In my last post, I pointed a few of the core reasons why aggregate ranking data is more or less useless from a business intelligence perspective. Now I’m going to spend some time explaining why even individual keyword rankings can be misleading or downright useless.
Let’s start by talking about data centers. Google, which is responsible for 70% of search traffic, employees multiple data centers here in the US. Often times, different data centers have different sets of search results for the same keyword. Therefore, a ranking report, whether pulled manually or via an API, can only offer up a partial viewpoint on rankings.
Moreover, as my colleagues here at Zeta can attest to, individual keyword rankings can sometimes vary from machine to machine even if they’re pulling from the same data center. The main reason for this is Google’s approach to nested listings (they sometimes list two URLs per site but sometimes list just one) but I’m sure that there are other variables that come into play in this equation.
And as if all of this wasn’t enough to dissuade someone from relying on ranking reports, there’s also the advent of “Universal Search.” The insertion of local/maps listings and news results into results pages is heavily undermining traditional organic rankings. For example, type in the term “New York Hotels” into Google and you’ll find that virtually all traditional organic listings have been pushed below the fold by paid ads and Google Maps results.
Note: Props to whoever got the Hudson Hotel into the top spot for those maps results.
So even if you manage to secure top rankings for certain keywords that still might not translate into a tangible uptick in business results, which would once again make traditional ranking reports a moot point.
What’s the point of all this rambling? Simple. Like most things in life, keyword rankings are in the eye of the beholder (or the data center in this case) and if you’re a savvy search marketer, you know that there’s a lot more to SEO than what meets the eye.
So the next time you find yourself spending an inordinate amount of time perusing a ranking report stop for a moment and ask yourself, “am I getting any real business intelligence from this exercise?”
If the answer is “no” (as it should be in most cases) cut that exercise short and devote your time to a more fruitful endeavor. And for those of you in the client service industry, make sure to set this expectation from the get go. It can save you a lot of ranking report heartache in the long run.
P.S. Props to Mark Pilatowski for pointing out that the reason why most SEO shops still run ranking reports for clients is not because of their inherent value, but because everyone else is doing it. Let’s hope that as an industry, we can buck that trend of the blind leading the blind.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Very good point and I would seriously hope everyone in the industry is already aware of the points you just made.
In fact, the company I work for currently is “one of those” companies that still use ranking reports and in fact we can run the report in the morning, send it off and discuss it with the client in a matter of a few hours and see the difference in rankings if we were to check manually….ALL thanks to Google’s data centers, the constant multiple “daily” jumps we see (as some might think of as being a part of Google’s conspiracy theory – a way of making even more money off PPC.)
I’d suggest to use Ranking Reports as a general guideline but certainly NOT to treat them as a single source of measuring overall progress of any SEO campaign.
Thanks for the feedback, sexy!
I’m torn on this…I totally agree with you on one part because I’ve seen what rankings obsession can do to clients. Sometimes people can be totally consumed by wether they are in pos 3 or 4 in various Google data centers from day to day. That’s a total waste of time. However, when you are trying to do SEO work across a broad spectrum of keywords on a new site that is starting from scratch – rankings reports provide a good barometer of success, when that success is measured by the number of keywords that your pages start ranking for.
example, we’ve got a client who has a nice niche market, and they’ve created a very large content site that covers many sub-topics in said niche. We use rankings reports regularly to keep track of where we are succeeding and where we are failing across that spectrum. This would be a very painful task if done by hand.
Can i just say ive been going through your blog and you have really good writing skills, I think your style is better than some of the so called proffessionals – all credit to you!
Thanks for the kind words!
That was an interesting read,its nice to have a good read now and then.
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