I just got an email from my wife’s Denver Roller Derby Team asking how they could rank better for the term Roller Derby Denver. Within the conversation thread (it went through a few people before making its way to me) someone said they thought Google ranked pages based on how many times people clicked on the link everyone on the team should search for the term and click on their result - which was on the third page.

I wrote back, explaining that it probably has more to do with the fact that not a single one of those three terms exists in the title, that all of their pages have exactly the same meta description and keywords, that the URLs are generated dynamically and that they’re using Mambo, etc.

So listen up, for those of you who think the key to Google is how often your result is clicked on:

If it were that easy, I would have created a robot program that searches for my listing 100 times per minute, skipping IP addresses from all around the world using proxy servers, and clicks on my result every time. I would then make a website about credit cards or mortgage loans, and me and my wife Polly Wanna Smack Her, would be living on our own island in the Pacific.

 …but you could come and visit.

The truth is, the folks working on Google’s ranking algorithm are some of the smartest people in the world. So please, give them a little credit. And while you’re at it, read the following paper, which was written by the two guys who started Google and forms the basis for their ranking algorithm, although it has been updated many times since:
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine .

Or some of the many Google Papers and Algo patent applications out there such as:
Detecting spam documents in a phrase based information retrieval system
Systems and Methods for Providing Search Results
Personalization of placed content ordering in search results
Determining ad targeting information and/or ad creative information using past search queries
Or the one discussed here

The what is the biggest Google SEO Ranking Myth of All Time?
“Sites that show up first are there because more people click on them”

And the real reason I wrote this post? Well, as an excuse to provide my wife’s team with keyword-rich anchor text from a well-positioned domain. And to vent…