RESOLUTION MEDIA GOOGLE MOBILE SEARCH RANKING FACTORS FOR BETTER MOBILE SEO. What Matters in Mobile Search Today

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1 RESOLUTION MEDIA GOOGLE MOBILE SEARCH RANKING FACTORS FOR BETTER MOBILE SEO What Matters in Mobile Search Today

2 Google Mobile Search - Ranking Factors for Better Mobile SEO Table of Contents Introduction...1 What Matters in Mobile Search Today...1 Methodology Results Off-page > Links > Numbers.5 Off-page > Links >Authority. 6 On-page > Architecture..9 On-page > Architecture > URLs.16 On-page > Content 18 On-page > Content > Engage.20 On-page > Content > Quality..23 On-page > HTML > Description.24 On-page > HTML > Titles.24 Summary Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 1

3 Google Mobile Search Ranking Factors for Better Mobile SEO Introduction As growth in mobile search traffic continues, many marketers are looking for ways to optimize for mobile search results. Finding optimization information that s evidence-based can be difficult because many search engine optimization (SEOs) companies have not addressed the impact of mobility on SEO. Those who are thinking about the impact of mobility on SEO are: 1) Mobile marketers without a background in SEO that provide usability advice that may or may not apply to SEO or 2) SEOs without an understanding of mobile marketing who don t believe that mobility will impact SEO. There are a few notable exceptions, including a white paper on mobile SEO (PDF) published by Covario that demonstrates variations in mobile search and desktop ranking. There s also a study that was done by a Dutch student as a master s thesis (EPUB). Beyond these two examples, most information you will find on Mobile SEO is based on a marketer s opinion. As we discovered in our research, these opinions from marketers are rarely based on empirical evidence. What Matters in Mobile Search Today To get at a better understanding of the types of things that affect mobile search visibility, we examined the search results themselves. While any reverse engineering of the search results is ultimately doomed to failure, this type of research can help illuminate likely ranking factors. We started by examining the public search results for a set of queries. Our results varied dramatically from what is considered best practices for mobile search. Below are some of our findings: It s not always necessary to use sitemaps and validate codes. o None of the high-ranking sites in our sample had mobile sitemaps or valid code, and the code types of the indexed sites closely resembled the web as a whole. Google s smartphone search results are largely unusable according to current mobile standards. o Of the sample of sites we tested, 66% of them scored a zero out of 100% on the W3 s mobileok test, which is used to determine probable usability of sites on mobile devices. Having a mobile site is strongly correlated to visibility in Google smartphone results, even if Google is not aware of the site and the site is not presented in the search results. Using phrase-matched keywords in the page s title, encouraging repeat visits, being a desktop site, having a mobile site and having more than 100k unique visitors worldwide are currently all strongly correlated to visibility in Google smartphone search results Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 2

4 Methodology We collected search rankings manually for 11 popular mobile queries, once in December 2010 and once in May Many of these queries came from Yahoo! s Top Ten Mobile Searches 2010 list. Others were chosen because they denote queries representing mobile contentseeking intent. Queries that represented different industries were also chosen. All queries that were chosen were ambiguous enough to not be navigational searches for a specific site or brand, so as to find results that could be optimized by anyone with a relevant listing. The final 11 queries were as follows: For each of these queries we took the top three results for each query using a logged out browser (to avoid personalization) with a user agent switcher plugin, using the Google Nexus One as the user agent. This gave us 33 sites, which we then tested for various SEO and mobile SEO best practices, such as keywords in title tag, validation, exact match domains, etc. For link and authority data, we used Open Site Explorer. For traffic metrics we used Google Ad Planner, as Google data is most likely to be used by Google for ranking purposes Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 3

5 The complete list is below. For more information on the ranking factor categories, see Danny Sullivan s Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors in Search Engine Land Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 4

