SEO Trick tested. First link priority rule after reading a post here.

coolsheet

coolsheet

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So I'll keep updating this thread as I document improvements. I have a client (he's an MD) who loves split testing new ideas. He's great. I can fill him in on what we're doing or new ideas to increase search presence and he's very cooperative. I wouldn't tell him what I'm doing if it wasn't him.

So after reading @fasttrak thread here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/guide-making-the-most-of-internal-link-building.1212211/

I thought "let's give it a try".

I remember hearing about it 10 years ago, and fasttrak pointed out a very legitimate point. It hasn't been discussed much since. This had me very interested.

So then I went to a large SEO community to see what they thought about it.

I got a ton of responses like "that's stupid" "thats PR sculpting and is archaic and dead" etc etc.

These are the responses I like to see when testing a method.

So 2 days ago I picked one keyword thats been dropping, has a ton of volume, had a menu item, and also had interlinks to the page. I then edited the contextual links. I don't want to say what I did to change the links being that it probably would be easy to patch and there are way too many from big G that lurk this forum and I don't want a ton of people copying. Use your own methodology.

There are 3 variations of the keyword. Here is the ranking increase. Is it a coincidence they ALL increased in rank the day after implementation?

FLPR test.png

Now obviously these are not anything to pop a bottle about as they're still very far down the ladder.

But, I thought it was very interesting to see the instant reversal in the downtrend after implementing. I'll keep this updated if I notice anything significant. I only changed about 5-6 links across the site. After seeing this I plan to look for more mentions of the target keywords or any places I can add it to content and link.

I'm also going to test this on some of our keywords that are driving traffic to us already but are in position 5 or below.
 
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In 2015 someone did an extensive test (a bachelor thesis) on many seo things, including the first link priority rule. His research indicated that it did matter (in 2015). So yea maybe it does still
 
I'm sorry but I really didn't understand what you did exactly. Would you mind explaining in few lines/steps with an example OP?
 
Yeah I only saw the Moz test back in 2011 and found it interesting. I'll have to find that 2015 test. Probabaly irrelevant since I'm actively testing it now. But might provide some info I didn't think about.

Aulig said:
In 2015 someone did an extensive test (a bachelor thesis) on many seo things, including the first link priority rule. His research indicated that it did matter (in 2015). So yea maybe it does still
Click to expand...
 
coolsheet said:
Yeah I only saw the Moz test back in 2011 and found it interesting. I'll have to find that 2015 test. Probabaly irrelevant since I'm actively testing it now. But might provide some info I didn't think about.
Click to expand...
It's in german, thats why I didn't link it :D

For those curious: http://www.das-seo-experiment.de/

Result pdf is linked in the last section at the bottom of the page.
 
Mr Positive said:
Use multiquotes and yes internal links works like a charm if you know how to use them
Click to expand...

I had already responded dude chill out. After I responded and hit send, I saw another response and answered. This post isn't just about internal linking. It's mainly about First Link Priority. Thanks for the input.


BlackDesign said:
it was posted in 2011 , Do you think its still working?
Click to expand...

It looks like it according to my test, which is just beginning. The only way you can be sure is by testing, which isn't hard to do.
 
Last edited:
coolsheet said:
So I'll keep updating this thread as I document improvements. I have a client (he's an MD) who loves split testing new ideas. He's great. I can fill him in on what we're doing or new ideas to increase search presence and he's very cooperative. I wouldn't tell him what I'm doing if it wasn't him.

So after reading @fasttrak thread here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/guide-making-the-most-of-internal-link-building.1212211/

I thought "let's give it a try".

I remember hearing about it 10 years ago, and fasttrak pointed out a very legitimate point. It hasn't been discussed much since. This had me very interested.

So then I went to a large SEO community to see what they thought about it.

I got a ton of responses like "that's stupid" "thats PR sculpting and is archaic and dead" etc etc.

These are the responses I like to see when testing a method.

