Despite having previously clarified this issue, Google’s Search Liaison addresses whether traffic diversity is a ranking factor.
Google’s Search Liaison tweeted a recommendation to diversify traffic sources, clearly explaining the rationale behind this advice. However, days later, someone inquired if traffic diversity is a ranking factor, prompting him to reiterate that it is not.
What Was Said
Whether traffic diversity was a ranking factor emerged from a previous tweet discussing whether a site owner should focus on off-site promotion. Here’s the question from the original debate that was tweeted:
“Can you please tell me if I’m doing right by focusing on my site and content – writing new articles to be found through search – or if I should focus on some off-site effort related to building a readership? Seeing traffic go down the more effort I put in is frustrating.”
The search liaison (Danny Sullivan) split the question into components and answered each part. When addressing the off-site promotion aspect, he drew from his extensive experience as a journalist and publisher covering technology and search marketing.
To make his response clearer, here’s a breakdown of his answer. This part of the tweet discusses off-site activities:
“As to the off-site effort question, I think from what I know from before I worked at Google Search, as well as my time being part of the search ranking team, is that one of the ways to be successful with Google Search is to think beyond it.”
He means simple: don’t limit your strategy to making your site appeal solely to Google.
He further explains that successful sites are those designed to appeal to people.
Search Liaison continued:
“Great sites with content that people like receive traffic in many ways. People go to them directly. They come via email referrals. They arrive via links from other sites. They get social media mentions.”
What he’s saying is that you’ll know you’re appealing to people if your site is discussed on social media, referred to by other sites, and cited with links.
Other indicators of a site’s success include engagement in the comments section, follow-up questions via email, emails of thanks, and shared anecdotes of satisfaction with a product or advice.
Consider this: the fast-fashion site Shein, at one point, didn’t rank for its chosen keyword phrases, yet it was virally popular and making huge sales by gamifying site interaction and engagement, which propelled it to become a global brand. A similar strategy helped Zappos when it pioneered no-questions-asked returns and cheerful customer service.
Search Liaison continued:
“It just means you’re likely building a normal site in the sense that it’s not just intended for Google but instead for people. And that’s what our ranking systems are trying to reward: good content made for people.”
Search Liaison explicitly stated that building sites with diversified content is not a ranking factor.
He added this caveat to his tweet:
“This doesn’t mean you should get a bunch of social or email mentions because these will somehow magically rank you better in Google (they don’t, from how I know things).”
Despite The Caveat
A journalist recently highlighted a discussion sparked by @searchliaison’s encouragement for people to diversify their traffic sources earlier this week. Naturally, this led to questions about whether traffic diversity was a ranking factor.
Seeking clarification, the journalist reached out to @iPullRank for his perspective. Search Liaison reiterated that he had explicitly stated traffic diversity is not a ranking factor, providing a link to his original tweet for reference:
“I mean, that’s not exactly what I said, but rather than repeat all that, I’ll just add the link to what I did say:”
In response, the journalist acknowledged the distinction:
“I would say this calls for publishers to diversify their traffic since you’re saying the great sites do it. It’s the right advice to give.”
Search Liaison clarified further:
“It’s the part of ‘does it matter for rankings’ that I was making clear wasn’t what I myself said. Yes, I think that’s generally good, but it’s not the only thing or the magic thing.”
Not Everything Is About Ranking Factors
There’s a longstanding practice among some SEOs to dissect everything Google publishes in search of clues about how its algorithm operates. This trend was evident with the Search Quality Raters guidelines. Google inadvertently fuels this by generally refraining from confirming whether something is a ranking factor.
This fixation on identifying “ranking factors” often leads to misinformation. Understanding how information retrieval functions requires deeper insight, involving reading research papers and patents to grasp the broader mechanics.
The least effective method of comprehending search mechanisms is formulating hypotheses about Google’s operations and then combing through documents to validate those assumptions—falling prey to confirmation bias. If navigating this seems daunting, consider exploring our monthly SEO packages to benefit from expert guidance.
