Discussion – Google Branding – Key to Ranking on Google?
Posted by Frances van den Berg on 03 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: Search Engine News
MediaVision has frequent discussions via email on interesting SEO topics found on the web. The emails are sent via a communal company discussion thread and everyone is encouraged to respond with their opinions. Brett, our search guru and self-styled nerd, found Aaron Wall’s post (Google’s New Search Engine Rankings Place Heavy Emphasis on Branding) on Google’s apparent obsession with brand on Friday and sent it through our discussion network.
Louis
Very interesting, but in a way they could have placed more emphasis on domain trust and perhaps the results would have been similar.
To me, it’s difficult to put all the eggs in the brand basket, although it seems that the data points that way. Don’t good brands have good domain level trust? If they tweak that up then perhaps we could see the same results.
I’m undecided on this one. What do you think Brett?
Either way, the smaller brands need SEO now more than ever and the bigger brands should be optimising copy right now until their fingers bleed to take advantage of it….
Brett
I’m going to agree with Louis here.
And to be completely honest, Is this not another SEO trying to get attention online with traffic to his blog and create a spiraling discussion? (Brutally honest here)
If we break this down completely and look at the basics, Danny is right — would you not think that, after all these years, the sites have earned their trust in the search engines and have been working on creating great content for the site and by continually optimising and changing?
Brand is a natural progression for searches, and that’s just the market becoming more brand aware for online search; it does not, however, mean that no one is looking for informational queries. Brands have always ranked (we see more now than in the past), and the algo’s are just reflecting the good work big brands are doing online: domain trust, good content, fresh content, correct optimisation, etc. (and the nightmare it provides smaller companies trying to get into the market)
While we’re on the topic, why not say that Google is still ranking Wikipedia highly because it’s tweaked its algo. Or, perhaps, let’s even say that Google is now taking search data into its ranking algo, and because brands get higher traffic volumes from Google, they are ranking higher. Or bounce rate data?
Brand is just part of the buying cycle, which I think Gord Hotchkiss covered BRILLIANTLY at SMX London 3 years back (working memory presentation).
If someone is looking for laptops, they will find brand sites, it’s been that way for sometime already. Bigger brands have been winning the brand race for years already; perhaps just starting to show more now than in the past.
Might have ended up as a slight rant for a Friday, but as we all know, it’s a good topic to talk about with the way SM has changed our world in the few months of the new year and with how brands need to pay more attention to their online presence, but I really doubt Google would automatically give benefit to brands (perhaps a small tweak in the algo that’s taken something else into a higher consideration). How would they know every brand across the world to give them great rankings? How many big brands use Google Analytics for them to get the data they need? Or opted in to Google Data sharing?
Louis
Gord is a genius I remember it well — best session we’ve ever had at SMX.
Tom
I was about to go there when you did it for me…
“Or, perhaps, let’s even say that Google is now taking search data into its ranking algo, and because brands get higher traffic volumes from Google, they are ranking higher. Or bounce rate data.”
They are gathering so much data; it is hard to imagine them not using it.
Louis
To follow up on this point seems like Danny and Vanessa agree with my outlook. This is definitely worth a read guys, the crux of all SEO is that data can be interpreted differently and what makes sense to one person doesn’t necessarily make sense to others…
RoundUp
While the discussion only had three contributors (shame on the rest of us), it seems that we have reached a general consensus as a company and that we agree that content and information are still key to SEO. Everyone interprets data in their own way, but it is a little far-fetched to assume that Google is giving preference to big brands. Brands are ranking because they inspire a level of trust in their domains. As Louis said, big brands should still be taking advantage of SEO and optimising their content, while small brands should focus on building a level of trust with users and pushing forward great content.
