Google Ranking Factors
There are "over 100 SEO factors" that Google uses to rank pages in the Google search results (SERPs). What are the search engine optimization rules?
Here is the speculation - educated guesses by SEO webmasters on top webmaster forums. Various confirmed and suspected Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Rules are listed below.
| # | ON-PAGE SEO FACTORS | BRIEF NOTE |
| 1 | Keyword in URL | First word is best, second is second best, etc. |
| 2 | Keyword in domain name | Same as in page-name-with-hyphens |
| 3 | Keyword in title tag | Keyword in Title tag - close to beginning. Title tag 10 - 60 characters, no special characters. The Florida Update EVEN penalized for this, as part of the OOP. That was absurd, but effective. |
| 4 | Keyword in description meta tag | Shows theme - less than 200 chars. (Was part of Google Florida OOP) Google no longer relies upon this tag, but frequently uses it. |
| 5 | Keyword in keyword metatag | Shows theme - less than 10 words. (Was part of Google Florida OOP) Every word in this tag MUST appear somewhere in the body. If not, it will be penalized for irrelevance. NO single word should appear more than twice. If not, it is considered spam. Google purportedly no longer values this tag, but others do. |
| 6 | Keyword density in body text | 5 - 20% - (all keywords/ total words) Some report topic sensitivity - the keyword spamming threshold varies with the topic? |
| 7 | Individual keyword density | 1 - 6% - (each keyword/ total words). |
| 8 | Keyword in H1, H2 and H3 | Use H1 font style (Was part of Google Florida OOP). |
| 9 | Keyword font size | In strong, bold, italic, etc. |
| 10 | Keyword proximity (for 2+ keywords) | Adjacent is best. |
| 11 | Keyword phrase order | Does order in the page match order in the query? Anticipate query - match word order. |
| 12 | Keyword prominence (how early in page/tag) | Most important at top of page, in bold, in large font. |
| 13 | Keyword in alt text | Should describe graphic - Do NOT fill with spam (Was part of Google Florida OOP - tripped a threshold - may still be in effect to some degree as a red flag, when summed with all other on-page optimizations). |
| 14 | Keyword in links to site pages (anchor text) | Links out anchor text use keyword? |
| 15 | To internal pages- keywords? | Link should contain keywords. The filename "linked to" should contain the keywords. Use hyphenated filenames, but not long ones. |
| 16 | All internal links valid? | Validate all links to all pages on site. |
| 17 | Efficient - tree-like structure | Two clicks to any page - no page deeper than 4 clicks. |
| 18 | Intra-site linking | Appropriate links between lower-level pages. |
| 19 | To external pages- keywords? | Google patent - Link only to good sites. Do not link to link farms. |
| 20 | Outgoing link Anchor Text | Google patent - Should be on topic, descriptive. |
| 21 | Link stability over time | Google patent - Avoid "Link Churn". |
| 22 | All external links valid? | Validate all links periodically. |
| 23 | Less than 100 links out total | Google says limit to 100, but readily accepts 2-3 times that number. |
| 24 | Domain Name Class | .edu seem to be given the highest status .org sites seem to be given high status .com sites excel in encompassing all the spam/ crud sites, resulting in the need for the highest scrutiny/ action by Google. Perhaps one would do well with the new .info domain class. |
| 25 | File Size | Absolutely do not exceed 100K page size. Small files preferred <40K (lots of them). |
| 26 | Hyphens in URL | Preferred method for indicating a space, where there can be no actual space One or two= excellent for separating keywordsFour or more= BAD, starts to look spammy Ten = Spammer for sure, demotion probable? |
| 27 | Freshness of Pages | Google patent - Changes over time. Newer the better - if news, retail or auction! Google likes fresh pages. So do I. |
| 28 | Freshness - Amount of Content Change | New pages - Ratio of old pages to new pages. |
| 29 | Freshness of Links | Google patent - May be good or bad. |
| 30 | Frequency of Updates | Frequent updates = frequent spidering. |
| 31 | Page Theming | Page exhibit theme? General consistency? |
| 32 | Keyword stemming | Stem, stems, stemmed, stemmer, stemming, stemmist, stemification. |
| 33 | Applied Semantics | Synonyms, CIRCA whitepaper. |
| 34 | LSI | Latent Semantic Indexing - Speculation, no proof. |
| 35 | URL length | Keep it minimized - use somewhat less than the 2,000 characters allowed by IE - less than 100 is good, less even better. |
| 36 | Site Size - Google likes big sites | Larger sites are presumed to be better funded, better organized, better constructed, and therefore better sites. Google likes LARGE sites, for various reasons, not all positive. This has resulted in the advent of machine-generated 10,000-page spam sites - size for the sake of size. |
| 37 | Site Age | Google patent - Old is best. |
| 38 | Age of page vs. age of site | Age of page vs. age of other pages on site. |
