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

Great case study. +1

Have you all read the post by SEroundtable?
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-link-counts-keep-dropping-33692.html
I am wondering whether Google discounts backlinks after each update, especially core update.
And just so happens that when you update your link placement, Google re-crawls the 'discounted backlink' and sees it as a 'new backlink' again.



mw0 said:
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.
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Why is no one giving you a Like for this post?!! Very valuable find. Thank you! +1
 
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RStar66 said:
Actually just your links that doesn't matter. Hahahahaha, 10 000 links on a single page, hahahahaha
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Try building a AI/spamblog, create 10k pages and link all pages in eveyr page. Report results back ;)
 
links at the start / top-most position (and not navigational menus) have more value than links placed in middle (if user needs to scroll) and least importance is given to links at footer.

This case study's out will be quite similar to my theory.
 
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"
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That patent isn't related to this discussion. What that patent describes is a feature where sites related to your previous search results will rank higher than those not related to previous search results.

You can try it yourself. Search up "MacBook pro" and then search up "space grey". You should see suggestions for Apple products in the autosuggest, that's the functionality it is talking about.

From the patent document:
storing, in one or more memories associated with the one or more server devices, user behavior data relating to user navigational activity with regard to the first links within the first source documents selected by one or more users;
Click to expand...
 
Ashk881 said:
That patent isn't related to this discussion. What that patent describes is a feature where sites related to your previous search results will rank higher than those not related to previous search results.

You can try it yourself. Search up "MacBook pro" and then search up "space grey". You should see suggestions for Apple products in the autosuggest, that's the functionality it is talking about.

From the patent document:
Click to expand...
I don’t see how the part you quoted describes what you just said. If you search “reasonable surfer” in that document and look a little more into that term, seems obvious that it’s a newer variation of the original page rank algorithm, which treated all links as if they had an equal probability of being clicked.
 
This is great. Although I think it should be tested on a bigger scale if we see that some benefit actually comes from this repositioning.

And I love the idea another user made here of making more case studies, maybe by working on them collaboratively, we won't waste too much time or resources.

After all, we have everything here: domains, text generators, people interested etc.

How about making a poll asking what kind of case studies people would like to see here, and organize a sort of lab where some users get together and work on the testing and reporting?
 
Robzkie said:
How about making a poll asking what kind of case studies people would like to see here, and organize a sort of lab where some users get together and work on the testing and reporting?
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Nobody owes anyone anything, it's not the forum's management that's running this specific case study.
Making so much demands from individuals who decide to help is not nice, shows sign of entitlement.
If anything we should be grateful to @davids355 for volunteering to use his website that's already doing well for this experiment.

Experiments like these sometimes negatively impacts the websites being used. Owners of such website stand to lose or would be responsible for restoring their site.
 
In general , position of link placement on context really matters as of my opinion and experience.

Having link on the first fold of a webpage will get the more link juice when compared to the bottom link.

I will try to do this experiment and will update the results here.
 
HenryObi said:
Making so much demands from individuals who decide to help is not nice, shows sign of entitlement.
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I'm not sure what made you think that I'm demanding anything, I just threw an idea. No one would be forced to do anything. What entitlement do you see?

Anyway, let's stick to the case study, it's no place to quarrel here.

Peace
 
can you share what kind of niche is this you can tell not directly so i can just imagine what niche you're in . Since my thought google serves different on each niche
 
dadagede said:
Since my thought google serves different on each niche
Click to expand...

very good observation. I have come to the same conclusion. it seems google has X different version of their ranking algorithm and they have a monkey that sits on the keyboard and it indicates which niche gets which version of the algorithm. this is kind of their way of fighting against those who do single variable testing.
 
fb3003 said:
very good observation. I have come to the same conclusion. it seems google has X different version of their ranking algorithm and they have a monkey that sits on the keyboard and it indicates which niche gets which version of the algorithm. this is kind of their way of fighting against those who do single variable testing.
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yeahh , its like some niche are michelin 1 star while the others just local food court that google doesnt really care alot
 
Update, page B is now in the top 10 for 8 keywords and top 100 for another 3 keywords.

As you can see from the updated screenshot below there are a few position improvements, a few new keywords and two lost keywords.

Definitely seems to have had a positive imact overall though.


zzwtVHM
 
davids355 said:
Update, page B is now in the top 10 for 8 keywords and top 100 for another 3 keywords.

As you can see from the updated screenshot below there are a few position improvements, a few new keywords and two lost keywords.

Definitely seems to have had a positive imact overall though.


zzwtVHM
Click to expand...
Even though the sample size is small it's enough to give an idea. From now hence the best way to get value for money when acquiring links would be ensuring the links are at close to the top of content. Of course, it must be natural.
 
HenryObi said:
Even though the sample size is small it's enough to give an idea. From now hence the best way to get value for money when acquiring links would be ensuring the links are at close to the top of content. Of course, it must be natural.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Small sample and its not conclusive proof or anything like that, it would be good to see something similar done with 5-10 pages it would give a better idea of the average impact.
But I definitely feel that it shows there is likely some benefit from having the links higher up the page.
 
davids355 said:
Agreed. Small sample and its not conclusive proof or anything like that, it would be good to see something similar done with 5-10 pages it would give a better idea of the average impact.
But I definitely feel that it shows there is likely some benefit from having the links higher up the page.
Click to expand...
Yea an increased number of pages, websites across different niches would result in a much accurate result.

But I'm betting on the result being the same as what you got here.
 
Update 19th July 2022 -

Page B is now ranking for 14 keywords (Compared to 9 at the beginning of the experiment before any changes were made).

Changes in total so far are as follows -

Reminder: Updated Page A so the link pointing to page B was moved from the second half of the third paragraph, to the first two lines of text on the page.

Keyword changes from then to now -

KW15 -> 5 (No change)
KW25 -> 5 (No change)
KW36 -> 5 (+1)
KW410 -> 5 (+5)
KW53 -> 3 (No change)
KW67 -> 7 (No change)
KW78 -> x (Lost)
KW846 -> x (Lost)
KW947 -> 47 (No change)
KW10x -> 5 (NEW straight into top 10)
KW11x -> 8 (NEW straight into top 10)
KW12x -> 38 (NEW into top 100)
KW13x -> 56 (NEW into top 100)
KW14x -> 41 (NEW into top 100) * This one is very interesting because its the singular version (Without an "s" on the end) of the anchor text used to link from page A to page B.

Screenshot of current ranking data for reference -

saq6KMG
 
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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