For the last year or a number of SEOs have speculated that google is using a new approach to ranking as part of its algorithm.
This has been confirmed for me now by people I've seen exploiting this mechanism to rank highly (e.g. #2) with virtually zero backlinks and a completely new domain.
The mechanism is google's own internal click through data which they have been building up especially with people who are logged in to their services (which is becoming the norm).
The mechanism works like this:
1. You search for 'reticular activating system'
2. You click on one of the listings
3. you don't like what you see - and you click "BACK"
4. You either use the same search on google or you re-search for a similar term
5. You click another listing
6. You like what you see and don't go back to google to re-search or look at another listing
Google simply tracks all of the searches that you weren't happy with - you went back to them to find something better. These sites get a negative impact on their SEO. Sites that have lower 'click back' ratios get more highly ranked.
The implication is that "backtrack bounces" are now more critical to eliminate if you want google seo traffic on that landing page.
Now to the exploit!
1. Buy a domain name with exact match keywords for the term you want to rank for (.net, org are best) - but you can get it to work with others
2. Create a super simple page on the domain with this HTML (your index.html):
<html>
<head><title>[KEYWORD]</title></head>
<body>
<a href="[link to any landing page you want to promote]">[KEYWORD]</a>
</body>
</html>
Replace [keyword] with the keyword you want to rank for.
If you want example URLs where this is taking place - PM me - i'm new here so can't post URLs.
You should make sure that there is some roughly relevant content on your landing page of course, so that they don't back up all the way to google. But the vast amount of people click the link on your page - so you trick google's clickthrough mechanism into thinking it's a valid page.
I've seen this rank for keywords that it just shouldn't be possible for - at some point google will fix it, but for now it's got them trumped.
This has been confirmed for me now by people I've seen exploiting this mechanism to rank highly (e.g. #2) with virtually zero backlinks and a completely new domain.
The mechanism is google's own internal click through data which they have been building up especially with people who are logged in to their services (which is becoming the norm).
The mechanism works like this:
1. You search for 'reticular activating system'
2. You click on one of the listings
3. you don't like what you see - and you click "BACK"
4. You either use the same search on google or you re-search for a similar term
5. You click another listing
6. You like what you see and don't go back to google to re-search or look at another listing
Google simply tracks all of the searches that you weren't happy with - you went back to them to find something better. These sites get a negative impact on their SEO. Sites that have lower 'click back' ratios get more highly ranked.
The implication is that "backtrack bounces" are now more critical to eliminate if you want google seo traffic on that landing page.
Now to the exploit!
1. Buy a domain name with exact match keywords for the term you want to rank for (.net, org are best) - but you can get it to work with others
2. Create a super simple page on the domain with this HTML (your index.html):
<html>
<head><title>[KEYWORD]</title></head>
<body>
<a href="[link to any landing page you want to promote]">[KEYWORD]</a>
</body>
</html>
Replace [keyword] with the keyword you want to rank for.
If you want example URLs where this is taking place - PM me - i'm new here so can't post URLs.
You should make sure that there is some roughly relevant content on your landing page of course, so that they don't back up all the way to google. But the vast amount of people click the link on your page - so you trick google's clickthrough mechanism into thinking it's a valid page.
I've seen this rank for keywords that it just shouldn't be possible for - at some point google will fix it, but for now it's got them trumped.
