Still Believe in 200 Rank Factors & Santa Claus?

[martinibuster]

Mod's note: original title and description lines...
Still Believe in 200 Rank Factors & Santa Claus?
Search has Changed. So Why Do SEOs Talk About This?

The whole idea of 200 factors that Google checks a site for is quaint, like Jell-O . A checklist of things you have to do right is convenient but that's not how search engines work.

The 200 ranking factors has been with us since about a year or two after Google was out of diapers. There have literally been thousands of changes to the Google algorithm.

Do you still believe there are 200 ranking factors?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:49 am (utc) on Oct 29, 2016]
[edit reason] Description line not used in this forum. Put it into the post. [/edit]

[martinibuster]

Shaddows, we agree that fruit loops is crap and that there are better sites out there.

This isn't a conspiracy against the consumer. It's a conspiracy with the consumer. This is the output from billions and billions of search queries studied to identify what kinds of sites satisfy users. Is it lowest common denominator? Probably. But it's what most users want.

Check this out. I came across this statistic in a scientific paper yesterday
45% of search queries for the single phrase Jaguar are satisfied by sites about the automobile. Not coincidentally, the top of the SERP for that word features the automobile. 35% of searchers are satisfied by results about the animal. From where I'm searching, the next results feature the animal. That's satisfying the user intent.

You ever wonder why some of the pages seem to be focused on newbs and expert pages seem to be missing? It's the fruit loops effect. LCD. What happens when you try to please most of the people.

[edited by: martinibuster at 10:56 am (utc) on Nov 1, 2016]

[Shaddows]

@MB, you misread my post. I wholeheartedly agree with you.

The hypothetical Muesli manufacturer (small website) may perceive that their wholesome, high quality product is being unfairly neglected but the supermarket (Google). But it's not.

The supermarket stocks what is popular, rather than making popular that which it stocks.

[blend27]

They want their users to come away satisfied. Your local supermarket aspires to please it's shoppers. Walk down the cereal aisle. What do you see?

Fruit Loops
Captain Crunch
Lucky Charms

But don't see information about other worthy cereals, except in number -50, -100 aisles. I've never seen 2,500,000/10 + aisles where Captain Crunch Brand was following me all the way to the back of the SuperMarket.

What I do see is that every now and then the SuperMarket redresses/shuffles its aisles Loops/Crunch//Charms in a first and second aisles dedicating more than 80% to Brands(Loops/Crunch//Charms), 15% to another Stolen Images of Cereals from the rest of small stores around the world while promoting "Dont Be Evil" mantra and making Billions Year after Year -nothing is wrong with that btw ;).

I don't see Drones(not the military style, but who knows) mounted on top cheetahs, sailfish or peregrine falcons(citation - fastest animals in the world ) whooshing around at sonic speed all over the small brand stores, collecting descriptions, prices and density of air between visitors all around so IT could be published on the walls of aisles -50 thru -100.

Gee, who even goes there? But its there right?

Oh, and if the relevant KeyWord mentioned too many times pointing to small brand, mentioned by other small brands of delicious cereal sites, then ZOO(citation - love that show), somewhere over the rainbow in the aisle that is supposedly located on the lowest deck, next to the sewer system outlets...... Never mind other wannabe outlets of the SuperMarket that wanted to get Paid by SuperMarket(MFAs) republishing all the juicy info.


SuperMarket knows best! - What one sees(or not) is what all get - citation/sarcasm.

[Shaddows]

But don't see information about other worthy cereals, except in number -50, -100 aisles

If people bought those cereals, they would be in the main isle. The Supermarket wants to please the customers, because that's the best way of making a sustainable profit.

What I do see is that every now and then the SuperMarket redresses/shuffles its aisles Loops/Crunch//Charms in a first and second aisles dedicating more than 80% to Brands(Loops/Crunch//Charms), 15% to another Stolen Images of Cereals from the rest of small stores around the world

You're misrepresenting the analogy there. The supermarket show 80% of the brand that sells, then 15% advertising space to cereal manufacturers who allow their images to be used. Choosing to avoid this product placement is simple, but then you don't get the eyeballs from the shoppers. But it's a choice.

I don't see Drones(not the military style, but who knows) mounted on top cheetahs, sailfish or peregrine falcons(citation - fastest animals in the world ) whooshing around at sonic speed all over the small brand stores, collecting descriptions, prices and density of air between visitors all around so IT could be published on the walls of aisles -50 thru -100.

