Citations Appearing in Search Results and Getting PR2+ "Do-Follow" Backlinks?

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2 questions:

1. How long does it take on average for citations to appear in search results? For example: if you've submitted your business to Yelp or Yahoo Local or whatever directory you go to and everything is processing, how long does it take for your business listing to go live and actually show up in search results? Also how long does it take for other business directories to feed off? eg: directory 18, 40, and 52 will post up the listing 6 weeks after directory 15 posting up a listing.

2. if a social network page and citation site is ranking higher than the actual website in the search results, what type of sites do you preferably or specifically go to for attaining backlinks from to rank higher? I know the on-page content has to be good but what about backlinks? for example: you can go to site 2, site 3, and site 7 for a backlink and boom, your rank increases by 4 spots.
#appearing #backlinks #citations #dofollow #pr2 #results #search
  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    You're asking about link from some random third party appearing on their site, and after that in a search engine. Do you really expect an answer to this? How about asking the third party first.

    No, you can't tell if the new backlinks actually affect your rankings in that manner. Google's algorithm is much too complex to make such predictions.
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    • Profile picture of the author windrider07
      Originally Posted by nettiapina View Post

      You're asking about link from some random third party appearing on their site, and after that in a search engine. Do you really expect an answer to this? How about asking the third party first.

      No, you can't tell if the new backlinks actually affect your rankings in that manner. Google's algorithm is much too complex to make such predictions.
      An experienced SEO could actually make such a prediction, though not 100%, STILL a pretty good prediction.

      And yes, I do expect an answer. How will asking a third party help? "Hi, if you link to my site, how long will it take for my site to appear in the search engine results?" That third party better be good at SEO. A lot of people in SEO are good at link building and could make a pretty good prediction. Some have some good experiences and stories to tell. I, myself could make a prediction but I know there are other people more experienced than me.

      And not a "random third party". Did you even read my post? If you were trying to rank up a coffee mug website that sells coffee stuff, obviously you will try to get backlinks from coffee-related blogs and article sites. Question is: what specific sites do people go to for reaching out and in what order? SEO people have different strategies and I'm always interested in learning those different strategies.
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      • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
        Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

        An experienced SEO could actually make such a prediction, though not 100%, STILL a pretty good prediction.
        You asked for ranking update that comes from adding a few backlinks. I've not seen an experienced SEO who's willing to take such a bet.

        Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

        And yes, I do expect an answer. How will asking a third party help?
        The first part your question was about how long it takes for them to post the link ("your business listing to go live"), in case you didn't notice. They probably know their processing queues, which you were asking on a public forum. For a case that's apparently a hypothetical one.

        Indexing usually happens in a few days or up to a couple of weeks, but there's no guarantees. Maybe Google can't access paged results on "Whatever Directory". Or whatever. There's constant flow of people on WF SEO wondering why Google didn't see their backlinks.

        Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

        That third party better be good at SEO.
        I didn't even imply that the third party knew something about SEO.

        Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

        Some have some good experiences and stories to tell.
        So you were after some random anecdotes? Just say so, we're all full of those.

        Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

        Did you even read my post?
        Yes. It's apparent that you didn't read your own post, however.

        Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

        Question is: what specific sites do people go to for reaching out and in what order? SEO people have different strategies and I'm always interested in learning those different strategies.
        Now, that's a tad better, but it's still pretty weird way to put it. Specific advice for a completely hypothetical case? Link building always depends on your resources, and the actual site. If it's just another one of these low-quality sites floating around your approach has to be different than ranking a top-notch site. Probably involves either building your own back linking sites, or buying links.

        What seems to be the low-hanging fruit? That's what I'd try to take first. Sometimes it's bloggers, sometimes it's your own properties, sometimes it's directories. Start by spying your competition.
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  • Profile picture of the author windrider07
    Well basically, what I am trying to figure out it this:

    For the SEO, NOT the directory, because a directory can say "it might take 2-3 months for your listing to go live" and the SEO will observe the listing and see it go live in 6 weeks so while it was indeed 2 months, the more exact timeframe was 1 month and 2 weeks approximately or 1 and a half months.

    So I like to see what experienced SEOs have observed in how long it takes for their listings to go live on certain directories like Yelp and others. and THEN, how long will it take for their listing to APPEAR in search engine results AND was their WEBSITE ranking AFFECTED?