6 Results Category: off-page > links > numbers Total Links When we looked at the link equity of the sites that appear for these 11 queries, we found that all of them, in fact, have at least one link pointing to them, with the average being a little over 90,000 inbound links. Today it s clear that link equity is a factor for mobile (smartphone) search results. The rule, as in desktop search, is quality over quantity, but of our sample, 86% of the sites had more than 100 links pointing to them, and 73% had more than 1,000 inbound links. There are clearly factors that can override link equity and other off-page factors, as 10% of the sample set had less than 100 links; but for the most part if you want to rank in smartphone search results, it s wise to consider the quantity and quality of inbound links from external sources pointing at your domain. Because smartphone results are similar to core search, with some variations, link equity is going to be an important factor in establishing authority, though not the last word in determining relevance Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 5

7 Linking Root Domains Linking root domains appears to be the same principle as total links, but 30% of the total sites studied have less than 100 linking root domains. If you want to appear at the top of Google smartphone search results, as in Google core search, it s wise to pay attention to the quantity and quality of linking root domains to the site you re trying to optimize. Category: off-page > trust > authority Domain & Page Authority As with total links and linking root domains, it s clear that off-page factors like domain and page authority are also heavily weighted for smartphone results currently. Using SEOMoz s Open Site Explorer, we estimated domain and page authority for all pages and domains in our search result sample. While 5% of the domains sampled and 11% of the pages had an authority less than 50/100, the great majority of the results in both cases were authoritative according to SEOMoz s standard. It appears that non-authoritative pages on authority domains and authoritative pages on non-authoritative domains are able to rank in spite of Google s tendency to send traffic to authoritative domains Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 6

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9 Mobile Navigational Volume (phrase) and Desktop Navigational Volume Aaron Wall and SEOMoz have recently recognized that navigational search volume could be a ranking factor. In previous Search Engine Land columns, I proposed that navigational brand searches from mobile devices could indicate mobile intent, which could show a preference for mobile content. What we found is that the great majority of the listings do have more than 100 navigational searches per month for their brand. There doesn t seem to be a distinction between mobile navigational searches and desktop navigational searches at the moment, but marketers who want to appear well in search (smartphone or core) would be wise to build their brand in order to drive branded search volume Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 8

10 Category: on-page > architecture Character Encoding For a while the only information that Google presented on making mobile sites search-friendly was help center content on developing mobile sites. Because the content of this document focused on validation and code, many understand mobile SEO as pertaining primarily to site architecture. Frequently you ll hear the echoes of the advice given on this parked domain from 2005 as a best practice for mobile SEO: Use 100% valid XHTML 1.0 code. In fact, none of the sites in our sample used 100% valid XHTML 1.0 code. The only site that had valid code in the sample of 73 used HTML 4; and it fell out of the rankings in the second sample. Google suggested in their now defunct mobile webmaster guidelines to use utf-8 character encoding. From our sample it s clear that isn t a factor in smartphone search results Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 9

11 While it appears from the large percentage of sites that use utf-8 character encoding that the use of utf-8 would be a valid best practice, a large percentage of the sites use other types of character encoding and are still indexed, and the proportion of utf-8 to other types of character encoding was similar in our sample to the proportion on the Internet as a whole ( Every type of code appears in our sample of top ranking smartphone search sites. While the great majority of sites are either XHTML 1.0 Strict or Transitional, the percentages seem to be in line with the Internet as a whole ( The type of code used doesn t seem to be a ranking factor for Google smartphone search results Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 10

12 W3C Validator Validation has long been under fire as a ranking factor in desktop search. Matt Cutts finally debunked it in a webmaster tools video early this year. In spite of this, it seems most mobile SEO advice out there stresses the use of valid code. In theory validation can t hurt, as it makes the page more accessible and user friendly; but it often requires time and resources, and there s no SEO benefit to validation in the search results. According to our sample this applies not only to desktop search results, but to smartphone results as well. All but one of the sites in our sample failed validation Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 11

13 Mobile OK Score Much mobile SEO advice also points to mobile validation tools that exist. These help you to make your site faster and more accessible for mobile phones of all types and are considered an indicator of a positive mobile user experience. The W3C s mobileok test and DotMobi s Ready.mobi score are both common examples of this. However when we ran these tests for the sites in Google s smartphone search results, 66% of the results not only failed the mobileok test, but failed with a score of zero. Likewise, 78% of the sites had a ready.mobi score of Bad. This indicates that common tests of mobile usability have no bearing on Google smartphone results at this time Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 12

