The same search in Northern California looks different than in Southern California. Google Voice results look different than Google Incognito results, which look different than Google Now or logged-in Google results. Mobile results look different than desktop results. View your YouTube search history settings:.View your historical location data and timeline:.Social activity on Google+ (The social element of Google+ is officially dead, but Google still uses its data).Search index (Google, Google Now, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Voice, etc.).Device usage (mobile, desktop, tablet, Google app).Browser preferences (logged in, logged out, incognito view, etc.).User behavior (click-through-rate, pogo-sticking, time spent on page, etc.).Now, Personalized Search relies on the following contextual queues (among others) to better understand the intent of your search and serve more relevant results: And in 2009, they rolled out Personalized Search to everyone, regardless of whether or not you were logged in. So in 2005, they rolled out Personalized Search to all logged in Google account members, changing the way search results appeared to the individual. Page One Doesn’t Exist Anymore… Stop Lookingīack in 2004, Google discovered that by using certain data points about the individual user they could better understand the intent of each search and therefore provide more relevant results. And I’ll show you five ways to measure real SEO success instead. In this article, I’ll explore eight important reasons why keyword rankings no longer suffice as a relevant metric for measuring SEO performance. Today, keyword rankings lack substance they build a false sense of security.Īnd obsessing over outranking your competitors could prove detrimental to your SEO. It’s only when you pair keyword rankings with user behavior metrics, traffic metrics, and achieving business goals (among other factors) that they start to become somewhat relevant.Īnd even then, as the current state of SEO would have it, where so much of search success depends on content creation, user engagement and experience, authority, trust, and reputation, the value of a keyword ranking is insignificant. So much so that I can’t remember the last time I looked at our keyword list. Keyword rankings by themselves tell us little about the real success of your SEO. Which is why in 2016 and beyond, keyword rankings are no longer a relevant metric for measuring the success or performance of your search engine optimization (SEO). The Holy Grail of search is no longer keywords.

Google and Yahoo ranked websites based on keywords SEOs and Webmasters built web pages stuffed with keywords and clients fell in love with the tangible results, good or bad, promised by keyword rankings: up three spots equals progress down three spots equals regression.īut times have changed, and it’s time we change with them. Back in the infancy of search, keywords ruled the world.

Tracking keyword position