I have never seen the info boxes be populated by anything other a high-ranking site. Are you suggesting Google surfaces the information but buries the site? Do you have an example?

SuperMarket knows best! - What one sees(or not) is what all get

In the real world, not just the analogy, supermarkets genuinely do stock more of what people buy, and phase out stuff that never gets bought. Why wouldn't Google follow the same process and show more of the sites that get clicked, and less of the TYPES of site that don't get clicked?

Ranking is a webmaster vanity that Google is not inclined to indulge, when it takes up space that could be filled with a user-satisfying site. Arguing that a wholesome site "deserves" to be ranked higher than a Fruit Loop site misses the point that customers quite like Fruit Loops, whether they are the "best" option or not.

[jon_uk]

The analogy of a supermarket is mistaken. A high street with different shops is more accurate. I see health shops on there - even small family ones. I sometimes see other smaller, independent shops too - it adds to the serendipitous nature of strolling from one end to the other. The difference on and offline being a democratic choice or being corralled.

[blend27]

when it takes up space that could be filled with a user-satisfying site

SuperMarket here being Goog, that has Brands all up Top.

I brought this up before a few years ago.

google.com/search?q=multicolor+amber

Etsy & Amazon are not even a brand. Products are cheap knockoffs from a sleuth of re-sellers.

Etsy ranks #1 for anything to do with the second word. Before it was Amazon, before that it was Ebay & WikiHow. In most cases 80%.

How to boil Water?, . remember that?

[Shaddows]

@blend27

That is pretty monopolised. Being in the UK, I get amazon.co.uk mixing it up with amazon.com, but 8/10 are from there plus etsy.

I tried a few modifiers like [premium / artisan / handmade] and got "better" results, but clicking thru AMZN results gave me substantially varied products, ranging (in $USD for consistency) from $20 to $250.

One explanation for such crowding could be that many people, especially millennials looking for costume jewellery, would be happy to buy from the big name places. If the majority of people were looking for small, independent outlets, Google would be serving those up- on the basis that keeping searchers happy is the way to increase revenues next year as well as this one.

To put it another way, if data showed that greater diversity led to increased user satisfaction, there would be greater diversity. Anything else is self-defeating.

[martinibuster]

The reason it's showing Amazon and Etsy is because "Multicolor Amber" is not a valid search phrase to test Google with. It appears to not be searched very much, if at all. Take a look at the low competition for AdWords Ads. That's indicative of the value of that phrase and sometimes how often that phrase is searched.

I can prove to you that "multicolor amber" is a fake search query that triggers a glitch result. Every valid search query will return results if you modify the query by restricting it to a TLD.

So do a search for this: "multicolor amber" site:.edu and Google shows a couple Chinese web pages. There are no "multicolor amber" .edu web pages. Imagine that! This is what I mean when I say that "multicolor amber" is not a valid search phrase. There are not enough web pages containing that phrase in a meaningful way.

Now do a search on "multicolor amber" site:.net. What you get are some odd domains, probably hosted on non-U.S. servers, with IE blocking ActiveX scripts, some looking totally FrontPage.

Another problem with that phrase is that Amber is a color, in addition to being a fossilized resin (or referred to as a precious stone). Google suggests the following phrases:

1. multicolor amber necklace
   
2. multicolor amber jewelry
   
3. multicolor amber bracelet
   
4. multicolor amber ring

If you do a search for those then you'll see the regular algorithm results.

One cool thing about a search like "multicolor amber" is that it triggers a glitch. That's a glitchy search query result.

What happens to me sometimes is that the phrase I'm looking for is rare in the English language and Google will give me pages of eBay before it starts returning results in the Japanese language. That's because my default language is English but when I'm searching for Japanese Tenkara gear, Japanese language results, especially Japanese blogs, are my preference. But Google is only giving me what it thinks I want. Google is tuned to return English results, not Japanese results. There isn't enough search volume in English language searches for the Japanese language queries I sometimes make.

[frankleeceo]

I see Google as more like a librarian as time goes and the farther I get, the commercial analogies relate less to its role.

The Brain looks who you are and what you are asking, and sometimes even when, and direct you to the possible book aisles where books are. With that said, the librarian is an idiot half of the time. Because half of the users are below average (yeah by definition).

