Research into citation and it's effect on ranking
-
Hi
I'd like to know if there has been any research into citation (brand mentions on external sites) and how it has / hasn't effected ranking, particularly Google Search?
If any body can point me in the right direction, that would be great.
Thanks
-
If your looking for numbers to prove that a text reference to a company on a website causes a site to move up in the SERP, then no I do not believe you will find it.
On the other hand, if you are wondering if a citation on a site causes people to type in a company name in a search box which in turn causes a spike in search traffic, which evidently will cause a movement in the SERP, then yes it does. This is what trending is based on.
Are there numbers to support this? Yes, but those numbers are based on what it is, where the citations are, whether there is a buzz about it, etc, etc,. Every situation will be different and unique.
SEO is about creating more traffic, so in essence if someone reads a post about company XYZ and searches for it by name, there is an increase in traffic.
This is probably not the statistical data you are looking for, and I'd love for someone else to chime in if they have supporting evidence to back up the contrary.
-
Thanks but this still doesn't provide any raw data proving that citation on 3rd party websites actually helps with SEO.
-
Ah ok, thank you for clarifying. What you want to do is watch this SEOMoz webinar by Rand which discusses exactly what you are looking for:
http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/what-signals-could-make-you-a-brand-in-google
-
It's not a local listing but a editorial mention. So for example, if someone interviews you and inserts your company name into the editorial but has no link back to your company website. This is referred as a citation. aka, brand mentions
-
If you are referring to a Google Local Listing you should check out the just released 'Local Search Ranking Factors':
http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml
If you are referring to a standard website, not a local business, if there is not a link to the site, but only a citation, it is hard to say. How is it a citation? Does it have a text link that is not a clickable link?
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
-
Reducing Amount of Text on Web Pages-Risk of Killing Ranking?
We are a commercial real estate brokerage firm in Manhattan. Our site (w w w . m e t r o - m a n h a t t a n . com) is text heavy and somewhat uninviting. Ranking is fair. Conversions awful. Our niche is very competitive. We plan on reducing the amount of text and making the site more visual. Among the planned changes: -Reduce amount of text in home page and text heavy pages. More emphasis on product (listings)
Branding | | Kingalan1
-Much larger photos for listings
-Lighter cleaner design with more open white areas
-Use of more visible fonts
-Better forms New design will be like: http://www.dernieretage-paris.com/ Theme and graphics based on Manhattan. More visuals. Better photos. Less text. But are we shooting ourselves in the foot by reducing text? Is there a risk that Google will reduce our ranking? Can we compensate for reduced text that is visible to visitors by completing meta tags more fully? Any thoughts??? Thanks,
Alan0 -
Why is Google appending a different website's brand name to the end of SERP title?
I've recently been shown some SERP results where Google is appending a different website's brand name to the end of the SERP title. It's actually rewriting the brand's name to that of the other website. (This is obviously not ideal.) Why would this be? The other website doesn't even stock the same product, so there shouldn't be any confusion there. But even if it did, many websites stock the same products. Just confusing...
Branding | | Ria_1 -
Issue with the company's brand name in SERPs
Any suggestions on how to solve this without the need to be ranked for something not related?
Branding | | GardenPet0 -
Competitors' dummy websites --- What SEO (or other?) strategy is this?
I work for an e-retailer. I've noticed that at least one of our competitors (and, I think, a second as well) has set up a neutral "third party" website that attempts to provide unbiassed information about different manufacturer's products. Of course, their products always win out over the competitor in these comparisons. But this one site (and another whose corporate backer I can't seem to figure out) is keyworded so poorly, and not branded at all. There are very few (if any) links to the corporate sponsor, or links, period. It's definitely not serving to have "Little Brand x" appear next to "Big Brand Y" in search results, either (again, really poorly keyworded). Other SEO seems really minimal. What do you think their strategy is? Is it a dumb waste o' money or something really smart that I'm not picking up on? Your insights most appreciated!
Branding | | Novos_Jay1 -
What is the weight of .pro domains? Will they rank?
.pro Domains have ben out there for a while but seem to as late started to be adopted. Thoughts and opinions welcome.
Branding | | bozzie3110 -
Should your company's name be in the title tag of your website?
First of all, I would like to provide some background information. Our company is small. We are just now getting into SEO research and have been improving over a couple months of research. We are somewhere in the 500,000's in the world rankings. From what I understand, the title tag provides a great amount of weight to whatever keywords you set up. The words in the title tag are supposed to represent keywords that you want to be high in the search engines for, correct? Well, in our title tag, we have the name of our company. To me, this is a waste of space. No one is going to go to Google and search for our company's name because we are not that widely known. Looking back at our search history for customers, there has not been a single search for the company name. What someone is telling me, is that when we put our link somewhere, having the name of our company in the title tag strengthens the "link juice" we get from those links. Is this correct, or is it worth trashing the company name for another keyword to optimize?
Branding | | FrontlineMobility0 -
PPC effecting personalisation and thus future personalised SERP's
I've been thinking about personalisation and PPC.. If you have a PPC campaign and a vistor comes to your site and has a look around, if that user doesn't clear there cache etc then that visit via PPC will start to effect their personalisation search results? It would almost be worth maintaining a high level of PPC spend and counting on personalization bias in SERPs in the longer term.. What do you think about this? Are there any safe guards in place to make sure this bias doesn't happen?
Branding | | robertrRSwalters0