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Where we really would be worried is if a competitor took the time to get articles published on authoritative sites by paying for links from journalists, exchanging links with prominent bloggers, or doing other things that go against Google’s guidelines. The problem though, is that initially, this type of link has the potential to actually INCREASE your rankings if not detected as unnatural by Google. Also, this type of link is hard to get! A negative SEO campaign of this nature would take an incredible amount of effort.

We also have a theory that would negate a lot of negative SEO attempts. (So sorry for the bad pun.). We think that it is possible that Google is only passing PageRank through sites with good E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trust). If this is true, then most links on the web, including the vast majority of negative SEO links are simply being ignored. Also, the only links that a competitor could place that would cause Google to distrust the site, would be ones that conversely could end up being fantastic links that have the potential to improve your rankings.We still think that this type of sneakiness is possible in some highly competitive, big money verticals. If you are noticing a large influx of links like this that really do look like sophisticated attempts to manipulate Google rankings, then, in some cases it may be a good idea to pre-emptively disavow those links. But be careful. You could do more harm than good!

Our research into millions of PPC ads has shown that the single most powerful way to increase CTR in ads is to leverage emotional triggers. Like this PPC ad: Tapping into emotions will get your target customer/audience clicking! Anger. Disgust. Affirmation. Fear. These are some of the most powerful triggers not only drive click through rate, but also increase conversion rates.

No, you need to combine keywords and emotional triggers to create SEO superstorms that result in ridiculous CTRs

Bottom line: Use emotional triggers + keywords in your titles and descriptions if you want your CTR to go from "OK" to great.

Bottom line: You must beat the expected CTR for a given organic search position. Optimize for relevance or die.

Let's say you work for a tech company. Your visitors, on average, are bouncing away at 80% for the typical session, but users on a competing website are viewing more pages per session and have a bounce rate of just 50%. RankBrain views them as better than you – and they appear above you in the SERPs. In this case, the task completion rate is engagement. Bottom line: If you have high task completion rates, Google will assume your content is relevant. If you have crappy task completion rates, RankBrain will penalize you.

4. Increase Search Volume & CTR Using Social Ads and Display Remarketing People who are familiar with your brand are 2x more likely to click on your ads and 2x more likely to convert. We know this because targeting a user who has already visited your website (or app) via RLSA (remarketing lists for search ads) always produces higher CTRs than generically targeting the same keywords to users who are unfamiliar with your brand. So, one ingenious method to increase your organic CTRs and beat RankBrain is to bombard your specific target market with Facebook and Twitter ads. Facebook ads are proven to lift mobile search referral traffic volume to advertiser websites (by 6% on average, up to 12.8%) (here’s the research). With more than a billion daily users, your audience is definitely using the Social Network. Facebook ads are inexpensive – even spending just $50 dollars on social ads can generate tremendous exposure and awareness of your brand. Another relatively inexpensive way to dramatically build up brand recognition is to leverage the power of Display Ad remarketing on the Google Display Network. This will ensure the visitors you drive from social media ads remember who you are and what it is you do. In various tests, we found that implementing a display ad remarketing strategy has a dramatic impact on bounce rates and other engagement metrics. Bottom line: If you want to increase organic CTRs for your brand or business, make sure people are familiar with your offering. People who are more aware of your brand and become familiar with what you do will be predisposed to click on your result in SERP when it matters most, and will have much higher task completion rates after having clicked through to your site.

UPDATE: As many of us suspected, Google has continued to apply RankBrain to increasing volumes of search queries - so many, in fact, that Google now says its AI processes every query Google handles, which has enormous implications for SEO. As little as a year ago, RankBrain was reportedly handling approximately 15% of Google's total volume of search queries. Now, it's processing all of them. It's still too soon to say precisely what effect this will have on how you should approach SEO, but it's safe to assume that RankBrain will continue to focus on rewarding quality, relevant content. It's also worth noting that, according to Google, RankBrain itself is now the third-most important ranking signal in the larger Google algorithm, meaning that "optimizing" for RankBrain will likely dominate conversations in the SEO space for the foreseeable future. To read more about the scope and potential of RankBrain and its impact on SEO, check out this excellent write-up at Search Engine Land.

Google only counted the first anchor text

So even if you manage to figure out how we currently do it today, then that’s not necessarily how we’ll do it tomorrow, or how it always is across all websites.

Test #1 Takeaway: Google seems to be able to count multiple anchor texts on the same page to the same target, at least if one of the links is an image.

Test #2 Takeaway: When Google encountered two text links followed by an image link, Google indexed the first text and image anchors only.

Test #3 Takeaway: When Google encountered two text links followed by an image link and finally another text link, Google indexed the first text and image anchors only.

How to Optimize For Google’s Selective Link Priority Let’s be clear: Selective Link Priority most likely isn’t going to make a huge difference in your SEO strategy, but it can make a difference, especially in tie-breaker situations. In particular, here are five internal linking practices in a Selective Link Priority world: Be aware when linking on a page multiple times to the same URL that Google may not “count” all of your anchor text. When in doubt, you should likely prioritize both the first text link and image links on the page. Remember that each link to a URL—regardless of anchor text—has the potential to increase that URL’s PageRank. Don’t leave image alt attributes empty, and remember to vary them from any text link anchors. Not only can Google index the alt attribute as a separate anchor, but this gives you the chance to further increase your anchor text variations. Sites with smaller external link profiles may wish to limit the number of navigational links in preference of in-body text links. The reason is that if Google does indeed tend to prefer the first links on the page—and these are navigational—this limits the number of anchor text variations you can send to any page. (This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule. In fact, it’s a nuanced, complex subject that may warrant a whole other post.) The most important thing to remember is this – anchor text is a powerful ranking signal, even for internal links. Carefully choosing your anchor text—while avoiding over-optimization—can make a difference in winning SEO. If your SEO game is otherwise strong, you may be able to get away with ignoring Google’s Selective Link Priority rules (as most sites do already.) But you should at least be aware of how it works and what it means to your strategy.