Ranking Algorithm
Google’s ranking algorithm can be confusing, so we’ve put together a concise and user-friendly examination of all the confirmed, verified, rumored, and false factors influencing Google’s search engine results page (SERP) ranking.
While many sources claim that approximately 200 or more variables determine a website’s performance on SERPs, it is crucial to differentiate between those that potentially affect SEO, those that have been confirmed as ranking factors, and those that are best practices for achieving high rankings.
Distinguishing between “best practices” and confirmed ranking factors is crucial in understanding how to optimize a website for search engine results. This article will provide a clear and concise analysis of all the known, confirmed, speculated, and definitively disproven factors that affect Google’s ranking algorithm. By separating fact from fiction and distinguishing between necessary actions for good marketing and actual ranking factors, we aim to provide a comprehensive guide for optimizing website performance on SERPs.
What Factors Contribute to Ranking Well?
Confirmed Ranking Factors – These ranking factors have been verified to significantly impact a website’s performance on Google’s search engine results page (SERP). They have been confirmed as true and have been shown to affect SERP rankings to varying degrees.
Anchor Text – Google has confirmed that it uses concise and relevant anchor text to understand the content of a page, which can directly influence its SERP ranking. While anchor text is not the strongest ranking factor, it can still positively impact SERP rankings. However, after the Penguin update, its impact decreased.
Source: Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
Read Next: How To Write Good Alt Text is One of Google’s Objectives
Core Web Vitals – These signals measure the quality of user experience on a website. In 2021, Google confirmed using Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal. Therefore, it is important to ensure that your website’s Core Web Vitals are in good standing to improve your SERP rankings.
Source: Timing for Bringing Page Experience to Google Search
E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) – Google’s E-A-T framework assesses the credibility and authority of a website and its content. While E-A-T is not a direct ranking factor, many factors contributing to its evaluation are ranking factors. Therefore, it is considered a confirmed, albeit indirect, ranking signal.
Source: How Google Fights Disinformation
Domain History – A domain’s history can impact its SERP ranking, as it can affect the perception of the website’s legitimacy and trustworthiness. Google’s John Mueller has acknowledged that domain history is a ranking signal, and while the issue may resolve itself over time, it is recommended to be cautious with domain history.
Source: English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout
Headings – Headings, including H1 and H2 tags, can positively impact SERP rankings as they help Google understand the structure and content of a page. They are not the only ranking factor, but they are important and should be written and optimized for keywords.
Source: English Google Webmaster Central office-hours
Content – The quality of your website’s content plays a significant role in search rankings and is analyzed by Google. It’s crucial to create high-quality content that directly answers user queries.
Source: English Google Webmaster Central office-hours
Backlinks – Inbound links from other websites have long been a key factor in SEO. This is because PageRank considers backlinks as “votes” that indicate the quality of your website, similar to academic paper citations.
Source: Ranking Results – How Google Search Works
HTTPS – Secure search using HTTPS is a well-established ranking factor and plays a crucial role in providing a secure user experience. Ensure that your website is using HTTPS as soon as possible if it hasn’t already.
Source: HTTPS as a Ranking Signal
Paid links – Using paid backlinks is considered a negative ranking factor and should be avoided as it could lead to penalties if detected by search engines.
Source: Spam Policies for Google Web Search
Keyword prominence – The prominence of keywords in your content is a ranking factor, with keywords located closer to the title or beginning of the text carrying more weight.
Source: English Google SEO office-hours
Keyword stuffing – Overloading content with keywords to manipulate rankings is a negative ranking factor and should be avoided, as confirmed by Google.
Source: Spam Policies for Google’s Web Search
Physical proximity – Google considers the searcher’s location when determining search results, especially in local searches. Ensure that your business information, including location citations, is up-to-date and accurate to improve your chances of appearing in relevant search results.
Source: How to Improve Your Local Ranking on Google
Mobile-friendliness – Mobile compatibility is a confirmed ranking factor, which has gained increasing importance over time, particularly for mobile search results. Ensure that your website follows mobile responsive best practices for optimal performance.
Source: Continuing to Make the Web More Mobile Friendly
Page speed – Page load speed has been a significant ranking factor for Google’s SERPs since 2010 and directly impacts the user experience. Make sure your website loads as quickly as possible for a better user experience and improved rankings.
Source: Speed is Now a Landing Page Factor for Google Search and Ads
Relevance, distance, and prominence – These three signals, confirmed by Google as ranking factors, determine a business’s popularity, geographical proximity, and relevance to a specific search. They are crucial for local search results and should be considered when optimizing your local business page, including encouraging customer reviews.
Source: How to Improve Your Local Ranking on Google
RankBrain – RankBrain is an AI system introduced in 2015 and updated in 2016 that integrates artificial intelligence into search queries for improved results, particularly for ambiguous or long-tail keywords. It is a confirmed ranking factor, but there is no specific way to optimize it.
Source: Google Q&A
URLs – URLs have a limited impact on the search ranking, and keywords in URLs are evaluated during the crawling process. However, it’s important to note that spending excessive time optimizing URLs is not recommended, as emphasized by Mueller.
