Over the last few weeks of 2008 there was a lot of talk about drastic changes to Google’s ranking algorithms that would come in early 2009.   At PubCon 2008 in November Bruce Clay proclaimed that “ranking is dead” in a much-discussed session.  Here’s a video of Mike MacDonald from WebProNews interviewing Bruce about his presentation.

To recap briefly, Bruce bases his claim that “ranking is dead” on the observation of increasingly personalized and localized search results and the prediction that Google will move to return personlized search results even when users aren’t logged in to their Google accounts.  If this is true, and to a large extent it already is, no two people will see the same results for a given keyword.

Traditional SEO dealt with rankings in a direct way.  Many SEO service providers sent ranking reports to their clients to demonstrate success and growth.  Some shady “SEO firms” sold clients on guarantees for X number of Google page one rankings – they could pull this off because the clients were watching the rankings and not the traffic.  Many of our clients came to us looking to be #1 in Google for [insert keyword here].  Our first order of action was to sit them down and explain why being #1 for [insert keyword here] might be fancy but it has no intrinsic value.

In this sense, ranking has never been the best way to measure success.  With these new developments it’s even less reliable.

I’d love to say ranking is dead.  Focus on ranking is a surefire path to ignoring the metrics that mean something – like traffic, bounce rates, conversion rates, etc.  The trouble is, ranking still matters – SEOs just can’t point to it anymore and say, “see, we did a good thing.”

Ranking isn’t dead yet, but it’s no metric for success

Unless Google develops an entirely new way of displaying search results, rankings will always matter.  The user who performs a search often bases her result selection partially or entirely on ranking.  That hasn’t changed, and it’s not likely to change in the near future.

What has changed is that now, from the other side of the equation, the SEO or webmaster can’t predict where they rank.  Or, at least, it’s become much harder to do so.  Rankings are still central to the search user’s experience.   They still matter.  But from the marketing data standpoint they have been a fuzzy metric for some time now – and if Bruce’s predictions come to pass, it’ll be tough to pinpoint them at all.

Watch your traffic, not your rankings

The bottom line here is that rankings themselves never amounted to much more than a pretty report and boasting rights.  Sure, you got that #1 position you were gunning for – but did you earn anything other than pride from it?  That’s not a rhetorical question, and answering it means you have to take a close look at your traffic and other actionable metrics like your bounce rate or conversion rate – or your bottom line.

This is nothing new.  I’ve been researching and practicing SEO for about four years now (not to say that makes me a veteran), and among the first things I learned was that rankings don’t have value until you tie them to your actual earnings as closely as you can.  That broad keyword that gets so much traffic – you’ll likely find it’s a bit too broad to bring you a strong conversion rate.  That’s not to say ranking for broad keywords has no value – far from it – but the point is that ranking in itself means nothing.  It always has.

Google’s next move might mean we as SEOs take our eyes off rankings forever – or, at least, it’ll muddy up the signal enough that, pending the development of new methods and software to determine the average or range of rank from wide data sources, it’ll be more trouble to measure rankings than it will be worth.

Before Google, links had one primary function: they were reference points.  They allowed webmasters to point to other pages and users to follow with only a click.

When Google revolutionized search, they did it largely by taking links as signals of trust and relevance.  And it worked.  The relevance of Google results far surpassed that of any other existing search engine at the time.  Word spread fast, and Google’s traffic skyrocketed (and continues to increase).  When they launched their AdWords program, Google had an entire farm of cash cows in the form of paying advertisers – and they’ve been milking it to the tune of multiple billions ever since.

Webmasters who had been leveraging the weaknesses of existing search engines to bring in traffic would have no such luck with Google.  Stuffing keywords into title and meta tags and massive blocks of white-on-white text didn’t work so well anymore.  You had to have links, and from the most relevant and powerful sources you could find.

It was just a matter of time before links were traded and a new currency on the web was created.  The value increased as Google’s usage grew – and it did so almost exponentially.  Other search engines essentially did one of two things:

1. They licensed Google search results, or
2. They scrambled to catch up with Google’s superior method by incorporating links, among other factors, into their own ranking algorithms.

Early on, reciprocal link exchanges were an easy way for webmasters to help themselves by helping each other.  So-called “free for all” directories helped improve rankings as well.  They allowed webmasters and “SEOs” to participate in easy link exchange programs with no purpose other than to gain links and build PageRank.  “Featured listing” offerings, with more prominence and at higher levels of site infrastructure, were available for a fee.  Paid links were born.

Every time it has grown too easy to link build your way to the top and effective fringe tactics go mainstream, Google shakes things up in response.

They stripped free for all directories of their ability to pass PageRank.  They reduced the effectiveness of reciprocal link exchanges.  And last year, they went on the offensive against link sellers.  A wide swath of websites, mainstream and not-so-mainstream, saw their PageRank dropped significantly or entirely overnight.  Many directories stopped ranking for their own brand names.  Major online publishers, in some cases, were penalized for “sponsored” links that didn’t include the “nofollow” attribute.  Their advertisers were suddenly paying for something that had next to zero value.

It was a pretty good spanking all around, and many webmasters were left wiping the snot from their noses as they dutifully did what Google ordered, adding “nofollow” to their paid links, submitting “we’ve been good” reinclusion requests and waiting for their advertisers to pull out or demand extreme discounts.

Their mistake: they made it obvious.  They tagged the links for Google.  They painted targets on their backs and went about tending to the landscaping.

Now we’re hearing the same buzz all over again with the launch of MediaWhiz’s new InLinks service.

What’s changed since the last time around?  Fundamentally, nothing.  The underground link brokers are staying underground, perhaps ducking their heads in a bit deeper.  Many self-proclaimed “white hat” SEOs are following Google’s instructions to “just build great content” while others scoff at the concept.  Jim Boykin of We Build Pages publicly announced that his company will no longer be buying links as part of their link building services.  Google is still asking webmasters to out link brokers.  And buying links is still an effective way to improve your Google rankings so long as you’re OK with violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and the risk that comes along with that.

When will this change?  As long as links play a central role in determining Google rankings, it never will.  The paid links game will always exist, it’ll just go deeper underground when it has to.  There will always be the risk of Google catching on or a competitor outing your tactics – but as long as the reward is greater than that risk, buying links will remain a tactic, albeit perhaps less common, for improving rankings.

My position on the issue?  I think any link brokers who do business out in the open should know their days are numbered.  Any relationship you enter as a link broker you need to be careful about.  Google is not the government, but if you want to play in their pond while openly breaking their rules be prepared to get dunked.  At the end of the day, though, there is no shortage of ways to buy links without getting pegged for it.  Be cautious, be smart, moderate and don’t brag about it.