authority building vs. link building - smx advanced seattle

Authority Building vs. Link Building In A Search Meets Social

World

AdvancedWEB RANKING

Philip PetrescuFounder and CEO, Caphyon

@philippetrescu

June 5-6, 2012

The impact of authoritative mentions and shares on rankings

Case Study and Research from our blog.


Really? 2nd place from 4 bil results

with no links?

Case Study and Research from our blog.


What happens when influencers share your content?



The original tweet that started it all.

Martin’s tweet about his blog post which mentions @randfish.

The denial…

Jennifer exposing his network.



Rand’s tweet that sparkled a lot of interactions and retweets.

Case study courtesy of Martin Macdonalds, Expedia EAN



This is what happens when influencers share your content.

Normal traffic: 30-50 visits/day


And this was the impact on site traffic.

What have we learned today?

There is a very strong correlation between the title and the keyword

Do some research to see how people search for this kind of content.


Google is getting closer and closer to understanding

user intent

Do some research to see how people search for this kind of content.


Search Engine Ranking Factors 2011 - http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

That social signals are very important in the

early stages of ranking.

Are these social signals enough?

Search Engine Ranking Factors 2011 - http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

QDF (Query Deserves Freshness) is your friend. It gives your content a

limited time boost in rankings.

I have grouped the link signals into four main categories.

Quantity

Diversity

Relevance

Quality

The impact of authoritative links on rankings

This research uses data from both SEOmoz and Majestic SEO.


Citation FlowTrust Flow

Domain AuthorityPage Authority


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

The Perfect Correlation

Quantity and DiversityExternal followed links vs. followed Linking Root Domains


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

50,000

100,000

150,000

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250,000

300,000

External Followed links Followed LRD * 10

The number of links is not that well correlated when taken separately.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

Exact Match LRDs Partial Match LRDs


Exact match links indicate relevance, but if you have too many, it doesn’t really help.

RelevanceExact match LRDs vs. Partial Match LRDs


Relevance

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

8,000

9,000

10,000

Branded LRD Branded + Keyword LRD

Brand signals are a good indicator of a natural link profile.

Some people say that brand + keyword anchor texts are the best.


Too much relevance?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100.00

10.00

20.00

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40.00

50.00

60.00

70.00

80.00

% Exact Match LRD % Partial Match LRD

Shouldn’t 70% - 80% exact match attract the attention of a penguin?


Relevance

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100.00

20.00

40.00

60.00

80.00

100.00

120.00

% Branded LRD % Branded + Keyword LRD*

With the high amount of relevance, these guys would

rank much higher, if only they had some more branded signals.


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100.00

20.00

40.00

60.00

80.00

100.00

120.00

% Branded LRDs % Exact Match LRDs

Relevance% Branded LRDs vs. % Exact match LRDs


Relevance% Branded LRDs vs. Exact match LRDs (Stacked Bars)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

% Exact Match LRDs % Branded LRDs

Branded anchor texts help push exact matches to give a better correlation.


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100.00

100.00

200.00

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500.00

600.00

700.00

800.00

% Exact Match LRD from Branded % Partial Match LRD from Branded

700% exact match vs. branded anchor texts

Relevance% Exact Match LRDs from Branded vs. % Partial Match LRDs from Branded


QualityPage Authority

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

10

20

30

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90

100

Page Authority Polynomial (Page Authority)

Page Authority of each page ranking in the top 10 Google results.


QualityPage Authority vs. Domain Authority

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

10

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Page Authority Polynomial (Page Authority) Domain Authority Polynomial (Domain Authority)


Not even Page Rank is perfectly correlated. Perhaps it is, but the integer value is misleading.

QualityPage Authority vs. Domain Authority vs. Page Rank

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

10

20

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Page Authority Polynomial (Page Authority) Domain Authority Polynomial (Domain Authority) Page RankPolynomial (Page Rank)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

10

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80

Citation Flow Polynomial (Citation Flow) Trust Flow Polynomial (Trust Flow)


The new metrics from Majestic SEO: Citation Flow and Trust Flow vs. Page Authority

QualityCitation Flow vs. Trust Flow vs. Page Authority

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Citation Flow Polynomial (Citation Flow) Trust Flow Polynomial (Trust Flow) Page AuthorityPolynomial (Page Authority)


The new metrics from Majestic SEO: Citation Flow and Trust Flow vs. Page Authority

QualityCitation Flow vs. Trust Flow vs. Page Authority


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

2000

4000

6000

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10000

12000

14000

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

QualityDistribution of all links by Page Authority

Each line represents a website in the Top 10 results.


Relevance and Quality signals taken together

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

200

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1000

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Relevance and QualityDistribution of exact match followed links by Page Authority


Relevance and Quality signals taken together

Relevance and QualityDistribution of partial match followed links by Page Authority

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10


Same as previous slide but without the 5th place.

Relevance and QualityDistribution of partial match followed links by Page Authority

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

50

100

150

200

250

300

1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10


Same as previous slide but without the 5th place.

Relevance and QualityDistribution of branded followed links by Page Authority

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

200

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1,000

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Avg DA exact match (*10) Followed LRD

Relevance, Quality, Quantity and DiversityAverage Domain Authority vs. Followed LRD (exact match)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

200

400

600

800

1,000

1,200

Avg DA exact match (*10) Followed LRD

• Relevance signals are still important, but having too many is not helpful.

• Having a lot of brand signals and some relevance is better than having a lot of relevance and no brand or authority.

• “If you have 1 million links with anchor text and no brand links then you have a problem.”

David Naylor - Bronco

Conclusions

Conclusions

• Social signals are becoming more significant ranking factors

• Fresh content that is shared will have a temporary ranking boost

• You may need influencers to share your content if you want to rank for highly competitive keywords.

Hint: Don't go for the influential people, go for their peers instead.

Conclusions

The secrets behind the Google Algorithm

Let me tell you some of the secrets behind Google’s algorithm.

Thank you!

@philippetrescu

www.advancedwebranking.com/blog

[email protected] AdvancedWEB RANKING

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