Source: @JohnMu on Twitter
Title tags – Optimizing title tags can positively impact ranking, but they are not as critical a ranking factor as the content itself. Despite its minimal significance, avoiding keyword stuffing in title tags is important, as it can negatively impact your ranking.
Source: English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout
Suspected but Unconfirmed Ranking Factors
Google has yet to confirm all the ranking factors that impact its algorithms officially. Nevertheless, experts believe several elements may influence search engine rankings. These are considered unconfirmed but suspected ranking factors that may impact your SEO efforts. One area of focus for local businesses is understanding the google my business ranking factors, which can significantly affect visibility in local search results. Experts suggest that maintaining accurate business information, responding to customer reviews, and optimizing for local keywords can enhance rankings. As businesses strive to improve their online presence, considering these factors is crucial for effective SEO strategies.
Alt Text – Although including alt text for images is considered a best practice for SEO, there needs to be a confirmed ranking factor by Google. Nonetheless, using it appropriately and incorporating relevant keywords can enhance the context of your page, providing additional information to Google and contributing to your SEO efforts.
Source: Google Image SEO Best Practices
Breadcrumbs – Breadcrumbs enable Google to understand the organizational structure of your pages. It is known that breadcrumbs aid Google in categorizing pages and are treated as normal links for PageRank purposes. While not confirmed as a direct ranking factor, it is believed that they can impact search engine rankings.
Source: @methode on Twitter
Local Citations – Local citations, which include crucial business information such as name, address, and phone number, are yet to be officially confirmed as a ranking factor by Google. However, the search giant has indicated that local results prioritize the most relevant results and that businesses with comprehensive information will receive preference. These citations can play a crucial role in optimizing your local SEO efforts.
Source: Improve your local ranking on Google
Click Depth – The number of clicks required to reach a destination page from your home page, known as click depth, is highly suspected to be a ranking factor, according to remarks from Mueller. Although its impact may be insignificant, it is crucial to consider the ease of navigation for users to reach the end page.
Source: English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout
Co-Citation and Co-Occurrence – Co-citation and co-occurrence assist Google in determining the relationship between two unrelated sites or pages, providing insights into their context and relevance. While a few high-quality links from trusted sources can contribute to the puzzle, they are unlikely to be a significant ranking factor.
Internal Links – Internal links refer to links within your site and require the appropriate use of anchor text. While they may not significantly impact rankings compared to other factors, such as site loading speed, they do not harm your SEO efforts.
Source: Learn About What Sitelinks Are
Language – To effectively reach users in different regions, creating content in the languages they speak is essential. For instance, it is unlikely that someone searching for shoes in Mandarin will come across a site written in Spanish.
Source: Ranking Results – How Google Search Works
Schema Markup – Schema markup provides microdata that Google can easily understand and enhances the potential for increased clicks. Although it is yet to be confirmed as a ranking factor, it can improve your chances of ranking for queries you might not have otherwise. At worst, it can still positively impact your overall SEO efforts.
Source: Understanding How Structured Markup Data Works
User Search History – Google’s algorithm considers each user’s past search history when delivering the most relevant search results. However, this factor cannot be influenced, and its impact, except in prominent locally personalized SERPs or frequently visited pages, is often minimal.
Source: @searchliaison on Twitter
Rumored but Unlikely Ranking Factors in SEO
These ranking factors have been the subject of speculation for some time. Although they have yet to be officially denied, there is strong reason to believe that they are unlikely to be recognized as official signals in the SEO industry.
301 Redirects – A former Googler, Matt Cutts, stated in 2012 that Google would observe an infinite number of redirects from one page to another. Three-hundred-one redirects are likely not a significant ranking factor. Nonetheless, it remains a best practice to manage redirects and linking carefully to avoid potential issues with redirect chains and improve site performance. Although there may be a minor loss of PageRank in the process, more official information on the matter needs to be provided.
Canonical links – Although canonical links have been associated with search rankings, Google may ignore the specified URL and select its own. As such, the impact of canonical links on rankings remains to be determined.
Outbound links – Outbound links are easily manipulated and, as such, are unlikely to be a direct ranking factor. However, the quality and relevance of the outbound links and the anchor text used can provide context to Google, contributing to the overall value of your content.
Source: English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout
Disproven Search Engine Optimization Factors
While some ranking factors are still in question, some have been proven irrelevant to search engine ranking. Let’s examine the well-known factors that are no longer considered to impact search rankings.
It’s important to note that this list is not exhaustive, but it covers the major ones.
Bounce Rate – Despite being widely believed to impact rankings, Google has categorically stated that bounce rate is not a ranking signal.
Source: @methode on Twitter
404 and Soft 404 Pages – Google has confirmed that these pages do not influence the ranking of other URLs on your site. Although broken links and pages can negatively affect user experience, they should be identified and addressed to enhance overall user experience.
