Comments for SEO Scientist - Applying the scientific method to SEO

Comment on Weekly Reading Lists by Leslie Wilkins

Leslie Wilkins — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 13:28:58 +0000

Blogs ou should be reading…

[...]Here is a Great Blog You Might Find Interesting that we Encourage You[...]……

Comment on Why Google SERP CTR studies are a waste of time by Probiotix

Probiotix — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 21:13:36 +0000

This is a great post which demonstrates how useless CTR data are, at least the one-size-fits-all used by most SEO agencies. Clients always ask for number and revenue and using fixed CTR figures is the only way to predict growth and revenue although completely inaccurate most of the time.

On the other hand this is the beauty of SEO. If things were too accurate things would be too easy. That’s why instinct, experience and approach are so vital in SEO.

Comment on Google vs. Paid Links – how will it end ? Lessons from Mother Nature by An Interview of Branko Rihtman (AKA: SEO Scientist)

An Interview of Branko Rihtman (AKA: SEO Scientist) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 09:43:49 +0000

[...] and ecological sciences are full of very important lessons that can be applied to the world of SEO. I have written on my blog in the past how some evolutionary theories can be applied to understand and foresee the relationship between [...]

Comment on Why Google SERP CTR studies are a waste of time by Natalie - Commerce Kitchen

Natalie - Commerce Kitchen — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 18:18:17 +0000

It’s always a challenge to convince clients not to obsess on ranking. It’s something that people have latched onto and while we stress that there are much better indicators of success, ranking is still one of the biggest qualifiers that most small and medium business owners know anything about. Also, you talk about meta-description and title; what about when Google show site navigation / multiple pages in search results? I wonder if this affects click-through.

Comment on Google counting only the first link to a domain – rebunked by How NOT to improve your website ranking in search engines

How NOT to improve your website ranking in search engines — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 11:26:30 +0000

[...] other issue is that Google is understood to discount multiple links between two websites, so one link is counted, but the second is downgraded a bit, and so on. By the [...]

Comment on SEO is Dead by Pulkit Kaushik | TheDolt

Pulkit Kaushik | TheDolt — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 03:20:26 +0000

@Sebastian The following link which you posted in the comments doesn’t work.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/195799/analytics_longtail-1262982461.png

Comment on Why Google SERP CTR studies are a waste of time by Dries

Dries — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:17:36 +0000

Excellent article I stumbledupon today via a tweet from someone. I’ve noticed the same thing but an other aspect which you have to take in counter is that the vast majority of people is plain simple stupid.

I had a site ranking number 3 and even number 2 after a while for the term “Facebook login”. Although my rankings was great, my article as in Dutch and talked about a hole in the FB security and a second timeline. That article alone gave me for a few months 2.5K of visitors, just clicking on the title (i think) and not reading the content (time on page was few seconds). So… people can just be dumbasses as well. There is so much more if you talk about rankings.

Ever noticed what your mom clicks when doing a broad search? The first one, than the next one in line, … and so on.

Great article! Bookmarking it for sure. A must read for future clients.

Comment on Why Google SERP CTR studies are a waste of time by Jems

Jems — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:49:34 +0000

Thank you for your valuable information about SERP.It’s really informative for me. I found it particularly interesting that the appearance of the major brand had such a great effect on the click through rate.

Comment on Why Google SERP CTR studies are a waste of time by joe

joe — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:59:41 +0000

i agree that it’s a waste of time to say with certainty, but it could help drive decision making if you make sure that positions don’t = guarantee.

it should be possible to take the studies that have been done, estimate the traffic in google keyword tool, find an avg for each position according to the past research and find a probability using t distribution. but even that would depending heavily on the appearance of universal listings, maps and as you mentioned, better known brands in the listings along with you.

clients/executives just need to understand that the SERPs are a living, breathing organism. they adapt, adjust and change daily and the impact of those changes fluctuates. for big companies with thousands to millions of keywords it’s difficult to track the constantly changing impact, but estimating it still holds some value.

Comment on SEO Spider Review – Xenu on SEO steroids by Doublespark SEO

Doublespark SEO — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:23:49 +0000

Like you we use the paid/pro version – worth every penny!