Branding: A major influence on the Google rankings

Branding has a positive effect on the scores of brands in Google rankings. Especially strong brands benefit from branding activities, as a unique study from online marketing agency Fingerspitz shows. It is the first time that quantitative research has been carried out into whether there is a link between the online authority, position and branding of a product or service and the Google rankings.

Google Penguin 2.0 update

Google recently implemented the Google Penguin 2.0 update. With this update Google has made changes in the algorithm which determines the rankings within the search network. After the update, experts were inclined to confirm the suggestion that strong brands also have a lead online over weaker or unknown brands. Since nothing was yet known regarding this subject, Fingerspitz decided to carry out an investigation.

Researching the scores

The study contains parameters indicating how a website ranks within the search engine (Domain Authority) and the BrandAsset Score; the indicative score of a brand’s value. These parameters are spread across 34 brands in 5 different sectors (shoes, travel, ladies fashion, LED TVs and supermarkets). The collected scores are compared with each other in order to see whether there is a coherency (correlation) between the scores. This way the study will provide an insight in the connection between brands and online search results.

Research conclusion

The study shows that the BrandAsset score strongly overlaps with the online authority score. This means that strong brands have a head start inside Google. Branding shows to have an indirect influence on the Google rankings and because of this it is important to find the right balance between branding and performance based marketing activities. Both factors are of importance and will, if implemented correctly, have an enhancing effect.