What do search engines consider brand signals?
-
After being hit by the Penguin stick, like good content marketers we are trying to focus on improving brand signals for our site. But I keep coming up against what exactly brand signals are.
I can understand that if you are called 'Ziggle' and someone links to you with that in anchor text or mentions that name, that would be a brand signal. But we're on a generic domain (descriptive of the produt type), so what would constitute brand signals in our case?
-
I'd forgotten about that post, nice one, and it usefully widens the scope of brand signals.
-
I was about to edit my original post to include it, but check out this Feb 2011 article from Rand - he writes specifically about brand signals in some detail.
Lately, I've noticed some big multinationals using search phrases in TV campaigns instead of URLs. I assumed it was largely an SEO play to strengthen brand signals, although some of it could be to do with cutting costs (of creating satellite sites for a promo, maintaining hundreds of random promo-specific domains, etc).
-
That's an interesting idea riplash, I had thought before that a search for our domain with or without the .com might be considered a brand signal - that is, rather than the search being 'keyword1 keyword2' the search is performed as 'keyword1keyword2'. It seems that if that is the case, encouraging search in offline could feed into that.
-
Another key brand signal in my mind (and if it's not, it should be) is people searching for your brand name, or brand name + anchor, in Google to find you, for example SEOmoz must get a lot of traffic every day for people searching "SEOmoz", "SEOmoz rank tracker", etc.
This is obviously more difficult for Google to determine if your brand is also an exact match anchor phrase.
One way to strengthen the signal is to use a search phrase instead of a URL in your real world/print marketing. This could sometimes take a little SEO groundwork to do, but for example, if you are Electric Fan Services Ltd and you have a promo for Honeywell fans, instead of using the URL on your print marketing, add a footer saying something like, "Google 'electric fan services honeywell promo' to discover the deals".
-
Great example in the Electric Fan Services thanks Adam, it applies directly to our situation. We have Keyword Ltd in the footer (as that is actually our registered company name). The trick now will be to see how we can get Keyword Ltd in anchor text. I smell some guest posts approaching.
-
'Would you say then that a link with 'Keywords' as the anchor pointing at http://www.keywords.com would be considered a brand signal?'
Not unless the brand/company name is 'Keywords' also. Even then I would be tempted to use any identifying business extension such as Inc, Ltd etc. So as an example,
Business is called 'Electric Fan Services' website is 'http://www.electricfanservices.com' and main keyword phrase is 'electric fan services' I would make sure the majority of anchors are either 'Electric Fan Services' or 'http://www.electricfanservices.com'. If the business was actually 'Electric Fan Services Ltd.' I would probably adjust the anchor text term accordingly.
Adam.
-
Got it, thanks for taking the time to explain that Ben.
-
That would be my assumption. I'm sure there is some value placed on the links you place from your Facebook page timeline as well but not as much. I would consider this type of stuff to be "signals" not direct brand ranking factors that Google would see. Signals are the first step though and seem to be having a big impact on my client's brand recognition.
-
Thanks for clarifying that Ben. Tell me, how would Google know which Facebook page to associate with your site - I am guessing simply the one that you link to from the site?
-
As far as I can tell, social is a big part of the authentication process and filter of Google for Brand signals. If you establish solid (not spam) social accounts with your brand identity then, yes, I am saying that will help with branding.
A good way to test is by searching your "brand" in google and see what shows up.
-
Thanks Adam. That's interesting - so a link with http://www.keywords.com as the link text is considered a brand signal. That makes sense.
Would you say then that a link with 'Keywords' as the anchor pointing at http://www.keywords.com would be considered a brand signal? This is where it gets fuzzy for me. Clearly, a generic description phrase cannot be claimed as a brand trademark in legal terms, but I'm not sure if the delineation is as stark in the view of the engines.
In our case, our brand is effectively Keywords(.com) which is great if we end up getting the 'Hoover' effect, but not so great if it prevents us from creating a brand strong enough for Google. And of course, as branding decisions go, it was a bad one. Damn you Google and your former preference for exact matches. Damn me and my former preference for easy wins.
