I don't usually post SEO long reads like this, but I couldn't resist, so don't pass this by without reading it: How to Maximize the Effect of your Internal Links Links transfer more value the more often people click on them. As you may know, Google's PageRank algorithm used to follow what was called the Random Surfer Model. This was later updated to the Reasonable Surfer Model. (Interestingly, Google's patent on Adaptive PageRank expired in 2023). The Reasonable Surfer Model takes into account various probabilities associated with the likelihood that someone will click on certain links based on the characteristics of those links. This means that the amount of link equity (PageRank) passed depends on the probability that a user will click on that link. The higher the click probability, the more SEO value the link will pass. Therefore, to maximize link equity flow, you should place your internal links (the same principle applies to external links) so that they are clicked as often as possible. The link should be organically embedded in the content and point to the most relevant, useful, and authoritative page for that context. Just because a link uses the largest font size above the fold doesn't mean Google thinks it's the most likely to be clicked. Google can use NLP (natural language processing) to determine the context, sentiment and salience of the text and the entities in it. Within an article, there is no logical reason to put a link in the first paragraph. In the context of a paragraph, there's little reason to click on the link in the following example (link marked with []): "Over the past few years, [digital marketing communities] have become a way for people to expand their skills." But in the next example, the likelihood of a click is much higher: "Over the past few years, digital marketing communities have become a way for people to expand their skills. One way to learn has been through the distribution of free marketing templates, one of the best of which is considered to be [this content audit template]." Use natural anchor text. Remember that "silos" work from the bottom up (from more specific topics to broader, high-volume topics), not from the top down. This means that pages targeting more specific topics will boost the rankings of pages targeting broader topics (ranking for higher volume keywords). The more anchor text variations you use for links to the same page, the better that page will rank. Many SEOs link to a target page using the top keyword from that page's keyword cluster as the anchor text. You'll get better results by using at least 3-4 anchor text variations. For example, I use this approach: - Top keyword by search volume in the cluster - 50% of the time - 2nd keyword - 25% of the time - 3rd keyword - 15% of the time - 4th keyword - 10% of the time Links work well not only when placed in the main content, but also in supplemental content blocks, related link sections, and "people also read" widgets. The CTR (click-through rate) of links in such blocks is also important, but relying on a WordPress plugin to select related links is not optimal. In these cases, it's best to select links based on relevance, anchor text, and CTR - I use ranking logic to display links in supplemental content areas. In addition, I take into account the importance and priority of pages within the site, ensuring that the most critical pages get more links, clicks, and better positions than less important pages. This signals to Google which pages should receive more traffic.

RT @darth_na: . I can see my patience is going to run out very fast this year... #SEO #Meme

Did you know that robots.txt files are crawled exclusively by Googlebot Desktop?

RT @MikeBlazerX: People are deeply sick of DeepSeek

People are deeply sick of DeepSeek

What aspect of SEO is ASMR for you?

@dejanseo Let's stuff some keywords in it 😁

RT @darth_na: So, I stumbled over a piece by @jonoalderson, via Jon Henshaw (on "another" platform) Please ... click the link, go read, th…

RT @MikeBlazerX: I wrote a Python app to manage my personal photo/video collection that spans 5+ years. It runs in 3 phases: 1. Gathers a…

I wrote a Python app to manage my personal photo/video collection that spans 5+ years. It runs in 3 phases: 1. Gathers all metadata from the files (EXIF, IPTC) including geodata. 2. Reverse geocodes to convert latitude and longitude to locations and addresses. 3.1. Clusters items into events/trips/stories based on timecodes, time gaps between photo/video shots, location and radius data. 3.2. Rotates photos based on EXIF orientation data. 3.3. Creates folders named by date and place/location and copies items to those folders. Still tuning it for best possible quality results.

There are so many kitchen/food hacks online where people try to get as much microplastics into their food as possible.

I just realized that a SERP is just a "people also click" list.

RT @MikeBlazerX: This is how meta title testing works: You create new hot meta titles and set them up for a subset of pages, wait 30 days…

This is how meta title testing works: You create new hot meta titles and set them up for a subset of pages, wait 30 days to see clicks and CTR go up, and assume the new metatags are top-notch. What's happening under the hood: Your new meta titles sucked compared to the previous versions, so Google started rewriting your titles more, which caused a better CTR, so clicks and impressions also went up.

RT @MikeBlazerX: Notice a Google update brewing?

Notice a Google update brewing?

@DavidGQuaid Don't like the shilling all around

Google & website owners

The spammers emailing you with offers to fix your site's SEO certainly know how to grow it better than your in-house SEO team.

Your #SEO strategies and tactics are only as good as the person making decisions based on incomplete 3rd party data and vanity metrics.