Whether you’re running an eCommerce business, a digital marketing agency, or your own personal blog – having basic SEO knowledge can help you bring in more traffic to your website.
Google ranking factors have been a controversial topic with some considering it a myth. This is true in the sense that the search engine ranking factors are a mix of proven and expert speculations. But that does not change the fact that ranking factors do play a significant role in Google’s algorithm updates.
Google did confirm in 2006 that there are more than 200 ranking factors that the algorithm takes into account (without going into much detail). So, I’ve made a list of the 200 most commonly accepted factors along with their explanation.
As difficult as it may seem to rank on Google’s first page, this list will help you get a sense of what works and what doesn’t.
At the end of this article, I have also made a list of the 10 most important factors which you can focus on if you don’t want to go through all the 200 ranking factors mentioned here.
So, without further ado, let’s get straight into it.
Below are the main categories:
- Domain Factors
- Page-Level Factors
- Site-Level Factors
- Backlink Factors
- User Interaction
- Special Google Algorithm Rules
- Brand Signals
- On-Site Webspam Factors
- Off-Site Webspam Factors
Domain Factors
As you might have guessed from its name, a domain factor is related to your domain name or website URL. A poor domain name or authority can over time hurt your website’s SEO.
- Domain Age
- Keyword in Domain Name
- Domain Registration Length
- Keyword in Subdomain
- Domain History
- WhoIs Owner Information
- Country TLD extension
Page-Level Factors
Page-Level Factors are concerned with on-page optimization. Working on optimizing these factors will help improve your page experience.
- Keyword in Title Tag
- Title Tag Starts with Keyword
- Keyword in Description Tag
- Keyword Appears in H1 Tag
- TF-IDF
- Content-Length
- Table of Contents
- Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords in Content (LSI)
- LSI Keywords in Title and Meta Description Tags
- Page Covers Topic In-Depth
- Page Loading Speed via HTML
- Use of AMP
- Entity Match
- Google Hummingbird
- Duplicate Content
- Rel=Canonical
- Image Optimization
- Content Recency
- Magnitude of Content Updates
- Historical Page Updates
- Keyword Prominence
- Keyword in H2, H3 Tags
- Outbound Link Quality
- Outbound Link Theme
- Grammar and Spelling
- Syndicated Content
- Mobile-Friendly Update
- Mobile Usability
- “Hidden” Content on Mobile
- Helpful “Supplementary Content”
- Content Hidden Behind Tabs
- Number of Outbound Links
- Multimedia
- Number of Internal Links Pointing to Page
- Quality of Internal Links Pointing to Page
- Broken Links
- Reading Level
- Affiliate Links
- HTML errors/W3C validation
- Domain Authority
- Page’s PageRank
- URL Length
- URL Path
- Human Editors
- Page Category
- Keyword in URL
- URL String
- References and Sources
- Bullets and Numbered Lists
- Priority of Page in Sitemap
- Too Many Outbound Links
- UX Signals From Other Keywords Page Ranks For
- Page Age
- User-Friendly Layout
- Parked Domains
- Useful Content
Site-Level Factors
Site-Level Factors focus on the optimization of the whole website rather than individual pages.
- Presence of a contact us page or an appropriate amount of contact information
- Content on the site provides value or new insights
- TrustRank (how close your site is to a known and trusted site in terms of linking)
- Website updates for freshness factor
- Site architecture
- Presence of a sitemap
- Long-term site downtime
- Location of server
- HTTPS / use of a valid SSL certificate
- Presence of legal pages (terms and conditions and privacy policy)
- Unique metadata
- Use of breadcrumb markup
- Site-wide mobile optimization
- Site-wide user-friendliness (usability and interactiveness)
- Bounce rate
- Domain authority
- User reviews
- Site reputation
Backlink factors
Backlink Factors focus on your links profile that are coming in from other websites. You need to make sure that the incoming links are from high authority and trusted websites.
- Age of linking domain
- Number of referring domains
- Number of links from separate c-class IPs
- Number of referring pages
- Anchor text of backlinks
- ALT tag of image links
- Number of links from .edu and .gov domains
- Trust factor of linking page
- Trust factor of linking domain
- Presence of links from competitors
- Number of links from expected sites in your industry
- Links from bad neighbourhoods
- Number of links that are not from ads
- Country TLD of referring domains
- Domain authority
- Presence of some Nofollow links
- Diversity of link profile
- Context of content the content of a linking page
- Presence of more follow links that are sponsored or UGC
- Lots of backlinks to URLs with 301 redirects
- The text that appears when you hover over a link
- Link location on the page
- Location of link in content
- Links from relevant domains
- Links from relevant pages
- Presence of your page’s keyword in the title of the linking page
- Natural rate of growth in the number of links
- Spiky and unnatural rate of growth in the number of links
- Links from top resources on a certain topic or hubs
- Number of links from sites that are considered authority sites
- Linked as a source in a Wikipedia article
- Words around your backlinks
- Backlink age
- Links from real sites vs fake blogs
- Natural link profile
- Excessive reciprocal links
- Links in real content vs. UGC
- Backlinks from a page with a 301 redirect
- TrustRank of linking site
- Fewer outbound links on the linking page
- Links in real content vs links in forums
- Word count of linking content
- Quality of linking content
- Sitewide links = one link
User Interaction
User Interaction Factors are focused on the level of experience your website provides to its visitors. Google has emphasized the importance of high-level user experience when it comes to ranking websites on their SERP.
- Organic click-through rate for the exact keyword
- Organic click-through rates for all ranking keywords
- Dwell time
- Bounce rate
- Measurement of how users interact on your site based on RankBrain
- Total direct traffic
- Percentage of repeat visitors
- Blocked sites
- Percentage of visitors that click on other pages on the SERP after clicking visiting your page
- Page frequently bookmarked by Chrome users
- Number of comments on the page
Special Google Algorithm Rules
The Google Algorithm Rules are a set of guidelines of what kind of pages Google wants to display on its SERPs. Analyzing the search results pages can help you get an idea of what kind of content you need to be putting out.
- Need for diversity in the SERP
- Need for freshness in the SERP
- Browsing history of the user
- Search history of the user
- Succinct answers, formatting, page authority and HTTPS for featured snippets
- Geo-targeting
- Adult content or curse words (excluded from safe search results)
- High content quality standards for YMYL keywords
- Legitimate DMCA complaints
- Need for domain diversity in SERP
- Transactional searches
- Local search results
- Presence of news stories related to keywords for the Top Stories box
- Search intent
- Presence of big brands with relevant content (they are often ranked higher)
- Presence of results optimized for Google Shopping
- Image results
- Branded search
- Easter eggs and April Fools’ Day jokes and hoaxes from Google (this one makes me laugh)
- Spammy queries
- Spammy sites
Brand Signals
These signals focus on your overall branding. How good is your brand reach and visibility? These factors require your brand to be present across digital media with high interaction rates.
- Brand + keyword searches (for example, A3H SEO)
- Branded anchor text
- Twitter profile with followers
- Official LinkedIn page
- Facebook page with lots of likes
- Branded searches
- Known author or verified online profile
- Real social media accounts
- Top stories with brand mentions
- Brand mentions without links
- Physical location of offices
On-site Webspam Factors
Does your site appear to be spammy or just putting out content for the sake of it? You need to make sure that isn’t the case. Keeping a check on the following factors will help you maintain a positive image in the eyes of Google.
- Low-quality content
- Links to bad neighbourhoods
- Multiple and sneaky redirects
- Flagged server IP address
- Distracting ads and popups
- Popups that are spammy and difficult to close
- Over-optimizing the site
- Gibberish content
- Use of doorway pages
- Lots of ads above the fold and not much content
- Hiding affiliate links
- Low-value content sites
- Affiliate sites
- Keyword stuffing in meta tags
- Compute generated content
- Nofollowing all outbound links
Off-site Webspam Factors
These factors are based on the quality of your backlinks and the outside activity on your website.
- Unnatural and sudden increase in backlinks
- Hacked site
- Lots of low-quality backlinks
- A high percentage of links from unrelated websites
- Low-quality directory links
- Automatic links in widgets
- Links from sites with the same server IP
- Using “poison” in your anchor text
- Ignored manual actions in the search console
- Selling links
- Temporary link schemes
The 10 Most Important Google Ranking Factors
That was a long list, and I’ve not even listed everything that’s said to help in the ranking. But do you really need to focus on every single one of them for your page to rank? I don’t think so.
In my experience, the following are the 10 most important SEO ranking factors which should be enough to bring in traffic. I do want to clarify that these ranking factors are debatable, and some experts might disagree. But that’s what SEO is all about – trial and error.
Domain Authority
There’s no official method to score a website’s domain authority. Rather, it’s a third-party metric which approximates a domain’s strength and expertise. You can check your Domain Authority score on popular SEO tools like Moz, SEMRush, and SEO PowerSuite.
How do you increase your Domain Authority or Strength? It’s a cyclical process. Putting out quality content will help you gain links from already trusted sites, which is an indicator that your site can be trusted. This also helps you rank higher on Google searches. As this cycle is rinsed and repeated, your domain authority score also increases.
Mobile Friendliness
Having a mobile-friendly website should be your first priority when building a website. More and more users access websites and information on the internet through their mobile phones, so providing them with the best user experience is key for SEO success.
Google Search Console helps a lot with ensuring mobile-friendliness by sending you notifications when it sees that your site isn’t responsive. So make sure that your website is linked to Google Search Console as well.
Content Quality
Your content should be unique and provide valuable insights to the reader. It’s also a good practice to cover a topic in-depth covering all the important areas. Producing high-quality content and making it fun to read can increase your ranking and also bring down the bounce rate on your pages.
Of course, to write high-quality content you’d want to have in-depth knowledge of the subject you’re writing about. Alternatively, you can also hire subject experts to write your content.
Organic Click-Through Rate
Click-Through-Rate (CTR) is an important indicator for Google to understand whether your content is useful or not. If users searching for a query click on your post in the SERP to get their answers, it sends a signal to Google that your content is relevant. This in turn will help you rank higher on the results page.
To improve your organic CTR you need to write a convincing and appealing meta title and description.
Keywords in H1
Along with your title tag, your main heading or H1 shows your content’s relevancy to Google. It’s important though not to overdo this, which might make it seem like you’re stuffing keywords in your content.
Number of Backlinks
The number of backlinks to your website is one of the most important ranking factors, but you need to make sure that the links are not from random websites. The linking sources should be relevant to your niche and should also hold a good Domain Authority score.
Content-Length
How long should a page’s content be? Content length is a highly debated topic in the SEO sphere. Some say it should be at least 1000 words, while others think 2000 words should be the minimum. However, I think it should depend on the topic being written. Long-form content is more suited to cover in-depth topics such as guides, case studies, and how-tos. On the other hand, you don’t want to put your readers to sleep if all they wanted was a simple definition of something.
To get a better idea, you can visit the SERP of the keywords you want to rank for and check the length of the top results. This will give you a better idea of how many words would be ideal for your topic.
You can use the Surfer SEO Chrome Extension to get important stats on the SERPs.
Internal Linking
Links from one page of your website to another page on your website make it easier for users and search engine crawlers to navigate through your website. That’s what internal linking is all about – to make sure that all your pages are interconnected with each other.
If a page is getting a high number of links (both internal and external), it gives the signal to Google that the page is high-value. If you don’t have strong external linking yet, internal links can provide valuable juice for your pages.
Page Loading Speed
As a part of core web vitals, page loading speed has become an important determining factor for your rank on search engines.
Page speed is, of course, also important to users. The slow page loading speed can deter the user experience and as a result, increase the bounce rate on your page. This is especially harmful when your competition has fast-loading pages with quality content.
Google uses this lack of good user experience as a signal to reduce your ranking on the SERP.
Site Architecture
A well-designed site architecture helps Google organize its content thematically. It also makes it more convenient for Googlebot to access and index your website pages.
Conclusion
As with everything in SEO, there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to determining what Google prefers and what it doesn’t. The best way to know is through doing. You just have to make sure that your audience loves the content that you’re producing, and improved rankings will follow.