So 2 days ago I picked one keyword thats been dropping, has a ton of volume, had a menu item, and also had interlinks to the page. I then edited the contextual links. I don't want to say what I did to change the links being that it probably would be easy to patch and there are way too many from big G that lurk this forum and I don't want a ton of people copying. Use your own methodology.

There are 3 variations of the keyword. Here is the ranking increase. Is it a coincidence they ALL increased in rank the day after implementation?

View attachment 133505

Now obviously these are not anything to pop a bottle about as they're still very far down the ladder.

But, I thought it was very interesting to see the instant reversal in the downtrend after implementing. I'll keep this updated if I notice anything significant. I only changed about 5-6 links across the site. After seeing this I plan to look for more mentions of the target keywords or any places I can add it to content and link.

I'm also going to test this on some of our keywords that are driving traffic to us already but are in position 5 or below.
Click to expand...

Thanks for testing this. I had also gone back to an old site which was pretty poorly designed, implemented a couple of simple link tweaks as per my guide and got similar results. Without more extensive studies it was difficult for me to tell if the change was simply because the site had been updated after an age (even if it was minute), or if it was a result of the 1st link rule. Nice to see you replicate the results.

There were several people dismissing it as it was old Google confirmed news, but old does not necessarily mean defunct.

Simple changes like this are just good SEO onpage design, and if they give you a bit of a boost, why would you not be doing them in the first place?

Appreciate the test and posting your results.
 
fasttrak said:
Thanks for testing this. I had also gone back to an old site which was pretty poorly designed, implemented a couple of simple link tweaks as per my guide and got similar results. Without more extensive studies it was difficult for me to tell if the change was simply because the site had been updated after an age (even if it was minute), or if it was a result of the 1st link rule. Nice to see you replicate the results.
Click to expand...

No problem man thanks for posting. I had forgotten and never really looked much into it. To add, we're consistently working on the site in the screenshot, and this content was updated with new additions around 2 months ago and haven't done anything other than that and some interlinking prior. We did the interlinking a few months back, which are the links I went back and edited in this test. As you can kinda see in the screenshot, the interlinking had 0 impact and we were actually decreasing in rank. The decreasing in rank is completely unrelated and had to do with him hiring a bad SEO company a couple years ago and them building exact match anchors, 1st tier, and on the lowest quality sites with the worst spun shit I've ever seen. It really screwed us with the last big G update. We've recovered the ranking on many other pages but this one page (the ranking screenshot in the OP) has just not recovered. So it's nice to see previous interlinking be edited and have this impact.

There were several people dismissing it as it was old but Google confirmed news, but old does not necessarily mean defunct.
Click to expand...

Simple changes like this are just good SEO onpage design, and if they give you a bit of a boost, why would you not be doing them in the first place?
Click to expand...

Yup! Perfect indication to start split testing. Be bold when others are fearful. This was a super simple theory to test anyway.
 
coolsheet said:
No problem man thanks for posting. I had forgotten and never really looked much into it. To add, we're consistently working on the site in the screenshot, and this content was updated with new additions around 2 months ago and haven't done anything other than that and some interlinking prior. We did the interlinking a few months back, which are the links I went back and edited in this test. As you can kinda see in the screenshot, the interlinking had 0 impact and we were actually decreasing in rank. The decreasing in rank is completely unrelated and had to do with him hiring a bad SEO company a couple years ago and them building exact match anchors, 1st tier, and on the lowest quality sites with the worst spun shit I've ever seen. It really screwed us with the last big G update. We've recovered the ranking on many other pages but this one page (the ranking screenshot in the OP) has just not recovered. So it's nice to see previous interlinking be edited and have this impact.
Click to expand...

Nice, that is a pretty comprehensive test and conclusion.
 
Interesting concept, maybe it stopped working in the past and now it's working again, who knows with Google
 
Interesting concept. Gonna try this. If I find any results, I'll share here. Will reorg some menus and stuff.

This'd be good material for a wordpress plugin. If a link is in the body of the text, don't show it on the menu, for example.... Anything like that available already?
 
so you @coolsheet you optimized your website menus ?
 
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