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

BarryTheBaptist said:

Not sure that improvement in rankings and the number of keywords will prove anything here.

As somebody already mentioned, this should definitely be tested on a larger scale to see if there is any correlation to backlink content position.

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Definitely agree - it would need to be tested on a larger scale. If someone can do that, great. But hopefully my small experiment shows that link position does (quite possibly) have some sort of positive effect on the the page being linked to.

davids355 said:

Definitely agree - it would need to be tested on a larger scale. If someone can do that, great. But hopefully my small experiment shows that link position does (quite possibly) have some sort of positive effect on the the page being linked to.

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It's definitely a sound assumption and makes absolute sense in theory but as we all know nothing is 100% in SEO. That's why, IMO, extensive research and testing is crucial for good decision making in SEO.

My (totally unsubstantiated) opinion is that the position of a backlink within content does play a role in link value/weighing, but when compared to other, more influential factors, isn't something worth focusing on.

I have set up another similar experiment as follows -

This is a website in the entertainment industry.

Page A is currently ranking on google at position #7 for keyword. Note: This time I am checking manually for ranking position, on Google.co.uk. As per screenshot below.



Page/Site B has a backlink pointing to page A and using anchor text exactly matching the ranking keyword above.
The backlink is currently situated near the end of the 6th paragraph.

Note: This time, the backlink is on an external website (A web 2.0 property that I manage, hosted on WordPress.com).



I have just moved the link on page/site B, from the end of the 6th paragraph, to the second line of the first paragraph.



I have checked Googles cache and the WordPress blog was last updated on 26 Jun 2022 01:50:47 GMT. So the next steps will be to wait until Google re-checks the page and hopefully picks up the updated position of the backlink. From there, I will be looking to see if there are any changes to position of keyword for Page A.

As with the previous test, I am not actively working on this site, so there are no other link-building efforts currently being undertaken.

the linking page (page/site B) is not as popular as the page in the previous experiment; its just a web 2.0 property that doesn't receive much traffic so the results might be different, I dont know.
The page is built with high quality content though, written by me. It is aged and it is indexed in Google. So lets see what happens this time.