Thoughts on RankScience?
-
I'm sure most of you have heard about this startup, RankScience, that has big ambitions to disrupt the SEO industry with their automated (I know I know...the word 'automated' and 'SEO' in the same sentence!!!) optimization software. Their claim is that by running thousands of congruent A/B tests on your site, they can maximize rankings and organic traffic.
Initially my thoughts were "oh crap, there goes my (and a lot of other people's) career". But then I started thinking about it a bit more and realized a couple things. First, software can't replace a face-to-face client meeting. Being in an agency world as most of us are, client interactions are vital to a sustained partnership. Second, someone is going to have to understand what this software does, configure it, and monitor it, and I'm ok with that being part of my job if that's how the industry shifts. Third, and most importantly, in theory this software has the capability to reverse engineer search algorithms. If they had the data of 10,000 websites using their platform and are collecting data on what works and what doesn't, it's only a matter of time before they can pick apart the algorithm piece by piece to figure out exactly how it works. Google is obviously not going to like that very much and will almost certainly right the ship.
That's my 2 cents, looking forward to what your thoughts are on RankScience and the future of our industry.
-
We used RankScience for SEO A/B testing and found a few big winners that were impressive but ran out of things to test after about a year. My understanding is they're focused more on NLP Content Optimization software now.
-
Hey Logan. Just saw this - sorry for the v slow reply.
As you might know we (Distilled) are working on A/B testing as well (I wrote a bit more about it on moz here).
From our perspective, as a well established agency, we have built our tool with agencies and experts in mind. We see it as a tool for experts to use (our consultants, marketers on the client side, and other agencies). I wrote a bit more about how split testing is changing our consulting work here - but in short I agree with you that consulting skills and client management skills are going nowhere.
As for Google's view on the subject, any tool can be used for good or bad, but we believe that if you approach it the right way, this kind of testing is wholly aligned with Google's goals - our testing helps build better websites that are more closely-aligned with searcher intent and so we think that the general approach is one that forms a great part of a balanced search strategy.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
SEO: High intent organic revenue down in Europe
Our team is stumped and we are hoping some of you might have some insight! We are seeing a drop in Europe organic revenue and we can't seem to figure out what the core cause of the problem is. What's interesting, the high intent traffic is increasing across the business, as is organic-attributed revenue. And in Europe specifically, other channels appear to be doing just fine. This seems to be a Europe high-intent SEO problem. What we have established: Revenue was at a peak in Q4 2017 and Q1 2018 Revenue dips in mid-late Q2 2018 and again in Q4 2018 where it has stayed low since Organic traffic has gone up, conversion rate has gone down, purchases have gone down Paid search traffic has gone up, conversion rate has gone down slightly, submissions have gone up Currency changes are minimal We cannot find any site load issues What we know happened during this time frame (January 2018 onward): Updates to the website (homepage layout, some text changes) end of April 2018 GDPR end of May 2018 Google Analytics stops being able to track Firefox Europe is a key market for us and we cant figure out what might be causing this to happen - again, only in Europe - beyond GDPR and the changes we've made on our site is there anything else major that we're missing that could be causing this? Or does anyone have any insights as to where we should look? Thank you in advance!
Algorithm Updates | | RS-Marketing0 -
Our Sites Organic Traffic Went Down Significantly After The June Core Algorithm Update, What Can I Do?
After the June Core Algorithim Update, the site suffered a loss of about 30-35% of traffic. My suggestions to try to get traffic back up have been to add metadata (since the majority of our content is lacking it), as well ask linking if possible, adding keywords to alt images, expanding and adding content as it's thin content wise. I know that from a technical standpoint there are a lot of fixes we can implement, but I do not want to suggest anything as we are onboarding an SEO agency soon. Last week, I saw that traffic for the site went back to "normal" for one day and then saw a dip of 30% the next day. Despite my efforts, traffic has been up and down, but the majority of organic traffic has dipped overall this month. I have been told by my company that I am not doing a good job of getting numbers back up, and have been given a warning stating that I need to increase traffic by 25% by the end of the month and keep it steady, or else. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is it realistic and/or possible to reach that goal?
Algorithm Updates | | NBJ_SM2 -
Is using REACT SEO friendly?
Hi Guys Is REACT SEO friendly? Has anyone used REACT and what was the results? Or do you recommend something else that is better suited for SEO? Many thanks for your help in advance. Cheers Martin
Algorithm Updates | | martin19700 -
Mobile Usability Issues after Mobile Frist
Hi All A couple months ago we got an email from google, telling us - Mobile-first indexing enabled for https://www.impactsigns.com/ Ran the test on MOZ, Mobile usability shows 100% Last week got an email from google - New Mobile usability issues detected for impactsigns.com Top new issues found, ordered by number of affected pages: Content wider than screen Clickable elements too close together I can not seem to figure out what those issues are, as all content is visible. How important are these 2 issues? Since we are now on the mobile first side?
Algorithm Updates | | samoos0 -
On page vs Off page vs Technical SEO: Priority, easy to handle, easy to measure.
Hi community, I am just trying to figure out which can be priority in on page, off page and technical SEO. Which one you prefer to go first? Which one is easy to handle? Which one is easy to measure? Your opinions and suggestions please. Expecting more realistic answers rather than usual check list. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Is anyone else's ranking jumping?
Rankings have been jumping across 3 of our websites since about 24 October. Is anyone seeing similar? For example ... jumps from position 5 to 20 on one day, then back to 5 for 3 days and then back to 20 for a day I'm trying to figure out if it's algorithm based or if my rank checker has gone mad. I can't replicate the same results if I search incognito or in a new browser, everything always looks stable in the SERPs if I do the search myself
Algorithm Updates | | Marketing_Today0 -
Thoughts on Google's Autocomplete hurting organic SEO?
A client sent over an article about how Google's Autocomplete eliminates your chance for clicks. Saying that if your competitor is higher than you, the user will bypass the page one organic rank and click on a specific business from the autocomplete which in turn presents an entire page one result for that business. So in a sense they are wondering why they're doing organic SEO if potential customers are just going to bypass the page one organic results. I would love to hear thoughts from like minded people on this as I have to start proving my case with articles, facts, data, and research.
Algorithm Updates | | MERGE-Chicago0 -
I thought META KEYWORDS tag was dead?
http://www.wpkube.com/wordpress-seo-plugin/ this article just came out as a one of the many guides to Yoast's Wordpress SEO. I am surprised it mentioned: Use meta keywords tag: Google reportedly doesn’t use the keywords that your enter for your posts but as Google isn’t the only show in town, you might want to check this box.Recommendation: check I stopped using meta keywords tag because Google doesn't use it any more, plus if you are in a competitive field by using keywords you are giving free keyword research to your competitors? Does any one still use meta keywords here? If so why? Google doesn't use keyword tags, has anyone experienced a dis-benefit to meta-keywords tag from Google ie. dropped rankings etc.?
Algorithm Updates | | vmialik2