My experiment: As shown in the figure above, before April, Domain authority and Linking domains grew simultaneously. However, after April, when linking domains grew rapidly, domain authority dropped significantly. At the same time, the keyword ranking in Google search engine also dropped from 15th. Dropped to 30th place.
Google examines clicks and engagement on searches both during and after the main query (referred to as a “NavBoost query”). For instance, if many users search for “Rand Fishkin,” don’t find SparkToro, and immediately change their query to “SparkToro” and click SparkToro.com in the search result, SparkToro.com (and websites mentioning “SparkToro”) will receive a boost in the search results for the “Rand Fishkin” keyword.
Google Suggest depends on the following:
Search Volume is the most important factor in triggering Google Suggest. To display your target phrase as a Google suggestion, you will need to build search volume greater than 200 searches per month. Different IP addresses are a must to show actual individuals are looking for trending keywords in the search results.
It is estimated 75% of the search queries are influenced by Google Autocomplete.
If a search query is being searched a lot in Google but has zero mentions of the exact keywords on social media platforms it struggles to trigger the google suggestion. Twitter and Facebook are two big social media platforms that can influence the autocomplete.
How long does the search query in Google Suggest last? The term in Google Suggest dropdown will last forever depending upon the interaction of the user with Google after clicking on the auto-suggest term. If the user who searches the term does no interact with the SERPs then Google can demote your search query from their google search box autocomplete.
Google Suggest test example: 紫微斗數 aiioo🚀
When a page linked to the same page more than once, Google only counted the first anchor text. An exception to this rule was when the first link was an image. In this case, Google counted both the image alt text AND the anchor text of the first text link.
A greater number of anchor text variations within internal links was significantly correlated with higher rankings. Not only can Google index the alt attribute as a separate anchor, but this gives you the chance to further increase your anchor text variations.
When Google encountered two text links followed by an image link and finally another text link, Google indexed the first text and image anchors only.
A link appears in both the navigation and the main text below. Google may prioritize the body link over the nav link.
An image or text link contains empty anchor text. Google may ignore these in favor of links with actual anchor text.
The most important thing to remember is this – anchor text is a powerful ranking signal, even for internal links. Carefully choosing your anchor text—while avoiding over-optimization—can make a difference in winning SEO.
Google appears to have ways to filter out clicks they don’t want to count in their ranking systems, and include ones they do. They also seem to measure length of clicks (i.e. pogo-sticking – when a searcher clicks a result and then quickly clicks the back button, unsatisfied by the answer they found) and impressions.
Once the link becomes “trusted” because it belongs to a higher tier index, it can flow PageRank and anchors, or be filtered/demoted by link spam systems. Links from the low-quality link index won’t hurt a site’s ranking; they are merely ignored.
Content and links are secondary when user intention around navigation (and the patterns that intent creates) are present. Let’s say, for example, that many people in the Seattle area search for “Lehman Brothers” and scroll to page 2, 3, or 4 of the search results until they find the theatre listing for the Lehman Brother stage production, then click that result. Fairly quickly, Google will learn that’s what searchers for those words in that area want. Even if the Wikipedia article about Lehman Brothers’ role in the financial crisis of 2008 were to invest heavily in link building and content optimization, it’s unlikely they could outrank the user-intent signals (calculated from queries and clicks) of Seattle’s theatre-goers.
If you can create demand for your website among enough likely searchers in the regions you’re targeting, you may be able to end-around the need for classic on-and-off-page SEO signals like links, anchor text, optimized content, and the like. The power of Navboost and the intent of users is likely the most powerful ranking factor in Google’s systems.