Co Citation - understanding how it effects your SEO.

Posted Wednesday, March 15th, 2006. Filed under Internet Marketing Tips, Link Building, SEO Research.

Co citation is a major search engine ranking factor that few SEOs understand. Bibliographic co-citation is a similarity measure: if A and B are both cited by C, they may be related to each other even though they don't directly reference one another. The more items cite both, the stronger their relationship.

Here's a bad example: if you buy a link on a page listing "Paid Advertisers: Sunglasses, Cheap Viagra, Casino Betting, Online Gambling..." the search engines will think your sunglasses site must be related to gambling and drugs, because they look at what else the linking page links to. That's a bad neighborhood to be in.

Here's a good example: getting a link from a Yahoo Directory page for sunglasses is great, because the other links on that page are all about sunglasses too, so you get co citation with the right kind of sites, putting you in the "sunglasses neighborhood."

Want to know your site's co citation? It's actually easy — check the "Similar pages" link next to the cached link in search results, or search Google using the related: command. That's your co citation. Top ranked sites usually have good co citation with genuinely related sites.

Reader Comments

Georgi: This is a thing I've figured out a long time ago. It's kind of natural — think natural, and you won't be wrong. Then apply the SEO knowledge.

Adam: The question becomes, for what keywords does co citation help your rankings, and why? Does your site start to rank for terms that appear on other sites in the neighborhood but not necessarily in your own copy?

BostonScott: Jim, this is a really good post, getting into the nitty-gritty details you don't see discussed everywhere.

Aaron Pratt: Thanks for putting it all together Jim, always wondered about this.

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