Source: 404 (Page Not Found) errors
Google Display Ads and SEO Ranking – There needs to be more certainty around the impact of display ads on SEO ranking. While having display ads on your page may reduce site loading speed, especially with many of them, it is not a direct ranking factor. However, it is important to maintain optimal site performance by avoiding overloading pages with ads to prevent negative impacts on ranking. Using Google Ads, Google Search Console, or Google Analytics does not directly impact SEO ranking.
BBB reviews – Despite the potential influence that Better Business Bureau (BBB) reviews may have on consumer purchasing choices, there is currently no proof that they affect SEO rankings. A representative from Google’s team has confirmed this.
Source: English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout
AMP – This one is simple: AMP is not a ranking factor, and we know that because Google has confirmed it multiple times since 2016.
Click-Through Rate – Despite being a long-standing rumor, click-through rate (CTR) has been confirmed not to be a ranking factor by Google. A higher CTR is still beneficial for a website but does not directly impact rankings.
Meta Descriptions – Strong meta descriptions can enhance SEO by attracting a higher CTR, but Google has yet to use them as a ranking factor since the early 2000s.
Source: @JohnMu on Twitter
Code-to-Text Ratio – This is not a direct ranking factor. However, it can impact page performance and ranking factors, such as page loading speed and user experience. Maintaining it is still important, but it has little impact on rankings.
Content-Length – Despite popular belief, content length is not a ranking factor for Google. However, it is important to have good quality content that is competitive for specific keywords to rank well. A specific word count requirement, such as 1,000 or 2,000 words, is unnecessary.
Manual Actions – Manual actions refer to adjustments made by Google to a website’s visibility in search results, including demoting or removing a site or specific pages from Google Search. Google imposes these actions as a penalty, not a factor in ranking.
Source: Manual Actions Report
Domain Age – Although domain age can contribute to overall site authority, it has been confirmed by Google that it is not a factor in determining search engine rankings.
Domain Authority – Google has confirmed that domain authority, calculated by third-party tools, is not a direct ranking factor. While there may be a correlation between higher domain authority and improved SEO, it is not a determining factor. It is essential to understand that correlation does not equate to causation.
The Importance of Domain Name – While your domain name attracts clicks, it is no longer a factor in search engine rankings.
Prioritizing First Link – The order of the links is not a determining factor for Google’s ranking algorithm. Instead, the links’ quality and the anchor text’s relevance are the most important factors.
Link Types – A .gov or .edu in a domain may be attractive to users, but it does not influence Google’s ranking algorithm. The type of link is not a determining factor in search engine optimization.
Source: @JohnMu on Twitter
Relevance of Content – Google does not automatically prioritize recent articles over older ones. However, the comprehensiveness and quality of the content can impact your ranking. Updating your content to remain competitive can improve your search engine visibility.
Source: @JohnMu on Twitter
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Keyword Density – While keyword density was once a consideration in search engine rankings, it is no longer a factor. Utilizing keywords naturally and effectively is a best practice, but overusing them, known as “keyword stuffing,” will harm your optimization efforts.
The legitimacy of these ranking factors is yet to be determined.
Exploring uncharted territory for ranking factors? A handful remains uncertain, with indications of possible influence but lack conclusive proof.
The Impact of Authorship of Your Content – While the precise role of authorship in Google’s page ranking algorithm is uncertain, it is widely believed that using a reputable author with a trustworthy reputation can enhance the credibility of your content. Google recommends adding author information to the article schema, and some experts believe that authorship expertise may factor into the algorithm’s E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) component.
Use of HTML Lists – Using ordered or unordered HTML lists may have a minor influence on-page ranking, though the exact impact remains unclear. Nevertheless, lists can improve a page’s search engine optimization (SEO), particularly by increasing the chances of appearing in a featured snippet.
Importance of Text Formatting – Using HTML elements to format text can benefit readers and search engines. Text formatting may impact ranking by highlighting important content, although the exact impact is yet to be fully determined. Bold or italicized text, for example, may be perceived as more important and receive additional weight in the ranking.
Introduction to MUM – In 2021, Google introduced the Multitask Unified Model (MUM) to enhance its language understanding, resulting in an improved ability to answer complex search queries. Currently, MUM’s impact on page ranking needs to be clarified. However, there is potential for it to play a role in the future, as early tests have shown improvements in some search results.
Final Thoughts
This comprehensive overview highlights the known, confirmed, and disputed ranking factors that affect Google’s page ranking algorithm. It is significant to note that this list may change as the search engine evolves and adopts new technologies.
The reality of Google’s ranking factors is likely more complex than the widely accepted notion of “200 ranking factors.” As Google continues to harness the power of AI and machine learning, the ranking factors that drive results for marketers will likely evolve and change. Thus, marketers must stay informed and adapt to the latest developments in the field. With the integration of ai in search engine optimization, marketers have an unprecedented opportunity to leverage data-driven insights to enhance their strategies. This shift not only requires adaptation to new algorithms but also emphasizes the importance of understanding user intent and behavior. By embracing these changes, marketers can achieve higher visibility and engagement in an increasingly competitive landscape.
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