On being official

Does being the official site help?

[mrjohncory]

I'm lucky enough to work on an official site -- it is THE official site for something.

Has anyone ever noticed jumps, whether in rankings or visitors' interest, based on changing something like a meta description to "the OFFICIAL site for ____"?

Is it helpful or is it superfluous?

[choster]

For most of the things I search for, whichever if any is the official site is obvious, and bubbles to the towards the top because most other sites will prefer to link to most authoritative site in general. Just adding the words "official site" may not hurt, but I wouldn't expect a big bump. If nothing else, I don't think I've ever included "official site" in any web search I've ever submitted in the last decade.

[Demaestro]

Having it is the titles may be beneficial so that it that users see it when looking at the titles of pages in their search results.

I like choster have probibly never used "official site" in my search terms though.

[D_Blackwell]

I agree that I would not look for the 'official site' of something.

Is it helpful or is it superfluous?

Could be either. Depends in large part what YOU do with it. If there is 'potential' and an 'unofficial site' hustles and does a really good job of offering information, SEO.....then being official won't mean much - because another site is doing a better job, getting better buzz, and eventually outranking yours.

Also depends partly on what you are the official site for. Are they going to be providing PR support, exclusive or first access to key content.....? It should eventually come to be that you are doing them more of a favor than you are doing them. Depending on what you are the 'official site' of and what the agreed terms are, I would built the site to be highly and quickly convertible.

You do have an actual, agreement of some sort I hope. What would it take to be stripped of 'official' status. What is the expiry of the arrangement? Renewal options for both sides? You could build a site that is worthless if getting locked out of the ability to use the content and/or 'official' connection.

Why are you the official site? If they 'need' you, that could be a win-win deal. I would consider the need to design the site with a built-in parachute - where you do not need them for the relevance of the site to survive and continue despite whatever comes up. Something will, always does.

Nothing that I am involved with would benefit from an 'official site'. It would be better if more competitors went away or quit trying to keep up with us. LOL