    Second,

    different SEOs have different link building strategy.

    example: find 5 blogs that relate to your niche, reach out to them for backlinks or guest posting. spend 1 month posting on social media. then shoot out a press release.

    or another example: find the top 5 sites that ahrefs reports for your biggest competitor. get backlinks from them, then spend 1 month on social media.

    so yea....I'm interested i knowing what strategies have been proven successful for people who have ranked their sites.
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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

      So I like to see what experienced SEOs have observed in how long it takes for their listings to go live on certain directories like Yelp and others. and THEN, how long will it take for their listing to APPEAR in search engine results AND was their WEBSITE ranking AFFECTED?
      I'm not sure if any of this ever goes through to you, but that's impossible to answer. Whenever you rephrase the question it just gets weird in a different way.

      If you're asking about a directory, then name the directory. I'm not sure if Yelp is really used for SEO purposes that much, and Yahoo directory is EOL'd as far as I know. There's a bunch of paid directories that some SEOs use, but their processing queues depend on the directory.

      If Google can crawl a directory it should not be too long for that link to appear.

      How does an individual link affect your website ranking? Usually that's impossible to say. If your rankings got better maybe it's something you did last month, or the previous one, or the newest links that were indexed two weeks ago. Or most likely it's the cumulative effect.

      What sort of answer are you expecting? The web and Google just fundamentally don't work like you expect them to work. The former has all sort of crap around, and the latter has build a complex engine to analyze that crap. You can't poke it with a single or even a handful of links, and expect to see something conclusive.

      Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

      different SEOs have different link building strategy.
      Yes. So you already know a bunch of these strategies, or series of steps that someone else took. Does it seem likely to you that you need to take them in a certain order, or just the exact steps? I don't think so. This is why I spoke about taking the site and scenario in account. Sometimes it's this, other times it's that.

      These war stories are good in that they give you ideas, but you already seem to have those. If not, surf and read more. You just need to spot the opportunities and seize the day.

      Start from analysis, after that begin anything that's not worthless BS. I would not spend time on social media and call it SEO, because it's not.
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  • I have magically super seo powers though. I know exactly how many backlinks it takes to rank a keyword. I'm so good at it actually i can tell you how many days, hours and minutes it will take.

    p.s: that was sarcasm
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    • Profile picture of the author windrider07
      Originally Posted by TotalWebsiteControl View Post

      I have magically super seo powers though. I know exactly how many backlinks it takes to rank a keyword. I'm so good at it actually i can tell you how many days, hours and minutes it will take.

      p.s: that was sarcasm
      I've seen quite a few people who got on first page after 2 weeks of focusing on content. I am betting there are also others who were able to track their rankings while doing backlinks. It's not about how many days, hours, and minutes it will take. Days is fine. eg: Ranking went up to 1st page after doing some PR3 do-follow article directory sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author windrider07
    Google Pagerank Update History (Last Toolbar Update December 2013)

    An updated article. It emphasis that the toolbar will not be updated. PR can still exist outside of the toolbar and the metrics that influenced PR are still worth focusing on.
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  • Profile picture of the author windrider07
    Ok.....here's MY example:


    Lets say I used MOZ Local for citation submission and I did it probably 2 months ago. Yet the only citations I see in the search results are Yelp, Manta, and Yellow Pages. Why there's no more popping up?

    My competitors that pop up in the top positions. I took a quick glimpse of their backlink portfolio and they've got thousands of backlinks. Now in 2015 post-Penguin era, it's about the quality, not quantity. The competing sites might also be aged as well. So how would I outrank them? Would a dozen authoritative do-follow backlinks beat thousands of backlinks that may or may not be good quality? I know a lot of people would suggest focusing on on-page optimization and site outreach. Aged domains are hard to beat unless you have some authority sites linking to you with do-follow.

    I have a 3-year old site that I made for someone.....never built any backlinks for it (though they probably did in their own time). I just created some pages on their site and made their keywords good. Their site is now #1 position for some keywords. And again, it's a very aged domain. Not sure how well the competitors of that site are doing. It's a site targeting a not-so-competitive niche in a small town whereas the site I am working on now is targeting a competitive niche in an entire country (haven't focused much on what specific areas/regions I can focus on to drive revenue).
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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

      Now in 2015 post-Penguin era, it's about the quality, not quantity.
      Penguin didn't change that. One of the basic idea of PageRank is that the stronger the link the more it helps.