One signal we saw on this was that we used to get sitelinks for our generic phrase - in other words, Google considered us the brand for that phrase. That stopped probably 2 years ago and hasn't reappeared since. We still rank 1 for the phrase of course, but that is not as good as being considered a strong brand in our market.
-
Thanks Ben. Are you're saying that social signals to a page on the site would be considered a brand signal?
-
Let's say your brand is 'Ziggle' and your website is http://www.keywords.com then you could simply use 'Ziggle' or 'Ziggle Inc.' or 'http://www.keywords.com' or 'www.keywords.com' as your brand anchors.
Your website, even though it has keywords in it, is still regarded as a brand signal albeit not as strong a signal as just 'Ziggle'. Of course if you just used the commercial keywords as your anchor without the web address, then this is not good.
Ultimately, the point of the Penguin update is over-optimization, that is a very unnatural looking link profile. Therefore you have to ask what anchors to your site would look natural? It is of course absolutely natural to have anchors that contain your entire web address (http://www.keywords.com) even though it has keywords in the domain. Again, it does not look natural when anchors have been over-optimized with keyword rich commercial terms.
Personally, I try to avoid using exact match domains wherever possible.
Hope this helps.
Adam.
-
Social networks, citation sites, and local directories would probably be a good place to start. Since I began a social campaign for one of my (non)brands I've seen a big improvementsin rankings for branded results.
It is really interesting to see you pose your question this way. We have been seeing all the big dogs say that the exact match TLD is going to matter less and less over the coming years. I wonder if this is an indirect attack on that form of SERP manipulation. (note: I'm not saying you were trying to manipulate anything but that is the general use of generic TLDs)
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Considering Moving to New Domain and SEO
Hello, One of our sites has been using a domain since 2005 and is shown below. The domain is terrible for multiple reasons, hyphens and doesn't even reflect our actual company name. Not to mention its embarrassing when telling a customer to email us at support @ pro "dash, yes the hyphen" gift.... I wanted to change it long ago but feared it would hurt my SEO rankings. After taking Bruce Clay's training class back in 2004, we managed to rank top 10 for most targeted keywords. My ranking have slowly dropped over time due to neglect and decaying IBL's. We still rank for a few targeted keywords but it was just August of 2017 we were still top 10 but something happened and we dropped out of the top 100 right before our holiday season. We had to run Adwords and BingAds to supplement traffic this holiday season. So I am wondering before I restart my SEO efforts should I move the domain now before trying to build new content, IBL's, etc? I was always under the impression Google used domain trust a major factor which wasnt only IBL but also domain age. Our preferred domain I purchased from another owner and it has ZERO links to it. It was basically a parked domain with the "domain for sale" stuff. I am a little nervous about moving it over because Google didnt even have it in its index. I put up a coming soon page and hosted it on my server, same C Block, and requested a crawl from my webmaster console. I added some text to the new domain index page and it appears Google is showing results for our old domain! At first I thought it was duplicate content but its not Google obviously has deciphered current site is my old domain and is displaying the title and meta data from the old domain. I have never seen this before. Google cache shows the current domain the new domain url. A few questions: Will my site get sandboxed after 301 redirecting and going webmaster console move features etc? Does this reset the trust factors? I have read examples in my research where some people say it only took a few weeks and everything was back to normal and others that have said it took years. Any experience or insight is greatly appreciated. I am currently relearning SEO and going over the SEO tutorial articles provided on moz. Thanks again! New Domain - matches our company name, no hyphens, better branding http://www.giftbasketpros.com/ Google index https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.giftbasketpros.com Current Domain, since 2005, has ranked well for years until this summer http://www.pro-gift-baskets.com/
Branding | | DMAC441 -
Why does our Facebook not show up when searching for our business name?
Our Facebook is titled NJ & PA Personal Injury Attorney Richard P. Console Jr., and the url is Facebook.com/myinjuryattorney, and our website is www.consoleandhollawell.com. Because of the different names, we put social schema on our site which we thought would help Google associate the two. It doesn't seem to be working as we are not showing up in the serp's when searching for "Console & Hollawell Facebook" and even "Richard Console Facebook" Could anyone give any insight as to why? Thank you!
