: 513-549-4003 x716johnc@oodle.io

Website: http://oodle.ioBlog: http://www.razorlightmedia.com/blog/