Understanding the difference between correlation and causation is very important if you want to be able to really find out what the factors are that make search engines tick. While factors that are included in search engine algorithms will surely show clear signs of correlation, not all factors correlated with rankings do have an effect in rankings, in fact it might be the other way around.
Still a lot of people go on jumping to wrong conclusions because of correlation data. To help us understand the reason behind the phrase “correlation does not imply causation”, below SEOMoz has come up with the insightful and easy to understand infographic below.
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