The document discusses potential future ranking signals that search engines may adopt and how they could impact SEO. It describes 7 potential signals: 1. Usage data of pages and sites, such as visits and engagement, could influence rankings. 2. Accuracy of information on sites could be measured and consistently accurate sites may rank higher in certain topics like health. 3. Query structures and popular brand searches could indicate strong brand associations that impact rankings. 4. Brands in the knowledge graph and as answers may correlate with higher rankings. 5. Clickstream data showing the paths users take to complete tasks could help rank sites users frequently arrive at. 6. Elements of user experience like site quality and

1. Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | rand@moz.com
Ranking Signals of the Future
A look at what inputs search engines may adopt in the future
and how it impacts the marketing we do today.

2. #1
Usage Data of Pages and Sites

3. 10,000 visits/day
+50% growth last 6 months
3.7 pages/session
3 visits/unique user/month
6,000 visits/day
-10% growth last 6 months
1.2 pages/session
1.4 visits/unique user/month

4. Maybe I should send
searchers to the page w/
the greater visitor loyalty &
engagement.

5. Patent, Analysis on SEO by the Sea

6. Ha!

7. This type of ranking input could be
behind the strong performance of
popular brand sites on queries
where classic SEO elements are
lacking
Poor keyword targeting, crap relevance, few
links, but the sites probably have stronger
traffic/engagement than the competition.

8. Via Searchmetrics’ Ranking Factors
Click-Through-Rate showed a 0.67
correlation
This May Explain the High Correlation of CTR w/ Rankings

9. #2
Accuracy vs. Popularity of
Information

11. Nailed It! Rank ‘em
high, boys.

12. As Google’s research showed,
PageRank and accuracy of
information have a poor
correlation on the web.

13. By looking at multiple sets
of data across sites &
pages, an algorithm could
determine the consistency
of accuracy shown by a
site.

14. Paper from Google Researchers, Analysis by NPR

15. Consistently accurate facts could raise a site’s
rankings, especially in areas (like health) where
Google weights accuracy more heavily.
Less likely to rank.
More likely to rank.

16. #3
Query Structure as an Anchor-
Text-Like Signal

17. Many searchers using query structures in a
particular fashion could connect brands and
modifiers to keywords

18. Looks familiar

19. Popular searches around a brand
could indicate associations that
manifest in ranking inputs.

20. That ranking might be at partially, causal,
rather than mere coincidence.

21. #4
Brands as Entities, Entities as
Answers

22. More and more brands are becoming entries in
Google’s Knowledge Graph

23. IMO, these brand
dropdowns suggest an
implicit bias toward
accumulating brand
associations and showing
them off to searchers

24. In many competitive
SERPs, there seems
to be a correlation
between brand
dropdowns and
ranking higher.

25. Some brands get so tightly connected to
keywords, they become nearly analogous
with the query

26. Suggest also shows us brand queries that
earn strong connections to URLs

27. Even some generic queries bring back
branded domain suggestions

28. an experiment!
Let’s try

29. Call Out Your Answer:
What site would you expect to see
when you searched for this?

30. Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Weird.

31. Call Out Your Answer:
What site would you expect to see
when you searched for this?

32. Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.

33. Call Out Your Answer:
What site would you expect to see
when you searched for this?

34. Maybe?
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Maybe?

35. Call Out Your Answer:
What site would you expect to see
when you searched for this?

36. Maybe?
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.

37. Best Way to Rank in 2018?
“Yup.”Find a way to be the first
on everyone’s
mind.

38. #5
Tracing the Visit Path to an
Answer

39. Problem-solving on the web often looks
something like this:
Broad search Narrower search
Even narrower search
Website visit
Website visit Brand search
Social validation Highly-specific search
Type-in/direct visit Completion of Task

40. Google wants to do this:
Broad search
All the sites (or answers) you probably would
have visited/sought along that path
Completion of Task

41. If Google sees that
many people who
perform these
types of queries:

42. Eventually end
their queries on
the topic after
visiting:
The Ramen Rater

43. They might use the
clickstream data to help
rank that site higher, even
if it doesn’t have traditional
ranking signals

44. They’re definitely getting and storing it.

45. #6
Weighting Elements of User
Experience

49. Patent Application from Google, Analysis on SEOByTheSea
Ever since Panda, Google’s been
trying to surface not just quality
content, but “high quality websites.”

50. If they aren’t already
doing it, Google’s at
least thinking about
how to measure UX
and rank sites that do
it better, higher.

51. #7
Replacing Flawed Humans w/
Deep Learning Machines

52. Jeff Dean’s Slides on Deep Learning
Are a Must Read for SEOs

53. Google’s Deep Learning system studied YouTube
clips and eventually invented its own classification/
concept of “cats”

54. Replace YouTube with the Web and cats with any given
search query, and it’s not hard to imagine Google creating a
deep learning ranking algorithm

55. Google knows there’s two, but based
on my footprint, it biases to the one
matching my behavior, past queries,
geography, etc.

56. In the future, even Google’s search
quality engineers may have no idea why
something ranks or whether they’re
using a particular factor in the ranking
algorithm.
The machine will simply ask “what algorithm
produces results that searchers engage with
best?” then make it.

57. strange path…
Google seems to be going down a

58. Total searchers, number of searchers, &
searches per searcher are all going up
Via RKG’s Quarterly Digital Marketing Report

59. Is Google sacrificing ad impressions to make searchers happier?

60. Are they willing to take away queries that provide revenue?
These searches could have created revenue, but Google’s
pre-empting w/ direct navigation to URLs

61. I am too.
Skeptical?

62. IMO, Google’s thinking long
term. They want addicted
searchers providing data
about themselves so they
can charge more per ad
unit.
Via Search Engine Land

63. Via RKG Report
Facebook has
shown Google that
more data about
users yields more
dollars per
impression and click.

64. I think Google will chase better UX to almost any extent in order to keep
searchers & get data, even at the cost of their existing model.
Almost unreal
that Google does
this w/o AirBnB
paying for an ad.
Via Tom Anthony’s Post

65. Google will chase better UX to almost any extent
in order to keep searchers & get data, even at the
cost of their existing model
My Guess:

66. Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz | @randfish | rand@moz.com
Slides will be available in a few weeks!