SEO
How to Avoid Mistaking Correlation for Causation in SEO
Every so often the SEO community will erupt into an uproar at the publication of a new ranking factors study.
The usual cry – “correlation is not the same as causation!”
You may be familiar with the terms.
Correlation is the “mutual relation of two or more things” and causation is “the action of causing or producing.”
Essentially, is something genuinely the cause of a result, or does it just happen to change in line with the result?
To put it clearly, here is an unusual example of correlation.
According to the data gathered by Tylervigen.com from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Science Foundation, there is a direct correlation between the number of Civil Engineering doctorates awarded in the U.S. and the per-person consumption of mozzarella cheese.
That’s right.
Want more civil engineers to graduate in the U.S.?
You’d better start eating more cheese.
We can all quickly identify that it’s likely being a coincidence rather than a causal link.
This is a good example of correlation not being the same as causation.
Why Are Correlation & Causation a Concern in SEO?
A lot of SEO activity is based on trial and error, experience, and statements from search engine representatives.
Due to this, there are often assertions made like “SEO activity X has a positive effect on your webpage rankings.”
For example: “links from authoritative websites will improve your website’s SERP rankings.”
Sometimes, these will be accurate – the stated activity will be what has caused the ranking increase.
Other times, it is purely coincidental.
The issue with this is that there can be substantial time and money invested in carrying out SEO activities that will never pay off.
For instance, what if there was an SEO study that suggested the number of JPEGs on a page was a ranking factor.
This hypothetical study suggested that the more JPEGs the higher you are likely to rank in Google.
This might cause SEO professionals to start adding images to their pages regardless of whether they would benefit the end-user.
And paying for photographs or a premium image service could be expensive.
No to mention the time taken to upload the images to every page could also be costly.
How to Avoid Mistaking Correlation for Causation
How then do you decide if Y is affected by X, or if changes are mere coincidences?
Consider the Claim
First of all, consider what is being claimed.
Sometimes a commonsense check of what is being discussed will be enough to determine whether the correlation is a coincidence.
The following two questions can go a long way to working this out:
- How could the search engines measure this?
- How would it benefit the end user and therefore the search engines?
This is not an exhaustive list.
The cynical us might ask, “would this financially benefit the search engine?”
Or you might wonder, “would this be the case for my industry?”
It might be that a supposed ranking factor would not make sense for the industry you are in.
For instance “your money or your life” (YMYL) pages, ecommerce, or entertainment sites might have been subject to different weightings for different ranking factors.
What Does Your Experience Say?
Have you experienced SEO results in a way that rings true with the causation statement made?
Your experience is just as valid as anyone else’s.
If you have seen the opposite happen – for instance, removing unnecessary JPEGs from a page caused your page’s ranking to increase – then that is reason enough to investigate the claim further.
Identify Other Factors
With the example given above, there might be other reasons why adding JPEGs to a page correlated with an increase in SERP rank for a page.
For instance, maybe the images included alt attributes and that was actually what made the difference in rank.
Perhaps the images were part of a page’s redesign and other elements like unique copy were also introduced at the same time.
It’s also hard with studies run by third parties to know the true methodology.
Perhaps there were other variables in play that the researchers did not account for.
That alone could call into question the validity of the experiment.
How Big Is the Sample?
When running statistical experiments a researcher will be looking for results that have reached a statistical significance.
That is, an assurance that the relationship between X and Y did not occur through chance.
In order to achieve a reliable level of statistical significance, your sample size has to be large enough.
If your sample size is not large enough your experiment may be subject to a sampling error.
A correlation may emerge that would simply not be there in a larger sample size.
In our example, what if only three websites were used as part of the study into how JPEGs affect rankings.
If two of them had seen ranking increases when adding JPEGs to a page and one of them did not then you could conclude that JPEGs have a positive effect on rankings.
However, what if you added a further seven websites to your study, and each of those did not show an increase in rankings when JPEGs were added to the page.
That would bring the result to two which showed rank increases and eight that did not.
What would happen to the results with another 10 websites?
Three is simply too small a sample size to make declarations about all the websites in the search engine index.
How Varied Is the Sample?
Similarly, if your sample is not a diverse enough representation of the entire data set then you risk sampling errors.
For instance, what if the websites chosen for our hypothetical study were all ecommerce sites.
Would it be a reliable enough experiment to apply those findings to information only sites?
Could they be applied to YMYL sites?
What if the websites sampled were all built on WordPress?
Would it be a fair conclusion to assume that websites running on Magento would rank in a similar way?
A Caution on Third-Party Studies
It is very easy to see studies shared around the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn and assume the study is thorough.
Similarly, listening to a speaker share their case study at a conference may inspire confidence that their conclusions are valid.
You can’t be sure of this, however.
A third party study may have experimental flaws.
One case study is too small a sample size.
Conclusion
Whenever you hear a claim about what is or isn’t important in SEO and there is data used to back it up, make sure you bring yourself back to your school science experiments.
Was there a large enough sample used?
Were all the variables accounted for and controlled?
Would you get an “A” grade for that study?
