32 replies to this topic

[Marchy]

A friend of mine told me that he got from an SEO company that a site getting getting a lot of external traffic without back links would be considered by SEs as popular and will get more weight. Let say you do an ad on a newspaper (not online) and people go directly to your site. SEswould give you popularity for this.

I have personally a hard time to believe that. What's you guys opinion on that?

[chrishirst]

It's bull .

Search engines have absolutely no idea at all how much traffic arrives at your pages or where it comes from.

[Michael Martinez]

What Chris said. Where do people come up with this nonsense?

[Jill]

If they have google analytics installed, google would know.

But more likely, the person meant that people might start searching for the site by brand name more often in google. If that's the case, I do believe there's some validity to it.

[chrishirst]

If they have google analytics installed, google would know.

But intil every page on the Intermet has Google analytics.... They don't.

But more likely, the person meant that people might start searching for the site by brand name more often in google. If that's the case, I do believe there's some validity to it.

That would only affect the "personal search results" or maybe the "suggestion"

But it would give a easily exploited means of getting "rankings"

[Jill]

That would only affect the "personal search results" or maybe the "suggestion"

Nope. I disagree. I've found that part of the Panda update has been focused on branding. Many sites who went for keyword rich domains and had SEO in all the right places, but had no real brand got killed. And a way to measure brand is how many people search for your company name (or some variation).

I personally believe it's a factor. And a good one, at that.

[chrishirst]

True, but I see that more as the "keyword domains" and "Formula SEO pages" getting down rated/graded than "branding" getting a boost.

90% of website owners and SEO/Marketers who are focussed on branding tend to steer clear of the "formula SEO" methods anyway.

But whichever way around it is, it is a change for the better.

[Michael Martinez]

I think I agree with Jill about the value of "brand searches". I have always taken them as a good sign that people appreciate the value I create for a site, and search traffic does seem to remain steady through minor algorithmic shifts when people use more brand queries to find a site.

This is purely anecdotal -- I haven't conducted any real analyses on this. But I think Jill's instinct is probably on safe ground here.

[chrishirst]

I have always taken them as a good sign that people appreciate the value I create for a site,

Can't argue there, because it means that the marketing has been done correctly and is making an impression on people, I was always happy when the first few [insert site name] search visitors showed up in the site logs, as it means they are looking for YOU not necessarily what you sell or provide.

[Jill]

Exactly! In the past, SEO and branding were separate. But they're much more intertwined now, in my opinion. Which just makes sense.

They're simply using real life signals to as one way to determine what companies are really and truly popular.

[deanaov]

Yes. More traffic means the better your rank in search engines. However, you need to be extra careful with the term "traffic." Obtaining traffic comes in various ways. It can be legal or illegal. Oftentimes, you might want to consider buying or renting traffic or, using illegal link building techniques just to gain plenty of backlinks. But you know what, it's better to forget these strategies. It results to no good.

Go for natural traffic instead. It takes some time but you're definitely manuveuring your campaign in the right direction. The right amount of traffic is obtained once you've learned how to network with different people (online and offline) of similar interest as yours. Be patient in solving their problems. And, make sure you're also giving them the exact information they need.

[Bootfit]

True, but I see that more as the "keyword domains" and "Formula SEO pages" getting down rated/graded...

OK - this type of thing concerns me. Exactly what would you consider Formula SEO to be? How do we know we're doing formula SEO if all you're doing is what you believe to be right?

There are so many woolly catch-phrases when it comes to SEO that no-one really knows what the hell they're doing half the time.

[Jill]

See my article about SEO in all the right places not working anymore.

[Tiggerito]

Back on the original question. Google does potentially have access to a lot of traffic related data but I've only ever heard them deny using any of it:

Traffic via SERPs
Monitoring via toolbars and chrome
AdWords/AdSense traffic
Google Custom Search
Google Analytics data
Traffic via Google+, YouTube and other Google properties
Google+ buttons and widgets on your website?

As Chris pointed out, these are all incomplete sources that provide biased data due to the limited demographic that use them. So I tend to agree that they are not using the data, or only using it in a very limited way with regard to ranking.

[Bootfit]

See my article about SEO in all the right places not working anymore.

Any chance of actually posting a link to it?

Plus, as I've not read the article yet, could you sum up why SEO in the right places no longer works? I mean what is the point of doing onsite SEO if it's no longer relevant?