SEO Superstition: Ranking Signals Are Not One Google Juice

Where’s the hidden juice! It looks empty!

There is no hidden Google juice that miraculously determines the ranking in Google’s results.

Google’s “search advocate” John Mueller flatly ignores questions that even mention the term “link juice”.

Yet why is it still so widely used? Is it just tradition? Let’s untangle the superstition from reality in SEO!


PageRank vs 200 ranking signals

Let’s recapitulate the evolution of Google’s ranking algorithm.

In the early years Google’s revolutionary PageRank algorithm counted the number and value of links – aka link juice.

One day Google disclosed that about 200+ so called “signals” determine your ranking in the search results though.

The large number of ranking signals wasn’t very surprising news to me or people who followed search engine optimization news.

By then it was obvious that you could have a high PageRank (or a lot of “Google juice”) and not rank well at all.

By 2024 there are like 14k ranking signals and 18 ranking systems that decide about the fate of each document.

Just getting “link juice” or “Google juice” by buying links or similar outdated practices focusing on one vanity metric won’t cut it!


Facing the reality of Google’s algorithm

Like Phillip of Google Blogoscoped has aptly summarized it, signals, classifiers and topicality count. Thus it’s not that simple.

You can’t even reduce these proverbial 200+ signals into one term.

Dubbing it Google juice like search was another Spaceballs movie won’t help.

Please read the list of 200 ranking signals compiled by Brian Dean.

Do me the favor and quit that oversimplification reinforcing SEO superstition.

Ranking is not about one metrics or the invisible and ominous Google juice.

Times are more complex nowadays. There is a list of ranking factors you should look at.

  • It’s not just about the links.
  • It’s not just about Google juice.
  • It’s not about the force some Jedi might master.

We live in a complex world, let’s just face it.

I didn’t even mention Universal Search yet in this post when I originally wrote it.

Legacy PageRank is one signal among myriads while other signals count even more.

By 2024 with its around 14k leaked ranking signals

are among the top things to look at.

* Creative Commons image by Rob Bertholf

 

, , ,
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap