Trade Unions
11 Jul 2022

Trade Union Website League Table 2022


It’s been ten years since I first complied my annual league table of trade union websites.

Previous results can be see for 20212020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012.

For those of you not familiar with the league table, the main thing to be aware of is that it measures how authoritative a website is estimated to be. It does not attempt to judge the quality of the website site design, information architecture, content etc. In scope are all the unions affiliated to the TUC.

I use the industry leading Domain Authority metric complied by Moz.com for the league table.

This metric looks at how often websites are linked to across the web and social media, putting greater weight on backlinks from higher profile sources like the BBC.

This provides an estimate on how well a website will rank in search engines, as search engines will likely judge these websites as more important.

 

No Union Domain Authority
1 (1) BDA 69
2 (2) Unite 66
3 (3) UNISON 63
4 (3) Chartered Society of Physiotherapy 62
4 (3) RCM 62
6 (6) NUJ 61
6 (6) UCU 61
8 (8) GMB 60
9 (9) PFA 59
10 (12) Equity 57
10 (12) NASUWT 57
10 (12) RMT 57
13 (10) BALPA 56
13 (12) Musicians’ Union 56
15 (17) BECTU (Section of Prospect) 55
15 (19) NEU 55
15 (16) PCS 55
18 (17) CWU 54
19 (22) Prospect 53
20 (22) The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain 53
21 (22) FBU 52
21 (19) NAHT 52
23 (19) TSSA 51
23 (25) USDAW 51
25 (25) Society of Radiographers 50
26 (27) ASLEF 49
27 (32) Nautilus 48
28 (28) EIS 47
29 (29) BFAWU 46
29 (29) Community 46
31 (32) NAPO 45
31 (29) NSEAD 45
31 (10) Royal College of Podiatry 45
34 (34) POA 42
35 (35) FDA 41
36 (39) Artists' Union England 40
36 (35) NUM 40
38 (35) AEP 39
38 (38) British and Irish Orthoptic Society 39
40 (39) HCSA 38
41 (41) Accord 33
42 (43) URTU 25
43 (44) NGSU 24
44 (46) NARS 22
44 (43) UCAC 22
46 (47) Advance 17
46 (45) Aegis 17

Source: Moz.com July 2022

For the fourth year in a row, the specialist British Dietetic Association (BDA) comes top of the table. A very impressive position for a smaller union. Unite again rank seconds, with UNISON now holding third place alone – a position they shared last year.

Interestingly, the same three unions occupied the top three slots in the inaugural league table of 2012. That time, it was UNISON who came top, followed by Unite and the BDA.

The CSP and RCM share 4th place, with the NUJ and UCU sharing 6th. The GMB and PFA are in 8th and 9th, followed by Equity NASUWT and the RMT who all share 10th.
 

Biggest risers

Union Positions moved up
Nautilus 5
NEU 4
Prospect, Artists' Union England 3

 

The biggest riser in the last year is Nautilus, who jump up 5 places to 27th.

The NEU continue their steady climb following their formation, moving up 4 places to 15th. The Artists' Union England and Prospect also do well, both jumping up 3 places.

 

Biggest falls

Union Positions moved down
Royal College of Podiatry 21
TSSA 4
AEP, BALPA 3

 

The largest fall, by quite some margin, is the Royal College of Podiatry. Their website slips down 21 places from 10th to 31st.

The union and professional body have undergone a name change, which has resulted in a changed domain, from cop.org.uk to rcpod.org.uk. This appears to be on the back of a previous domain change from scpod.org.

When changing your main domain, you can redirect in a way that ensures old links work while sending a signal to search engines that helps prevent a loss of rankings.

It’s not clear what has happened with the Royal College of Podiatry domain change, but the cop.org.uk domain is redirecting properly.

The Royal College of Podiatry might have been hit by the domain change if they didn’t’ also ensure the deep links to pages of content and links from the oldest domain have not been redirected. This can also happen during a website redesign as well, where individual page redirects should be added as necessary (one of the most common mistakes I see on website redesigns).

A quick trawl shows quite a few broken backlinks, for example links from the Royal College of Podiatry Wikipedia entry, which uses the oldest scpod.org domain.

It looks like there are still links out there using this domain that are not bring redirected. I’d still expect a big rebound in their position next year though, as the domain change works its way.

Other noticeable drops are the TSSA, who move down 4 places, and the AEP and BALPA, who slip 3 places
 


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