[case study] - does backlink position within content affect its impact on ranking?

davids355 · Jul 2, 2022

HenryObi said:
I never really was expecting any changes but this right now is giving me second thought. Yhe changes also seem quick.

Let's see how things go as time progresses, but it seems there'd be more positive changes.

I was hoping the changes would be quick as page A is one of the strongest pages on the site so it was ideal to test out the theory. I agree with you though, assuming its not coincidence, I think there would more more improvements to follow as changes in serps to tend to happen gradually (Whether thats Google making changes gradually, or just ahrefs picking them up). So lets see what happens from here.

HustleTong · Jul 2, 2022

Interesting
Tests like these help debunk more myths

qwerty13 · Jul 3, 2022

hm interesting to see what happen next

mw0 · Jul 4, 2022

Anyone suspecting the position makes no difference, have you seen this Google patent?

https://patents.google.com/patent/US7716225B1/en
Search for "reasonable surfer"

fb3003 · Jul 4, 2022

mw0 said:
Anyone suspecting the position makes no difference, have you seen this Google patent?

https://patents.google.com/patent/US7716225B1/en
Search for "reasonable surfer"

can you please let us know how much have you studied that patent page to come up with such suggestion? respect!!!!! 100% respect!!!

my own tests delivered the same result as the sections that you highlighted with the reasonable surfer.... had no idea there was a patent behind it

Aarje · Jul 4, 2022

It is a really interesting topic to discuss. I also believe link position matters and that's why I always try to get link from 1st paragraph. ( 50-100 words: in hope to get visible in excerpt ). Also I believe that no. of impressions on that link in content matters. ( If it's in top section , obviously it will get more impressions than bottom part of article).

davids355 · Jul 4, 2022

According to this article, only 20% of visitors are likely to read the full article when they land on any particular page, which maybe gives another perspective on the importance of link placement -

https://sumo.com/stories/how-many-visitors-read-article

mw0 · Jul 4, 2022

fb3003 said:
can you please let us know how much have you studied that patent page to come up with such suggestion? respect!!!!! 100% respect!!!

my own tests delivered the same result as the sections that you highlighted with the reasonable surfer.... had no idea there was a patent behind it

I’ve just been looking into what Google patents others find interesting and skimming through them myself. There’s a lot of legal language and repetitive stuff so I just skim through until I see something interesting and take notes.

Zooker · Jul 4, 2022

Do you think the results are happening quicker because it's an internal link?

davids355 · Jul 4, 2022

Zooker said:
Do you think the results are happening quicker because it's an internal link?

Probably yes.

fb3003 · Jul 5, 2022

an interesting study form neil patel around the same topic: https://neilpatel.com/blog/links-building-google/

What Type of Links Does Google Really Prefer?

a summary from middle of this post: "Now in order of effectiveness, in-content links help the most, then sidebar links, and then sitewide footer when it comes to placement."

HenryObi · Jul 5, 2022

fb3003 said:
Now in order of effectiveness, in-content links help the most, then sidebar links, and then sitewide footer when it comes to placement."

What we are discussing is from top to bottom of the content, what section(in the post content) is best for link placement. Not best for getting clicks but getting the vest link juice passed through.

agent-x · Jul 5, 2022

HenryObi said:
What we are discussing is from top to bottom of the content, what section(in the post content) is best for link placement. Not best for getting clicks but getting the vest link juice passed through.

I would argue that those two things are highly correlated.

davids355 · Jul 5, 2022

fb3003 said:
an interesting study form neil patel around the same topic: https://neilpatel.com/blog/links-building-google/

What Type of Links Does Google Really Prefer?

a summary from middle of this post: "Now in order of effectiveness, in-content links help the most, then sidebar links, and then sitewide footer when it comes to placement."

HenryObi said:
What we are discussing is from top to bottom of the content, what section(in the post content) is best for link placement. Not best for getting clicks but getting the vest link juice passed through.

agent-x said:
I would argue that those two things are highly correlated.

I would agree they are related yes. It would make sense that all of these factors are taken into consideration by Google -

Link placement on the page
Link placement within the content
How likely the link is to be clicked based on its position
How likely it is to be clicked based on its wording
How closely related the anchor text is to the article topic

Also, I know we are concerned mainly about link juice, this is an SEO forum after all. But I think its always important to consider that Google base everything on the visitor experience - for example, their main goal is to provide the user with what they want, and their algorithms try to support that. So whilst we are always looking for link juice, its important to think also in terms of the visitor, even if its just to make sure the SEO efforts are likely to "make sense" to Google.

So if it is likely to be of higher value to the visitor then its likely to be good for link juice. For example, the link in the content vs the link in the footer - its much more useful and relevant to the reader if a link is in the content and its more likely to be clicked, therefor it makes sense that its going to be more powerful in terms of SEO and link juice.

HenryObi · Jul 5, 2022

davids355 said:
So if it is likely to be of higher value to the visitor then its likely to be good for link juice. For example, the link in the content vs the link in the footer - its much more useful and relevant to the reader if a link is in the content and its more likely to be clicked, therefor it makes sense that its going to be more powerful in terms of SEO and link juice.

Yea, you are right.

4440 · Jul 5, 2022

Yes, it matters.

there are tons of posts by Bill Slawski, writing around the topic that link carrying different weight based on locations/positions:

https://www.seobythesea.com/2012/03/12-google-link-analysis-methods/https://www.seobythesea.com/2011/03/googles-page-segmentation-patent-granted/
and so many more

search: "site:seobythesea.com link position" or "site:seobythesea.com reasonable surfer", you get tons of articles around this topic.

I also remember reading other articles saying link position matters from legit SEO big names.

Great case study by OP, case studies are never enough for SEOs.

davids355 · Jul 5, 2022

4440 said:
Yes, it matters.

there are tons of posts by Bill Slawski, writing around the topic that link carrying different weight based on locations/positions:

https://www.seobythesea.com/2012/03/12-google-link-analysis-methods/https://www.seobythesea.com/2011/03/googles-page-segmentation-patent-granted/
and so many more

search: "site:seobythesea.com link position" or "site:seobythesea.com reasonable surfer", you get tons of articles around this topic.

I also remember reading other articles saying link position matters from legit SEO big names.

Great case study by OP, case studies are never enough for SEOs.

I follow that site as well, lots of valuable info on there.

agent-x · Jul 5, 2022

davids355 said:
So if it is likely to be of higher value to the visitor then its likely to be good for link juice. For example, the link in the content vs the link in the footer - its much more useful and relevant to the reader if a link is in the content and its more likely to be clicked, therefor it makes sense that its going to be more powerful in terms of SEO and link juice.

Yes and just as an aside, I think that the power of a link is related to its likelihood to be clicked in absolute terms, not relative to the rest of the links on the page. So contrary to the received wisdom that footer links are worthless, a link in the footer of a page that gets a million views a day is still more likely to be clicked than a link at the top of a page that gets one visitor a day, and therefore is still worth more.

RStar66 · Jul 7, 2022

LuckyGamble said:
Seems all good, but I've got spam blogs with like 10,000 links in each page, so I'm dead sure backlinks position doesn't matter

Actually just your links that doesn't matter. Hahahahaha, 10 000 links on a single page, hahahahaha

jeffyc · Jul 7, 2022

RStar66 said:
Actually just your links that doesn't matter. Hahahahaha, 10 000 links on a single page, hahahahaha

No way, every single one of those 10k links on that page are all equally valuable... at 0.

[case study] - does backlink position within content affect its impact on ranking?

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