So, I was talking to this website owner the other day. His site had a problem. Couple of years ago, his site was ranking number one for certain keywords, but recently he has dropped significantly in ranks and newer websites have taken over on Google for the same keyword.

It was a pretty authoritative website (and an amazing domain name) and I had known it for a while for being very authoritative in the niche category that it was. So, what happened last couple of years?

SEO Authority has been redefined over the years

Earlier, we knew that if you had couple of strong authoritative backlinks and an age old domain (which is true in the example here) you were all set. Add to that, an ongoing link building campaign which fetched a good amount of links every month.

Today, Google seem to be understanding that there needs to be traction behind the scenes as well as “outside”. This friends website that I was talking about, although consistently build links, wasn’t getting any traction on the website and outside it except from the organic referrals.

So, what? Does that not look good? Apparently, for some time it did. Until now.

Google might be giving more importance to new websites as well

So, if you think about it, Google might actually be finally understanding that there might be good or even better websites that are popping up everyday. Earlier, it was difficult to topple down a long time, number one old guy from SERPs, but not anymore. Provided the new website has the right metrics and traction, it could even topple down the old guy.

What SEO metrics are we taking about?

We can’t be sure but it looks like just the basics of SEO and even link building isn’t just enough. “Traction” and “Movement” are probably two terms you’ll hear time and again from me. What I mean are…

- Regular and constant content publishing.
- Genuine social traffic signals to the content.
- Accumulating social and organic authority signals.

So, claiming that “Social Media Signals” affect your SEO efforts might sound like 2010, but it’s a good thing to know that new websites with the right content strategy and social signals can even topple down age old “grandpa” websites on the SERPs.

Do you have a similar experience like this?