SEO studies are sexy but are they accurate? We’ll talk about the impact of confirmation bias in today’s SEO tip.
Hello. Thanks for listening to SEO tips today.
This is your regular reminder that correlation does not equal causation and many SEO studies you see could be inaccurate. Be wary if you’re relying on these for your strategies.
Here’s the essential bit from a recent Search Engine Journal article (where they had a statistician look at a bunch of SEO studies):
“[These studies are] just looking at one factor. With multiple algorithms in place, there must be many factors all working together. Each must have individual ratings weighted into a total for the specific algorithm and likely weighted again within the aggregating algorithm they use.”
Jen states.
BTW this is also what Google’s Gary Illyes and John Mueller have said more than once.
Specifically, she looked at whether the bounce rate correlates with higher rankings (for Google see what Bing has said about its ranking algorithm in my previous SEO tip) and whether a higher Domain authority impacts rankings at all. In my experience (not a statistical study), I don’t think it does unless you’re potentially in a high YMYL niche where Google relies on a smaller set of websites to fulfill those queries.
The article shows how SEO studies that claim how to decode Google and other search engine algorithms are based on inadequate data and bad science.
So that’s your tip for today. Follow the best practices, test what works in your industry and be wary of correlation studies.
Thanks for listening. Come back tomorrow for another SEO tip.
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