      Having thousands of poor-quality links doesn't necessarily hurt a site, but you don't need to built those.

      Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

      The competing sites might also be aged as well.
      Domain age isn't a ranking factor, or it's a very very weak one. Sure, if being "aged" means an established site with a decent backlink profile that's hard to compete against with the main keyword.

      Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

      Would a dozen authoritative do-follow backlinks beat thousands of backlinks that may or may not be good quality?
      They might. That's sort of the basic idea. However, even if your backlinks were "authoritative" the linking site may have 50 links on the same page. Those are all diluting the backlink you're getting. Also, some SEOs believe that Google doesn't appreciate certain types of links such as footer or sig links. And it's usually the case that your new link ends up on a new page, and doesn't last long on the strong pages of the site.

      Are you using one of the backlink tools such as Ahrefs or Majestic? Pick a metric, do some comparisons to get a picture how they work and what to expect, start counting links on the linking pages, and you're able to do some very rough calculations. This doesn't answer the question "how many do I need?", but at least the basic one: "is this link a good one?"
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      • Originally Posted by nettiapina View Post

        Penguin didn't change that. One of the basic idea of PageRank is that the stronger the link the more it helps.

        Having thousands of poor-quality links doesn't necessarily hurt a site, but you don't need to built those.



        Domain age isn't a ranking factor, or it's a very very weak one. Sure, if being "aged" means an established site with a decent backlink profile that's hard to compete against with the main keyword.



        They might. That's sort of the basic idea. However, even if your backlinks were "authoritative" the linking site may have 50 links on the same page. Those are all diluting the backlink you're getting. Also, some SEOs believe that Google doesn't appreciate certain types of links such as footer or sig links. And it's usually the case that your new link ends up on a new page, and doesn't last long on the strong pages of the site.

        Are you using one of the backlink tools such as Ahrefs or Majestic? Pick a metric, do some comparisons to get a picture how they work and what to expect, start counting links on the linking pages, and you're able to do some very rough calculations. This doesn't answer the question "how many do I need?", but at least the basic one: "is this link a good one?"
        I agree with you. I experienced something while working on few websites that Links from different Ip addresses and Number of links form different domain with good authority work very well. Majestic is one of the good tool if we will try to check competitor's back links simply we can conclude where we have to put our efforts.
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          different SEOs have different link building strategy.

          example: find 5 blogs that relate to your niche, reach out to them for backlinks or guest posting. spend 1 month posting on social media. then shoot out a press release.

          or another example: find the top 5 sites that ahrefs reports for your biggest competitor. get backlinks from them, then spend 1 month on social media.

          First, if any SEO spends 1 month posting on social media and calls that a link building strategy, you should probably stop paying attention to that SEO.

          Second, nobody is going to be able to give you a timeframe on when directory listings might show up in a SERP. It's largely relative to the market place you are competing in. For example, I can get a Yelp listing to show up on page 1 in a small town for a local sushi restaurant within a few weeks after it goes live. If it was New York City, on the other hand, that Yelp listing will probably never make it to page one, or page two, or page three.
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  • Profile picture of the author windrider07
    For example, I can get a Yelp listing to show up on page 1 in a small town for a local sushi restaurant within a few weeks after it goes live. If it was New York City, on the other hand, that Yelp listing will probably never make it to page one, or page two, or page three.
    Why?

    What is the point of citation listings if they don't even show up in search? Does Google just say "ok, this business is credible....it is trustworthy...+5 to its score.....but screw the listing, not important."?

    Not very many people will actually go to Yelp and look up business listings. Actually many do, but I am guessing the amount of people who search organically is more than the amount of people who search via directory. eg: "soccer clubs in florida" vs "soccer clubs florida yelp"
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

      Why?

      What is the point of citation listings if they don't even show up in search? Does Google just say "ok, this business is credible....it is trustworthy...+5 to its score.....but screw the listing, not important."?

      Not very many people will actually go to Yelp and look up business listings. Actually many do, but I am guessing the amount of people who search organically is more than the amount of people who search via directory. eg: "soccer clubs in florida" vs "soccer clubs florida yelp"
      They have value for local SEO projects. Citations give a boost for the Local Pack. Their value is not really in the listing showing up in the SERP. That is just an added bonus.

      Of course, you can work to rank the listing too.
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      • Profile picture of the author windrider07
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        They have value for local SEO projects. Their value is not really in the listing showing up in the SERP. That is just an added bonus.

