What’s one SEO experiment you ran recently that gave you a surprising result?

SEO Sparton

SEO Sparton

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One interesting result I’ve seen was that a highly relevant, lower-DR site with consistent organic traffic performed better than a high-DR site with weak topical relevance.

This helped me reaffirm the strategy of going beyond the Domain Rating and examining traffic trend, ranking keywords, topical relevance, content quality, and linking page itself while making my selection.
 
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SEO Sparton said:
One interesting result I’ve seen was that a highly relevant, lower-DR site with consistent organic traffic performed better than a high-DR site with weak topical relevance.

This helped me reaffirm the strategy of going beyond the Domain Rating and examining traffic trend, ranking keywords, topical relevance, content quality, and linking page itself while making my selection.
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this is a great reminder that DR should not be considered everything in one go. i have also been considering whetther or not the site really gets any search traffic nd whether or not the page is rellevant. sometimes, a small site is better than a large site when it comes down to relevance.
 
I noticed the same with internal links. A few links from relevant pages moved rankings more than adding another back link from a random high DR site.
 
My understanding is that DR could work as an effective way to filter out prospects but it is not the end all be all organic traffic and content relevancy among other factors will give you more insight.
 
This is a good reminder that DR alone doesn't tell the whole story. Relevance, actual organic traffic, and the quality of the linking page can give a much better picture of a site's value.
 
One experiment that surprised me was improving internal links instead of building new backlinks. After connecting relevant pages with better anchor text, some pages started gaining visibility without adding any external links.
 
this is a good approach and i will also recommend checking whether the site’s traffic is consistent and relevant to your niche rather than relying on DR alone
 
The aspect you raised is very reasonable. We should consider all factors to evaluate the effectiveness of a website, rather than looking at just one factor and drawing conclusions. That would be a biased assessment and could easily lead to an inaccurate evaluation. Website building is based on many different factors: content, topic links, backlinks, keywords. Each will be evaluated separately.
 
SEO Sparton said:
One interesting result I’ve seen was that a highly relevant, lower-DR site with consistent organic traffic performed better than a high-DR site with weak topical relevance.

This helped me reaffirm the strategy of going beyond the Domain Rating and examining traffic trend, ranking keywords, topical relevance, content quality, and linking page itself while making my selection.
Click to expand...
u are right there. i have noticed that while the figures appear impressive on paper, the realitty of how relevant the site is nd the traffic makes one wonder otherwise. sometimes, the smaller site proves to be the better option.
 
Had a link from a smaller niche site beat a much bigger site for me. Since then I check the actual page and traffic before getting too excited about the numbers.
 
I’ve had similar results with backlinks where the lower-metric site ended up being more useful. These days I pay more attention to the actual traffic relevance and quality of the linking page than DR alone. The numbers can look impressive while the site itself has very little real value.
 
exactly right and the traffic trend check is the one most people skip because it requires an extra step beyond just looking at DR.
 
Sarah Mathews said:
A relevant site with steady organic traffic can be more valuable than a high dr site with little relevance.
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Yes. Relevance, plus real organic traffic, plus good content is more important than DR itself for judging a backlink.
whimsyink said:
this is a great reminder that DR should not be considered everything in one go. i have also been considering whetther or not the site really gets any search traffic nd whether or not the page is rellevant. sometimes, a small site is better than a large site when it comes down to relevance.
Click to expand...
Sure. I'd additionally look into traffic quality, topical relevancy, indexing, and linking profile together with the DR factor.

Sometimes a more focused smaller site with actual traffic can work better.
 
SEO Sparton said:
One interesting result I’ve seen was that a highly relevant, lower-DR site with consistent organic traffic performed better than a high-DR site with weak topical relevance.

This helped me reaffirm the strategy of going beyond the Domain Rating and examining traffic trend, ranking keywords, topical relevance, content quality, and linking page itself while making my selection.
Click to expand...
Yep, relevancy and natural link placement should be the priority here. That makes much more sense than chasing strong metrics alone.
 
SEO Sparton said:
One interesting result I’ve seen was that a highly relevant, lower-DR site with consistent organic traffic performed better than a high-DR site with weak topical relevance.

This helped me reaffirm the strategy of going beyond the Domain Rating and examining traffic trend, ranking keywords, topical relevance, content quality, and linking page itself while making my selection.
Click to expand...
One recent client campaign proved once again that PBN links are not dead and can still play a meaningful role in SEO when used as part of the right strategy. The client’s content started appearing in Google AI Overviews after we implemented a combination of PBN links and other supporting links.

Everyone should remember that its not like more PBN links = better results. The campaign worked around relevance, placement quality, supporting links, and overall link profile. For me, this was another practical reminder that PBNs can still have a place in modern SEO when they are used strategically rather than as a standalone shortcut.
 
One experiment that surprised me was comparing backlinks based on traffic instead of just DR. A lower-DR site with relevant content and steady traffic brought better results than a high-DR site with poor relevance.
 
Linkzo said:
One recent client campaign proved once again that PBN links are not dead and can still play a meaningful role in SEO when used as part of the right strategy. The client’s content started appearing in Google AI Overviews after we implemented a combination of PBN links and other supporting links.

Everyone should remember that its not like more PBN links = better results. The campaign worked around relevance, placement quality, supporting links, and overall link profile. For me, this was another practical reminder that PBNs can still have a place in modern SEO when they are used strategically rather than as a standalone shortcut.
Click to expand...
True. The thing is not in how many PBN links you have, but in the relevance, contextual linking, link diversification, and your total authority profile.

AI Overviews reiterates this principle by highlighting the importance of having proper topical and entity signals rather than link types.
Adolf Marker said:
One experiment that surprised me was comparing backlinks based on traffic instead of just DR. A lower-DR site with relevant content and steady traffic brought better results than a high-DR site with poor relevance.
Click to expand...
Right. DR is just one criterion. I’d assess relevance, organic traffic patterns, referring domains, the quality of the content, and context of the linking page before valuing a link.
 
Most replies here are saying the same thing: relevance matters more than DR. But here's a test I actually ran.
for a casino site, I tested sidebar PBN links against links placed inside the article. The links came from the same PBN network and similar sites.
The surprising part was that the sidebar links worked better. The in-content links barely moved the rankings.
So it wasn't simply "contextual links are better." In this test, the sidebar links gave better results.
Obviously, this was one test on one site, so I wouldn't treat it as a rule. but it's a good reminder that common SEO assumptions don't always match what you see in testing.
 
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