If there is any doubt then make sure you do not take the conclusions as fact.
Instead, continue to experiment on your own.
Monitor the effect of any changes you make to your sites to see if they have the result you expected.
More Resources:
Image Credits
Screenshot taken by author, October 2020
SEO
Measuring Content Impact Across The Customer Journey
Understanding the impact of your content at every touchpoint of the customer journey is essential – but that’s easier said than done. From attracting potential leads to nurturing them into loyal customers, there are many touchpoints to look into.
So how do you identify and take advantage of these opportunities for growth?
Watch this on-demand webinar and learn a comprehensive approach for measuring the value of your content initiatives, so you can optimize resource allocation for maximum impact.
You’ll learn:
- Fresh methods for measuring your content’s impact.
- Fascinating insights using first-touch attribution, and how it differs from the usual last-touch perspective.
- Ways to persuade decision-makers to invest in more content by showcasing its value convincingly.
With Bill Franklin and Oliver Tani of DAC Group, we unravel the nuances of attribution modeling, emphasizing the significance of layering first-touch and last-touch attribution within your measurement strategy.
Check out these insights to help you craft compelling content tailored to each stage, using an approach rooted in first-hand experience to ensure your content resonates.
Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or new to content measurement, this webinar promises valuable insights and actionable tactics to elevate your SEO game and optimize your content initiatives for success.
View the slides below or check out the full webinar for all the details.
SEO
How to Find and Use Competitor Keywords
Competitor keywords are the keywords your rivals rank for in Google’s search results. They may rank organically or pay for Google Ads to rank in the paid results.
Knowing your competitors’ keywords is the easiest form of keyword research. If your competitors rank for or target particular keywords, it might be worth it for you to target them, too.
There is no way to see your competitors’ keywords without a tool like Ahrefs, which has a database of keywords and the sites that rank for them. As far as we know, Ahrefs has the biggest database of these keywords.
How to find all the keywords your competitor ranks for
- Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
- Enter your competitor’s domain
- Go to the Organic keywords report
The report is sorted by traffic to show you the keywords sending your competitor the most visits. For example, Mailchimp gets most of its organic traffic from the keyword “mailchimp.”
Since you’re unlikely to rank for your competitor’s brand, you might want to exclude branded keywords from the report. You can do this by adding a Keyword > Doesn’t contain filter. In this example, we’ll filter out keywords containing “mailchimp” or any potential misspellings:
If you’re a new brand competing with one that’s established, you might also want to look for popular low-difficulty keywords. You can do this by setting the Volume filter to a minimum of 500 and the KD filter to a maximum of 10.
How to find keywords your competitor ranks for, but you don’t
- Go to Competitive Analysis
- Enter your domain in the This target doesn’t rank for section
- Enter your competitor’s domain in the But these competitors do section
Hit “Show keyword opportunities,” and you’ll see all the keywords your competitor ranks for, but you don’t.
You can also add a Volume and KD filter to find popular, low-difficulty keywords in this report.
How to find keywords multiple competitors rank for, but you don’t
- Go to Competitive Analysis
- Enter your domain in the This target doesn’t rank for section
- Enter the domains of multiple competitors in the But these competitors do section
You’ll see all the keywords that at least one of these competitors ranks for, but you don’t.
You can also narrow the list down to keywords that all competitors rank for. Click on the Competitors’ positions filter and choose All 3 competitors:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
- Enter your competitor’s domain
- Go to the Paid keywords report
This report shows you the keywords your competitors are targeting via Google Ads.
Since your competitor is paying for traffic from these keywords, it may indicate that they’re profitable for them—and could be for you, too.
You know what keywords your competitors are ranking for or bidding on. But what do you do with them? There are basically three options.
1. Create pages to target these keywords
You can only rank for keywords if you have content about them. So, the most straightforward thing you can do for competitors’ keywords you want to rank for is to create pages to target them.
However, before you do this, it’s worth clustering your competitor’s keywords by Parent Topic. This will group keywords that mean the same or similar things so you can target them all with one page.
Here’s how to do that:
- Export your competitor’s keywords, either from the Organic Keywords or Content Gap report
- Paste them into Keywords Explorer
- Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab
For example, MailChimp ranks for keywords like “what is digital marketing” and “digital marketing definition.” These and many others get clustered under the Parent Topic of “digital marketing” because people searching for them are all looking for the same thing: a definition of digital marketing. You only need to create one page to potentially rank for all these keywords.
2. Optimize existing content by filling subtopics
You don’t always need to create new content to rank for competitors’ keywords. Sometimes, you can optimize the content you already have to rank for them.
How do you know which keywords you can do this for? Try this:
- Export your competitor’s keywords
- Paste them into Keywords Explorer
- Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab
- Look for Parent Topics you already have content about
For example, if we analyze our competitor, we can see that seven keywords they rank for fall under the Parent Topic of “press release template.”
If we search our site, we see that we already have a page about this topic.
If we click the caret and check the keywords in the cluster, we see keywords like “press release example” and “press release format.”