        No offense, but this is basic, basic local SEO stuff. I really do not think you should be offering to help people with their SEO. Whatever you are charging right now is too much.
        What "value"?

        The bad part about most SEOs is their lack of detail and their inability to focus on small details. Lots of SEOs cannot answer the WHAT and the WHY, emphasis on the WHY.

        Whenever I ask a question, I see additional feedback and knowledge from other SEOs.

        From what I know and this is what I would tell anyone who needs SEO is that local citations help with referall traffic if someone browses through a directory. It also sends a trust signal to Google whose bots will crawl the directories. It tells Google that this business can be trusted and since Google loves to give users a great experience, Google will rank up businesses with the most trust and authority.

        What is ironic is that directories which provide trust and authority to business websites do not rank well in search engines. They are just there as a "bonus" as you said. You are basically paying someone to say "this business is trustworthy. use them." which is big because you can't get loyal paying customers without their trust and confidence in what you do. Then again, the irony can be explained because nobody wants to search for "soccer clubs florida" and see a bunch of directories in the results....maybe one or two, but mostly actual websites giving them what they need, and I'm sure Google knows that.

        So the answer to WHY don't citation directories rank high? My answer would be: for user experience purposes, Google ranks websites higher than directories. WHY don't specific directories show up in search as fast as others (eg: Yelp will show up in search faster than most other directories)? I have no idea. I don't know the exact technical answer. My guess is the directories aren't trusted by Google and are not worthy of showing up in the results in the first 2 pages. Google doesn't say "we love these 3 directories and hate the other 20".
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Directories like Yelp often do show up high in the rankings for local searches. You were asking about a specific business listing though, which often does not show up.

    Then again, the irony can be explained because nobody wants to search for "soccer clubs florida" and see a bunch of directories in the results....maybe one or two, but mostly actual websites giving them what they need, and I'm sure Google knows that..
    This is actually wrong. In fact, a list might be exactly what the user is looking for and what fits the user search the best.

    Go back to the example I used of a sushi restaurant. When I search for "sushi restaurant in new york city" both Zagat and Yelp on our on the first page. Now it is not business listings showing up in the SERP, but it is a listing of multiple restaurants under Yelp and Zagat.

    So your belief that Google does not want to show people lists is really not true. You can see this over and over again. If I search for dentists in my home town, I get a White Pages listing and a Super Pages listing, which are both lists of local dentists.

    In fact, Google has such an affinity for lists like these, that I have actually been using it for local clients (and teaching this to other SEOs). I'm not going to go into the details here, but I make lists of local competitors including my client on a page on their website.
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  • Profile picture of the author windrider07
    Good point. If there are no other blogs or websites that give ANY useful info on what the user is searching for on a high authoritative level, then directories will show up. There are always 2 or 3 directories that almost always show up because those specific directories specialize in the niche that the user is looking for.

    But the entire 10 positions in the SERP showing directories? I doubt it. If there was 10 directories showing up, there must not be any other useful websites out there. Yes, very true.....Google LOVE lists....no doubt.

    I would never want to see 8 different directories showing up in search. Maybe 4 or 5....2 or 3 of which I would probably click on to see what's there. The other 2 to 3 I would just see and think "ok, this business is authoritative" but that's it. The reason why a lot of people want directories and social media profiles showing up on 1st page is because if people see your website showing up a lot of other reputable sites, your website will look "trustworthy" in the eyes of the user searching.

    What makes me curious is.....why would ONLY 2 or 3 directories show up in the SERP if you submitted your business to 25 listings? even after 2-3 months.
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    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by windrider07 View Post

      But the entire 10 positions in the SERP showing directories? I doubt it. If there was 10 directories showing up, there must not be any other useful websites out there. Yes, very true.....Google LOVE lists....no doubt.
      Why would they not? As Mike pointed out, those directories are a very good answer to certain queries. We've got a few local ones that take company information from the registration office and publish that. If I want to see the dentists in my home town the list is one of the best things they can show me. Not all small companies even have websites, or their websites suck so hard that you'd never find them.

      Of course, I'm a web guy so having an informative website is sort of selection criteria for me, but I digress...

      If they'd show a bunch of directories you'd very soon have one that has a completely random selection of companies, some probably defunct by that point. You've seen the "SEO" directories, right? They're just crap for finding anything.

      Searching for a company brand name is a different kind of search.
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