SEO - when doing the right things doesn't help you improve rankings

Reverse Engineering Competitors Rankings04/07/2023

@wilreynolds

3 steps

Step 1 - Background on REAL client example

Step 2 - How a losing SERP changed our process

Step 3 - Turn data analysis into SERP improvement

“Let’s get

Busy”

Client who has links from

Client profile

• 10+ years online

• .edu links from research

• 4 million searches / month

• Newspaper / magazine links

• Some SERPS are adult category

• CEO is sought after by media outlets

Competitive SERP

Only 1 result in the top 10 of Google had a link from 1-2 of these quality

magazine / newspaper sites

Tee-Ball right?

This guy is gonna love me

What did those big media drops do?

Let me show you…

Nothing Like Getting your Butt Kicked

To make you change the way you do things

What I needed…

• Needed to bring in a vast amount of data on the top 10 sites for target keyword.– Include big brands and exact match domains

even though you won’t learn a ton from them– More KWs = uncover trends

• Needed to be way more deep than PR & link tallies

• SEOQuake was not going to do it (poor mans)

Time to get some data

Manual Aggregation

• 80 factors

• About ½ come from OSE or are calculated by multiple OSE metrics

• Others come from– Twitter*– Delicious– Alexa– Majestic– YSE– Google webmaster tools

Manual Aggregation

• Factors– # of links (excel limits at 10,000 – impacts %’s)– Compare OSE, YSE, Majestic (conditional

formats)– Linking domains relative to # of links (sitewides)– Linking domains w/o anchor– Linking domains w/ domain name as anchor– % of links with targeted anchor text– % links from edus – ex: competitor

Factors to review

• Factors– Domain age– mR & mT– Major 301 event (trigger by outliers)– Steady growth (.edus / high mT)– % keywords in domain– # of linking domains over 25/50 domain auth– % of linking domains over 25/50 domain auth– % of links over 25/50 domain auth

Manual Aggregation – Excel First

The output of this data aggregation looks like this…

API’s and scripts make mistakes

Use validation to catch them• When PR is over 10• When # of OSE links > Majestic links• When AC Rank puts a domain in the top 10% yet it is not in

the top 40% mT/mR

Visuals, Visuals, Visuals

Visual Trends

Link analysis visuals

Go from this

% Anchor text vs Brand Links

Link analysis

To this…

Importance of Visuals

So what did we learn from this experience?

Gameplan FIRST

Use analysis to uncover Un-Natural link building profiles

Yourself & Your competitors

Un-Natural Works but is risky

Client who is at 20% the average of the top 10 is 2.5% - time to diversify

– Homepage link juice / domain authority on large sites does not really flow to article pages

– Authority links don’t add instant value– Big sites paginate like crap and bury stories

What happens when you get exact match anchor text on a page 1 link from the homepage of one the most popular women’s magazines in the world…

Nada35

Refuse to take a butt kickin’ lying down

Here’s what we did about it…

Getting the links we NEEDED

Sought out pages that don’t cycle content that have been around for a LONG time:

– Sponsors– In Kind Donations– Testimonials– Supporters

You must socially promote the page where your link lives.

Twitter

Facebook

Delicious

You must socially promote the page where your link lives.

– Queries in Twitter– Queries in Forums [keyword phrase] + powered

by vbulletin / phpbb– Subscribe to search results in yahoo– Yahoo Answers

Good homepage / evergreen page links

– Badges / Awards• Watch the anchor text

– Wordcamp / other “camps”– Edu discounts

Bad homepage / evergreen page links

– Bought homepage links in blogrolls with exact match anchor text

– Watched bought links on homepages of “cigarette sites” work like a charm

– phpdircetory link swaps working like it was 2004

What you learn from spammers

Reverse engineering rankings lets you see how long spam and aggressive tactics last

(actually watch the serps)43

I see a site with only reciprocals + 2 kws in domain winning

I see local cleaning up spam with one of our clients who has the weakest link profile in the top 10 (not in the 7 pack)

Double D’s of SEO

Diversificationefendability

Manual Aggregation

Download the exact / phrase match counter - http://bit.ly/boiFGz

Create your game plan

• Stop building links

• Build data on the top 10 and trend it (25 data points)

• Sign up for Majestic SEO, Raven, other tools with API’s

• Force yourself to practice excel

• Create visuals of how you are getting beat

• Create conditional formats to trigger un-natural patterns for you and your competitors

• Use conditional formats & trends to learn how long spam works

• Execute your tail off

Critical takeaway

Stop link building without a game plan…

SEO - when doing the right things doesn't help you improve rankings

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