To rank for the keywords in the cluster, we can probably optimize the page we already have by adding sections about the subtopics of “press release examples” and “press release format.”
3. Target these keywords with Google Ads
Paid keywords are the simplest—look through the report and see if there are any relevant keywords you might want to target, too.
For example, Mailchimp is bidding for the keyword “how to create a newsletter.”
If you’re ConvertKit, you may also want to target this keyword since it’s relevant.
If you decide to target the same keyword via Google Ads, you can hover over the magnifying glass to see the ads your competitor is using.
You can also see the landing page your competitor directs ad traffic to under the URL column.
Learn more
Check out more tutorials on how to do competitor keyword analysis:
SEO
Google Confirms Links Are Not That Important
Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed at a recent search marketing conference that Google needs very few links, adding to the growing body of evidence that publishers need to focus on other factors. Gary tweeted confirmation that he indeed say those words.
Background Of Links For Ranking
Links were discovered in the late 1990’s to be a good signal for search engines to use for validating how authoritative a website is and then Google discovered soon after that anchor text could be used to provide semantic signals about what a webpage was about.
One of the most important research papers was Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment by Jon M. Kleinberg, published around 1998 (link to research paper at the end of the article). The main discovery of this research paper is that there is too many web pages and there was no objective way to filter search results for quality in order to rank web pages for a subjective idea of relevance.
The author of the research paper discovered that links could be used as an objective filter for authoritativeness.
Kleinberg wrote:
“To provide effective search methods under these conditions, one needs a way to filter, from among a huge collection of relevant pages, a small set of the most “authoritative” or ‘definitive’ ones.”
This is the most influential research paper on links because it kick-started more research on ways to use links beyond as an authority metric but as a subjective metric for relevance.
Objective is something factual. Subjective is something that’s closer to an opinion. The founders of Google discovered how to use the subjective opinions of the Internet as a relevance metric for what to rank in the search results.
What Larry Page and Sergey Brin discovered and shared in their research paper (The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine – link at end of this article) was that it was possible to harness the power of anchor text to determine the subjective opinion of relevance from actual humans. It was essentially crowdsourcing the opinions of millions of website expressed through the link structure between each webpage.
What Did Gary Illyes Say About Links In 2024?
At a recent search conference in Bulgaria, Google’s Gary Illyes made a comment about how Google doesn’t really need that many links and how Google has made links less important.
Patrick Stox tweeted about what he heard at the search conference:
” ‘We need very few links to rank pages… Over the years we’ve made links less important.’ @methode #serpconf2024″
Google’s Gary Illyes tweeted a confirmation of that statement:
“I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that”
Why Links Matter Less
The initial state of anchor text when Google first used links for ranking purposes was absolutely non-spammy, which is why it was so useful. Hyperlinks were primarily used as a way to send traffic from one website to another website.
But by 2004 or 2005 Google was using statistical analysis to detect manipulated links, then around 2004 “powered-by” links in website footers stopped passing anchor text value, and by 2006 links close to the words “advertising” stopped passing link value, links from directories stopped passing ranking value and by 2012 Google deployed a massive link algorithm called Penguin that destroyed the rankings of likely millions of websites, many of which were using guest posting.
The link signal eventually became so bad that Google decided in 2019 to selectively use nofollow links for ranking purposes. Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed that the change to nofollow was made because of the link signal.
Google Explicitly Confirms That Links Matter Less
In 2023 Google’s Gary Illyes shared at a PubCon Austin that links were not even in the top 3 of ranking factors. Then in March 2024, coinciding with the March 2024 Core Algorithm Update, Google updated their spam policies documentation to downplay the importance of links for ranking purposes.
The documentation previously said:
“Google uses links as an important factor in determining the relevancy of web pages.”
The update to the documentation that mentioned links was updated to remove the word important.
Links are not just listed as just another factor:
“Google uses links as a factor in determining the relevancy of web pages.”
At the beginning of April Google’s John Mueller advised that there are more useful SEO activities to engage on than links.
Mueller explained:
“There are more important things for websites nowadays, and over-focusing on links will often result in you wasting your time doing things that don’t make your website better overall”
Finally, Gary Illyes explicitly said that Google needs very few links to rank webpages and confirmed it.
I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that
— Gary 鯨理／경리 Illyes (so official, trust me) (@methode) April 19, 2024
Why Google Doesn’t Need Links
The reason why Google doesn’t need many links is likely because of the extent of AI and natural language undertanding that Google uses in their algorithms. Google must be highly confident in its algorithm to be able to explicitly say that they don’t need it.
Way back when Google implemented the nofollow into the algorithm there were many link builders who sold comment spam links who continued to lie that comment spam still worked. As someone who started link building at the very beginning of modern SEO (I was the moderator of the link building forum at the #1 SEO forum of that time), I can say with confidence that links have stopped playing much of a role in rankings beginning several years ago, which is why I stopped about five or six years ago.
Read the research papers
Authoritative Sources in a Hyperlinked Environment – Jon M. Kleinberg (PDF)
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
Featured Image by Shutterstock/RYO Alexandre
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