14 Is Mobile Site With Google releasing their Go Mo tool recently for mobile website creation, many webmasters have wondered if having a mobile website would help them appear in search results for mobile searchers. Since Google has long told webmasters to think of the user first, providing mobile content to a mobile user would theoretically be thinking of the user first. Google also has a blended ranking algorithm to present mobile content to mobile users, but it doesn t seem to be very powerful in US smartphone search, as only one of the sites listed was a mobile site. Being a mobile site isn t the only way to cater to mobile users, however, and mobile formatting or mobile redirects could indicate to the engines that a mobile site exists, should a user want to access it, which could be enough to bump the site up slightly in the rankings. However, the great majority of the sites in the sample neither redirects to mobile content nor reformats it for mobile users. Oddly, most sites in the sample do offer mobile content, either mobile sites or desktop content reformatted for mobile users. This might indicate that having a mobile site is a ranking factor for smartphone search. However, when we looked at whether these mobile sites were actually indexed by Google, it appears most of them aren t actually indexed, and even fewer of the sites that Google knows about are labeled as mobile-friendly with a green phone in feature phone search results Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 13

15 Clearly being a mobile site is not necessary for smartphone ranking, as most of the results presented are desktop results. However, given that most of the sites returned do have mobile versions, having mobile content could somehow produce a lift in smartphone search results Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 14

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17 Category: on-page > architecture > URLs Exact Match Domain Exact match domains have long been one way to convey a high degree of relevance achieving top rankings without amassing much link equity or authority. When we examined the percentage of exact match domains (EMDs) in smartphone search results, the percentage was less than 10% of the total. However, given that EMDs can rank currently without a lot of link equity, it s possible that outliers in categories related to off-page factors are exact match domains Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 16

18 TLD (Top Level Domain) DotMobi has long touted the SEO benefits of using a.mobi TLD. If you do a search on mobile SEO or mobile SEO best practices in Google today, the first result that appears is dotmobi s mobithinking.com domain and their mobile SEO best practices guide. The guide says The best way to build your mobile web site for SEO is by using the dotmobi domain. dotmobi cites the ease of getting their domain indexed through zone files as a primary reason for mobile SEO. Late last year I examined indexed pages of mobile URLs in Google and found that many more m.domain.com URLs were indexed than dotmobi s, punching a hole in dotmobi s theory. Punching another hole is the fact that zero of the top ranking domains in our sample were dotmobi domains. The majority of sites included in the smartphone site results are dotcom TLDs. In fact, the percentage of dotcoms in our sample is even larger than the percentage in the Internet as a whole. There is no advantage to using dotmobi for mobile SEO that we can see Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 17

19 Category: on-page > content LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) Content is king in SEO, as the saying goes, but it s difficult to measure that algorithmically. One method of the post-keyword density-era SEOMoz has suggested might be used to determine quality content is Latent Dirichlet Allocation, or LDA. LDA is a topic modeling algorithm that measures not just keyword frequency as a measure of content relevance, but the presence of related concepts. Indeed, LDA seems to be strongly correlated with top smartphone rankings as it is with core search. However, if it is a factor, it s one of many, as certain pages were able to enter into the top three results with LDA scores as low as 10%. Lowest number: 10.5% Highest number: 99.08% Mean: 73.68% Median: 86.78% Mode: no mode Range 88.58% Semantic Markup Michael Martin of Covario published an article last year that recommended implementing semantic markup in order to gain a competitive advantage in the already competitive mobile 2012 Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 18

20 search results. Semantic markup by itself doesn t have a direct impact on ranking, but it can lead to increased clickthrough rates, which is likely a ranking factor. When we examined the percentage of sites in our sample with semantic markup, the majority of the sites have not implemented this markup. However, implementing the markup could still have a positive impact in search results, whether desktop or mobile. Adplanner Categories Finally related to content we collected Google s Adplanner categories of all sites to get a sense of whether one category of site was more likely to be returned in smartphone search results. Wikipedia and mobile content were first in our set of collected categories, but this is likely more about our selection of keywords than the results themselves. Further studies are warranted, but not of this type Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 19

