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.
#search engine optimization #appearing #backlinks #citations #dofollow #pr2 #results #search
  • 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.
    • [1] reply
    • 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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  • 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.
    • [1] reply
    • 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.

      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.
  • 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
    • [1] reply
    • 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.
      • [1] reply
  • 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.
  • 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).
    • [1] reply
    • 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?"
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  • 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"
    • [1] reply
    • 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.
      • [1] reply
  • 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.

    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.
  • 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.
    • [1] reply
    • 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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    Citations Appearing in Search Results and Getting PR2+ "Do-Follow" Backlinks?

    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.