Page 6 - SEO Mad Scientist 2020 Report

Update: February 14, 2020

We put multiple sites against each other to rank for a specific made up keyword (similar to our
last tests). When testing the term "qpzlxzty", we created some random "unique" content per page
to try and detect any random ranking factors when comparing our results against similar tests.
However, we got the same results when we used the exact same content, as well as when only
using a video embed or image on the page to differentiate them.

After creating 10 pages for the term "qpzlxzty", we waited for the pages to index and settle in the
serps. We then chose the 6th listing (qpzlxzty08.gobrand.website) to add FAQ Schema for "What
does qpzlxzty mean?", which was also the title of the page. We should also mention that when
we searched for "What does qpzlxzty mean?" after indexing, the qpzlxzty08 listing showed in the
#7 position.

Once the Schema was added and the page re-indexed, the #6 listing immediately jumped to the
number one spot for "qpzlxzty". Initially, this made us draw the conclusion that the FAQ Schema
helped, but then a few days past and the listing dropped from the #1 spot for "qpzlxzty", and still
never budged from position 7 for "What does qpzlxzty mean?" This surprised us, as we assumed
the rankings for, "What does qpzlxzty mean?" would increase if anything.

We believe the increased rankings for "qpzlxzty" may have been due to a freshness score
update, but once freshness wore off rankings dropped. We can't definitively conclude it was just
the page update vs the Schema - Google is a complicated beast.

Are GMB Rankings Influenced by Schema Markup Referencing Keywords?

Test Setup:

Our team questioned Schema’s direct impact on GMB listings. We hypothesized that by adding
keywords to Schema markup, Google would associate the entity with the markup and give more
relevance to that entity/GMB listing.

We linked a new GMB listing with no optimization to a one-page website that contained local
business Schema markup. Within the Schema, we referenced a made-up target term with geo
modifier in the description and various areas (to ensure it would pull a local map in Google's
organic search), but did not reference the term anywhere on the page.

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