21 Category: on-page > content > engage One way to measure good content is to measure user behavior as a result of this content, and the easiest way for Google to measure that is by looking at cookie data. While we don t have the exact source that Google uses to determine this, we do have similar data that Google collects on sites in Doubleclick Adplanner. A tool for media planners, primarily, Adplanner gives information on engagement for thousands of sites across the web, all arrived at through Google cookie data. In general, the great majority of sites in our sample had over 100,000 visits per month, with repeat visitors, and on average between 5 and 10 minutes spent on site Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 20

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25 Category: on-page > HTML > Description Description Length The benefit of adding a compelling description is similar to that of adding semantic markup: a compelling description can increase the clickthrough rate to your site among sites that are similar but have less compelling descriptions. The increased clickthrough rate, rather than the content of the description, can affect ranking. Description length, for that reason, is not a direct ranking factor; but it s worth examining because it can be controlled and could be an indicator of whether shorter or longer descriptions are more compelling overall. In our sample we found that no site had a description of less than 68 characters, and most of them were between 127 and 133 characters, with no description being longer than 134 characters. Category: on-page > HTML > Titles Titles Titles have historically been one of the most important elements in search engine optimization, and perhaps the most important on-page element. In our study we examined several factors related to the title tag, including title length, presence of keywords in title, presence of exact match or phrase matched keywords in title, and presence of the word mobile in the title (to indicate that the site is mobile in nature). As you can see in the charts below, titles of top sites in our smartphone search results sample are no longer than 70 characters, where the title cuts off in search results. Most advertisers use keywords somewhere in the title, and 80% of them use 2012 Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 24

26 the phrase they re trying to rank for somewhere in the title. Less than 10% use the exact match keywords in the title. And while a number of mobile SEO experts claim that including mobile somewhere in the title will let the engines know that the site is intended for mobile searchers, only our mobile-themed search results (i.e. download ringtones, mobile banking) used mobile somewhere in the title, indicating that this is not necessary for mobile ranking Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 25

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28 Summary What is important for mobile SEO? If code and validation are not important, as this study suggests, what can webmasters do to ensure that their content is found by the right users? The first thing that this study demonstrates is that advice on emerging disciplines should always be taken with a grain of salt, as best practices found in Google are often not based on search results and could be from a different era that don t apply to the current marketing landscape. Such is the case with much mobile SEO advice today. For mobile SEO it s important to approach it thinking both about core search SEO and differences in ranking for mobile search that could impact on rankings. Below is a summary of our Top 10 Mobile Optimization Findings: 1) Link equity is a factor for mobile (smartphone) search results. We found that all of them, in fact, have at least one link pointing to them, with the average being a little over 90,000 inbound links. 2) It appears that non-authoritative pages on authority domains and authoritative pages on non-authoritative domains are able to rank in spite of Google s tendency to send traffic to authoritative domains 3) The majority of the listings do have more than 100 navigational searches per month for their brand. 4) A mobile site is not necessary for smartphone ranking, as most of the results presented are desktop results. However, given that most of the sites returned do 2012 Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 27

29 have mobile versions, having mobile content could somehow produce a lift in smartphone search results 5) LDA seems to be strongly correlated with top smartphone rankings as it is with core search. However, if it is a factor, it s one of many, as certain pages were able to enter into the top three results with LDA scores as low as 10%. 6) Implementing the semantic markup could still have a positive impact in search results, whether desktop or mobile. 7) Engagement - majority of sites in our sample had over 100,000 visits per month, with repeat visitors, and on average between 5 and 10 minutes spent on site 8) A compelling description can increase the clickthrough rate to your site among sites that are similar but have less compelling descriptions. In our sample, we found that no site had a description of less than 68 characters, and most of them were between 127 and 133 characters, with no description being longer than 134 characters. 9) Titles of top sites in our smartphone search results sample are no longer than 70 characters, where the title cuts off in search results. 10) Most advertisers use keywords somewhere in the title, and 80% of them use the phrase they re trying to rank for somewhere in the title Resolution Media ResolutionMedia.com 28