Web Site SEO Development Design | Freelance Edmonton | Rank Factors |
| This search engine ranking chart is compiled with the speculative information regarding the ranking factors for websites with the components and relevance of each SEO factor listed in order of it's hypothesized importance. Google uses over one hundred algorithms to determine website ranking so it probably will never be known for certain how which criteria are utilized and these calculations are always evolving as website architecture advances. |
| |
| # |
Type |
Factor |
Importance |
Consensus |
| 1 |
Keyword |
Keyword Use in Title Tag |
High |
Yes |
| 2 |
Site |
Global Link Popularity of Site |
High |
Yes |
| 3 |
In-Link |
Anchor Text of Inbound Link |
High |
Yes |
| 4 |
Page |
Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure |
High |
Yes |
| 5 |
Site |
Age of Site |
High |
Somewhat |
| 6 |
Site |
Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site |
High |
Somewhat |
| 7 |
Site |
Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community |
High |
Somewhat |
| 8 |
Negative |
Server is Often Inaccessible to Bots |
High |
No |
| 9 |
Keyword |
Keyword Use in Body Text |
High |
Somewhat |
| 10 |
In-Link |
Global Link Popularity of Linking Site |
High |
No |
| 11 |
Negative |
Content Very Similar or Duplicate of Existing Content in the Index |
High |
Somewhat |
| 12 |
Page |
Quality/Relevance of Links to External Sites/Pages |
High |
Somewhat |
| 13 |
Site |
Rate of New Inbound Links to Site |
High |
Somewhat |
| 14 |
In-Link |
Topical Relationship of Linking Page |
High |
Somewhat |
| 15 |
In-Link |
Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community |
High |
Somewhat |
| 16 |
Negative |
External Links to Low Quality/Spam Sites |
High |
Somewhat |
| 17 |
Keyword |
Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords (Topic Analysis) |
High |
Somewhat |
| 18 |
Keyword |
Keyword Use in H1 Tag |
High |
Somewhat |
| 19 |
Page |
Age of Document |
High |
Somewhat |
| 20 |
Negative |
Duplicate Title/Meta Tags on Many Pages |
High |
No |
| 21 |
Negative |
Participation in Link Schemes or Actively Selling Links |
High |
No |
| 22 |
Negative |
Overuse of Targeted Keywords (Stuffing/Spamming) |
High |
Somewhat |
| 23 |
Page |
Amount of Indexable Text Content |
High |
Somewhat |
| 24 |
Site |
Relevance of Site's Primary Subject Matter to Query |
High |
No |
| 25 |
In-Link |
Topical Relationship of Linking Site |
High |
Somewhat |
| 26 |
In-Link |
Age of Link |
High |
Somewhat |
| 27 |
In-Link |
Text Surrounding the Link |
High |
Yes |
| 28 |
Keyword |
Keyword Use in Domain Name |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 29 |
Page |
Quality of the Document Content (as measured algorithmically) |
Medium |
No |
| 30 |
In-Link |
Internal Link Popularity of Linking Page within Host Site/Domain |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 31 |
Keyword |
Keyword Use in Page URL |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 32 |
Keyword |
Keyword Use in H2, H3, H(x) Tags |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 33 |
Page |
Organization/Hierarchy of Document Flow (i.e. broad > narrow) |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 34 |
Negative |
Very Slow Server Response Times |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 35 |
Site |
Historical Performance of Site as Measured by Time Spent on Page,
Clickthroughs from SERPs, Direct Visits, Bookmarks, etc. |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 36 |
Site |
Manual Authority/Weight Given to Site by Google |
Medium |
No |
| 37 |
Keyword |
Keyword Use in Alt Tags and Image Titles |
Medium |
Yes |
| 38 |
Site |
TLD Extension of Site (edu, gov, us, ca, com, etc) |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 39 |
Site |
Rate of New Pages Added to Site |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 40 |
In-Link |
Domain Extension of Linking Site (edu, gov, com, ca, co.uk, etc) |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 41 |
In-Link |
PageRank (as measured by the GG Toolbar) of Linking Page |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 42 |
In-Link |
Temporal Link Attributes (when in time the link was
created/updated) |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 43 |
Keyword |
Keyword Use in Bold/Strong Tags |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 44 |
Page |
Frequency of Updates to Page |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 45 |
Negative |
Inbound Links from Spam Sites |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 46 |
Keyword |
Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 47 |
Negative |
Low Levels of Visitors to the
Site (Measured via Toolbar, Clicks in SERPs, etc.) |
Medium |
Somewhat |
| 48 |
Site |
Number of Queries for Site/Domain over Time |
Low |
Somewhat |
| 49 |
Page |
Number of Trailing Slashes (/) in URL |
Low |
Somewhat |
| 50 |
Page |
Accuracy of Spelling & Grammar |
Low |
Somewhat |
| 51 |
Page |
HTML Validation of Document (to W3C Standards) |
Low |
Yes |
| 52 |
Site |
Verification of Site with Google Webmaster Central |
Low |
Yes |
| 53 |
Keyword |
Keyword Use in Meta Keywords Tag |
Low |
Yes |
