Why a high Google rank is becoming ‘worthless’

Google now personalizes search results based on location, content type, and more. How and why you must adjust your strategy to reflect the new model.

Ragan Insider Premium Content
Ragan Insider Content

I stress “dangerously” because while rankings have been a poor barometer of SEO effectiveness for a while, they have now devolved to nearly worthless.

Monitoring rankings will no longer get you closer to more traffic.

Why rankings don’t cut it

There was a time when search rankings were a healthy obsession; when landing on the first page really meant something.

Long ago in a world far away, everybody saw the same thing: Google search engine results pages (SERPs) displayed a universal and consistent set of results for a given search term. Moving from page 10 to page one could make the difference between no organic traffic and thousands of hits per day.

Today, several factors have obliterated this model:

To read the full story, log in.
Become a Ragan Insider member to read this article and all other archived content.
Sign up today

Already a member? Log in here.
Learn more about Ragan Insider.