I want to do a dissertation for my MSc on how schema mark up affects the web rankings of a website.
How much of a "boost" in web rankings can a website expect after using schema mark up?
>Does a firm in a competitive industry such as online gambling receive this boost?
>Is there a mathematic way to understand what factors contribute to a website's web ranking?
For example : Wr=f(mt x md x bl x sc x kd)
where Web ranking is a function of
Mt=meta titles
Md=meta description
Bl= relevant backlinks
sc= schema mark up
kd= keyword difficulty
There are many Google papers on various aspects of algorithms (PageRank, for example). You can easily locate them via Google Scholar.
Schema doesn't affect rankings. It affects appearance. Many search engine optimizers (SEOs) claim that schema markup leads to higher rankings. Check for SMX conference presentations on slideshare.net. Remember, though, many of them are not up to academic standards. They are mostly opinions.
Schema is simply a way to give Google data in a format that Google prefers. It doesn't mean the content is better or more accurate. I'm an information architect. Schema.org is desperately in need of some high-level information architects. The closest they've come to getting attributes correct is recipes.
You might also want to check out some papers by Ryen White from Microsoft. You can find his work via Google Scholar as well.
For your paper, I believe you are going to have to discuss both sets of opinions (ranking factor, not ranking factor).
Hope this helps.
I am not an expert in this area, I think these two articles will help:
1. https://patents.google.com/patent/US7054857B2/en or
2. Identifying valid search engine ranking factors in a Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 context for building efficient SEO mechanisms
As a librarian, the schema markup is just a description of the website that is provided to search engines for display. This is is different from the content of the website and the title, header or meta tags which are used in term weighting for search results' ranking.
Actually, your fundamental premise is incorrect. I am simply trying to help.
Schema content is most certainly used for ranking purposes. Breadcrumb links are an example.
The HTML title-tag content is a ranking factor. However, if Google determines a better title, it will modify it in search listings. The meta-tag title & the title attribute are not ranking factors.
Meta-tag content is NOT a ranking factor for text-based documents. It is a ranking factor for videos, however.
I do not know if you mean header or heading. Do you mean the content between the and tags or a heading, such as an H1, the content between a and
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