The Three Kings of SEO

Rand Fishkin

SEOmoz

@RandFish

Chase Granberry

Authority Labs

Mike Roberts

SpyFu

Webinar Host

Byron White

ideaLaunch &

WriterAccess

The Three Kings of SEO

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Special thanks for the feedback, conversations, insights and camaraderie!

http://www.idealaunch.com/blog/content/serp-tracking-camaraderie/

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Tracking search engine result positions (SERP) continues to be an important element for SEO.

Situation

Tracking SERP requires scraping techniques by third party SEO Tool providers

Complexity

Scraping search engines may or may not violate terms and conditions of search engines

The Divide

Two camps are forming as the industry divides: Compliance vs Scraping

Fireside Chat

Welcome 3 of today’s industry leaders providing SERP tracking services

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Last week Jon Henshaw thoughtfully announced that Raven Tools would discontinue SERP tracking to comply with the Adwords API terms of service.

"[SERP Trackers] are probably going to be out of business in 6-12 months because of that business model.”

“We really do believe that before the end of 2013...you're really going to have to pick a side.”

"You are either going to be in compliance.. and innovate your way out of this, or you going to be defiant and go your own way. ”

“All it takes is a copy and paste (TOS)...to enforce that across the board…so it's an educated guess...that's where things are going."

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Is the sky falling when it comes to SERP tracking?

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Nathan Goldberg, Rank Ranger…

SERP tracking is where we dedicate most of our resources. It is a core service in Rank Ranger's SEO toolkit, and we will

not consider discontinuing that service for any reason. One camp is arguing that keyword rankings are useless because

of personalisation, localisation, ‘Not Provided’ and different devices, and that we should be focusing on different

metrics. The other camp argues that keyword rankings still have value as it is something that all customers universally

understand and still want, and although there are quality difficulties it is still very valuable data that helps you understand

how to setup a campaign properly in the first place and how to track whether the changes you are making are moving

the needle. I think both camps have valid points.

Scott Krager, Serps…

I think keyword rankings are a vital metric, and when used correctly can be incredibly insightful. Anyone who says

otherwise is doing it wrong. Ranks aren't the best metric, but they are a darn good leading indicator, and for client work

they are often the one metric that's understood and appreciated.

BringShare…

We believe strongly in a combination of metrics to tell a story about SEO performance. We provide SERP tracking and

trending graphs, and we place equal emphasis on whether or not visits/conversions can be attributed to search traffic

from those keywords being monitored. Going forward, we will continue to provide SERP tracking data and continue to

add tools that place emphasis on the corresponding results.

Nick Cuttonaro, MicrositeMasters…

We see the future of rank tracking to remain an essential aspect of SEO. Understanding and tracking where websites

are ranking helps determine where improvements are possible so visibility goals can be achieved.”

Is the sky falling when it comes to SERP tracking?

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What is your favorite beer? And are you drinking it at this moment?

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What is your favorite beer? And are you drinking it at this moment?

Sergiu Draganus, Keyword Search Rankings…

That’s a tough question. I like the most unfiltered beer

from the German breweries: excellent taste and

flavor. I am not drinking right now, but for sure after

these questions are answered.


London Pride, you bet ya!


Not a beer fan. More of a Diet Coke guy myself.

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Why doesn’t Google or Bing provide SERP tracking as a service?

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Why doesn’t Google or Bing provide SERP tracking as a service?


Access to rankings is allowing SEOers to better understand Google algorithms and once

the algorithm is known, it can be abused ... this is the reason Google stays one step in

front of the SEOers by changing the algorithms so often – to improve results and

eliminate spam.


We don’t have inside information at Google, Yahoo or Bing, but can speculate. We believe

that Google will not develop their own because they want to keep their algorithm safe /

behind the scenes and protect their data as they are currently doing with the random

SERP results update and the backlinks data of domains that are hidden from the public.


Bing does have an API. My guess is that it's just not a priority for Google right now. They

seem pretty focused on a certain key aspects of their business...providing more data for

SEOs doesn't seem high up their list right now.

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What is SERP tracking going to look like in 12 months? How will it be different?

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What is SERP tracking going to look like in 12 months? How will it be different?


SERP tracking will go local. Take a look to the following heatmap report:

http://www.keywordsearchrankings.com/keywordreport/pizza-delivery-pizzahut.com-SERP-Position-Report-4cce17a315

pizzahut.com is ranking for searches on "pizza delivery" from 1st in Austin to 13th in New York.

To improve your own strategy and to measure the performance of your SEO campaign, the only way to identify the local

SEO factors implemented by top ranking websites is by analyzing Local SERP Rankings Reports. And the easiest way

is to do this is by analyzing the Organic Heatmap Ranking Reports as the ones generated by KeySR


Well, IMHO I think that the SERP trackers that survive will be those like Rank Ranger who have developed a vast

infrastructure with intelligent crawling capabilities and a team that’s able to react quickly to the ever-changing algorithms

and needs of Internet marketers.


Not much different.

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http://pizzahut.com/

Dear Santa….What changes would you like to see in the SEO industry?

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Dear Santa….What changes would you like to see in the SEO industry?


I would like SEOers to understand the real impact of local SEO factors on

organic rankings. In the same time they would realize that local SEO is not

just SEO+local keywords but much more than this.


A true competitor to Google – but for now, I’d be happy with a couple kegs

or even cases of London Pride!

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Raven customers need SERP Tracking and performance reports. Any love?

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We are offering not only old SERP tracking the way Raven did, but also the new local

SERP tracking, which ads lot of value to the local SEO campaigns.


When it comes to SERPs reports we have it all, a vast selection of highly

customizable reports and tools to suit their needs. Our basic reports already include

search volume, PPC competition, backlinks (from MajesticSEO and Ahrefs), Page

Rank, daily/weekly/monthly changes, averages, overall performance, landing page

change alerts and more. Rank Ranger reports can be white- labeled, scheduled

and/or exported to a variety of formats including PDF, and an API is also available.

We've prepared this post to help Raven users better understand how Rank Ranger's

SEO tools can be used in their business:

http://www.rankranger.com/index.php?p=docs-blog&dp=116

Rank Ranger is offering Raven’s customers a tool to import their historical data plus a

60-day free trial package (an upgrade from our usual 30-day trial).

Raven customers need SERP Tracking and performance reports. Any love?

[email protected]




“The only marketing left

is content marketing.”

Seth Godin

Rand Fishkin

SEOmoz

@RandFish

Chase Granberry

Authority Labs

Mike Roberts

SpyFu

Webinar Host

Byron White

ideaLaunch &

WriterAccess

[email protected]

The Three Kings of SEO

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