Branding | | marketingdepartment.ch0 -
Facebook page not appearing in search results
Could anyone give a reason as to why a facebook page wouldn't be appearing in search results? - I've setup numerous facebook Pages for businesses and they usually get indexed and start appearing in the SERPs for their respective name/brand name relatively quickly, but have a Page for a business (which has even been quite active recently) and it's nowhere to be seen in Google's results (not even on a search for the complete URL). Any thoughts appreciated, thanks. Greg
Branding | | GregDixson0 -
Moving to new domain - Social and Branding Questions?
Hi, We are moving to a new domain because our rankings drastically dropped and we want to "start over". For example - If my company is called Joes Computers and the domain was JoesComputers.com and the new domain which will hold our e-commerce website will be completely different for example - BestComputers.com - which do I brand? Which do I put as suffix in all titles?
Branding | | BeytzNet
COOL TITLE FOR PRODUCTS | Best Computers
or
COOL TITLE FOR PRODUCTS | Joes Computers Which name do I take for social profiles? Company or Domain?
(We currently have for the company since it was the same). Please note that our company name is already a little bit known... and therefore inside the website it will be labeled in Logos etc. We would also state "Best Computers by Joes Computers" (as if it is a sub brand or daughter company). Thanks,0 -
Can anything be done for a single brand page on a corporate site?
I was asked by a friend if there was anyway I could help promote the watch brand that they are responsible for. The brand has only one page on the corporate site. http://gevrilgroup.com/fortis-watches/ My first reaction is that this is impossible to do without creating a stand alone web site and then doing some super cool marketing to get your brand noticed out of the sea of watch manufacturers. My second gut reaction is to stand clear of this request and not get myself tangled in something that will require a lot of resources for someone on a low budget. Any suggestions?
Branding | | irvingw0 -
Subject: Brand anchor text distribution. Does the HP url classify as brand anchor?
Hi guys, I just wanted to know what your take is on this and whether anyone knows if google has published any info on this. I am wanting to analyse a fairly large backlink profile. The idea is to discover how far it correlates alongside recent SERPS ranking data (based on anchor text distribution) information that has been published across the web. There is so much data to categorise and segment. This is due to overlaps in categorisation, (which is possibly a good thing as it appears more natural) though I often it difficult to decide which goes where. My question today relates to brand anchor text - in determining the % of overall brand distribution for a backlink profile - Which out of the below do you think rings true? 1.) Should I be considering the homepage url anchor text as a branded link anchor? 2.) Should the brand % just be 'pure brand' anchor text? 3.) Should it contain partial brand + KWD data? 4.) Should it comprise of all of the above elements? 5.) Should I divvy up / segment partial brand, pure brand, brand + kwd, citations etc into new sub categories and see how this individual data correlates to current ranking factors in the SERPS? (Not sure if there is any recent published data in this amount of detail) Anyway, I just wondered what you guys thought about this in the eyes of Google., and also to find out how you go about classifying and segmenting backlink profile data. Thanks for now
Branding | | Turkey0 -
Should we have customers like our URL or our Facebook brand page?
(Note: main question in bold) I know this post basically establishes that Facebook shares are not a strong cause of increased rankings. But what about likes? I've searched and read through the forum and YouMoz blog but haven't really found this question answered. We just redesigned our site and we're implementing sharing options in the booking and order completion processes - should we point the Facebook Like button to like our URL or our Facebook brand page (currently with 3,800+ likes)? Seems that a like of the URL would be more direct ranking value (what we're going for), but according to that same post mentioned above, Google doesn't crawl or index FB wall pages... so is all Facebook activity - shares, url likes, brand page likes - for naught? (at least for now, till Google starts using that info)
Branding | | DanielH0 -
Do you buy keyword strong domains around your brand?
Do you buy keyword domains around your brand? If so do you do this for future use or for redirecting to a sub domain off your core site or for other reasons?
Branding | | charlesgrimm0