SEO Is Testing And Learning

Google is not 100% transparent on what it takes to get to the top of SERPs. If they were, would the serps be better or worse? This is where testing comes in.
Marie Aquino
January 27, 2022

While Google does provide guidance on what it looks for in a page to rank, they also state that they consider hundreds of factors when it comes to ranking sites. They are not very transparent about what it takes to rank and what particular steps are needed, to get to that coveted top spot.

In a recent poll on Twitter on whether the SERPs will be better or worse if Google was 100% transparent about how to rank organically and its ranking factors, 78.3% of respondents answered that the SERPs would be worse if we know exactly what needs to be done in order to rank.

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This answer probably stems from how knowing exactly what it would take to rank would tend to increase spammers and spam results in search. So by this kind of thinking, we tend to recognize why Google is not 100% transparent when it comes to their ranking factors and what needs to be done.

In the Google Search Central SEO and Devs episode last January 26, Martin was joined by Jenn Mathews, SEO manager of Github.

Part of their discussion is how a lot of people think SEO is a bunch of smoke and mirrors and how there is no concrete evidence when it comes to SEO information. As mentioned earlier, Google does not exactly provide the information, which makes people distrustful cause when it comes to SEO, we never know exactly which is which. There is no basis.

This is where testing and learning come in. Mathews mentioned that everything is always tested. Test something and if it works, then great. If not, then try something else and just keep doing it.

Splitt agreed to the sentiment and how as developers, they find things out and run experiments to test a hypothesis. If something is presented that contradicts intuition, an experiment is run to find out if it is true or not, in this case, if it works or not.

One of the main takeaways in the episode is the importance of testing and learning. We cannot know everything, we do not have a solid basis for things – how search works, the different factors, what works, and what doesn’t. This is why testing things is very important – to get to the bottom of things, to learn as much as we could.

As Martin said, testing is “beautifully simple and yet, rarely done.”

This is how the SEO Intelligence Agency was born. There is so much information out there on what works, what doesn’t, which is a factor, which is not, tips and tricks, strategies, and all that.

Information that is being spread around that people believe and trust and apply, cross their fingers and wait to see if it works.

Rarely do we see people that test things out in a controlled environment, to get to the bottom of things, to see if it works or not, if it is worth the time, effort, and resources to apply.

At the SEO Intelligence Agency, we test things in a single variable test, within a controlled environment, to be able to know and learn more about what really works and not, so that you can spend your time, effort, and resources on things that work, and stop wasting it on things that do not.

Join our testing club and get to the bottom of things. Check out seointel.com