If the Brian doesn't have enough data or information on neither the who or what, it will always lead you to an area where most people have gone to, even if they don't make sense. Overtime, the users that have gone to those weird results, will crowd source and feed back Google about user's own interactions and judgment based on their CTR and CTR history. This is how Google fixes itself over time, but with results with little search volumes, that process can take a long long time.

Rank factors have all been intertwined and possible to be tweaked on the spot depending on users intent. I believe they're now a moving target of ranged values, rather than fixed values. Like vocabulary difficulty would be +2 for a college graduate but +0.5 for a high school graduate. And yeah I do think Google has knowledge of that information and remember it all.

At the end, the best strategy is to focus on the users. And expand on that strategy against other known factors that definitely work like link, and avoid SEO pitfalls that can confuse librarian. Instead of Santa Clause, I believe in giving the kids what they want.

[netmeg]

(I do, however, still believe in Jell-o)

[blend27]

@MB - Google suggests the following phrases

The Ads around 1 thru 4 You mention are 100% right on target. It is a valid query term, I am looking at about 10,000 worth of it at a table behind me and 13 years worth of IIS logs a front of me(yes, its is early, I know...).

Take a count for all AMZ, Etsy and Pinterest in SERP for 1 thru 4 of what You mentioned.

For #3 I see:

AMZ
AMZ
AMZ
Etsy
Etsy
Ebay
+ 3 niche sites

Amber is a color, Yes, but could is also a part of a query that has a lot to do with children disappearance and is a part of a mixed drink query, a popular paintings, paleontology, history, etc...

The Ads around the content are perfectly on target.

What You see there is the exact reflection of what GOOG is doing. The search results were AWESOME for all of us in the niche up to 3-4 years ago. There were 15-20 US based sites sites competing, all defunct but a few by now. And now it is 3-4 of us, + 15 from Eastern Europe(same owner for the most part) and a few Chinese knock off sites. The sites that used to offer a trove no longer online or slowly dying, etc.

[martinibuster]

The Ads around 1 thru 4 You mention are 100% right on target

I've explained that as best I can. I'm sorry I can't make it any clearer than I have already done.

Good luck,

Roger

[iamlost]

This thread has taken an intriguing twist. :)
I come down quite solidly in support of martinibuster's last few comments.

One of the strange things that I've noticed about webdev/SEO is that (1) tools lag events and (2) people using tools get frustrated as results and/or understanding diminishes. Perhaps the greatest extant example is the frustration and fixation on keywords. For most practical purposes keywords should have died 5+ years ago.

However, the tools still exist, organisations' bottom lines depend on selling said tools, Google still dangle their versions much as they did with TBPR far past best by date... and so many/most webdevs/SEOes treat keywords with unwavering reverence even as they moan about behaviours/results.

Please put aside the simplicity of keywords and get down in the muck with named entities. You may not have noticed but they've been all the rage since 2010 and Google's acquisition of MetaWeb.
Some fast notes:
* the 'named' part of named entity means that there is an underlaying classification labelling system.

* typically (Google remains mostly a black box if slightly grey on the edges in this as with much else) a meta data classification system has upwards of 200 entity types plus relations (facts and events), semantic links (linked entities), and synonyms (coreference chains).
---semantic links (see mention above): the entities returned have links or references to additional information about those entities, i.e. from Linking Open Data (LOD) Project.
Note: Google has a history of using the LOD.
Note: schema.org was built on similar metadata premise.

* may also include
---relevance rating of entity to document, sentiment expressed about the entity...
---style of document, actions expressed within document...
---information about document author(s)...
Note: remember rel=author?

The fascinating thing about named entities - and this conversation - is that 'brand bias' was/is explained by their use. It is simply an illusion of something that is actually the byproduct of other behaviours. This was noted by Bill Slawski in seobythesea back in 2010.

It is past time that webdevs/SEOes put aside their buggy whips. You've almost totally missed the combustion engine era.

[iamlost]

Guess I'm by the edit time allowance so here is the link mentioned in my post above:
Not Brands but Entities: The Influence of Named Entities on Google and Yahoo Search Results [seobythesea.com] by Bill Slawski, seobythesea, 19-August-2010.
Do take the time to read the linked posts as they reinforce each other quite nicely. And Bill, of course, has written extensively on named entities since as well.

[Root13]

I don't want even think about all these factors Google use, but it's far more than 200