Google Page Ranking Positive Factors
Positive Factors in Googles page ranking algorithm include:
- Positive Keyword Factors
- Positive Page Attributes
- Site/Domain Attributes
- Inbound Link Attribute
Positive Keyword Factors
Use of Keyword in Domain Name - an aged, non-hyphenated
domain name containing your primary keyword is 25% toward top rankings.
Some suggest that using a keyword in the domain name is only helpful
if you separate the words with hyphens. To avoid triggering a spam-trust
issues, more than one or two hyphens is not recommended.
Using Keyword in Page URL - although not weighted
anywhere near as much as an exact match domain name, using the primary
keyword in the page URL helps improve CTR and relevancy scores.
There is also the bonus that some people will link to pages using
the URL as anchor text.
Keyword Use in H1 Tags - May hurt your rankings
if it is too well aligned with the page title and anchor text.
Using Keyword in H2+ Tags - This could be regarded
as the second most important on-page criteria. The weighting of
this factor changes every now and then; H2 and H3 tags can at times
have the same/higher importance than H1 Tags.
Using Keyword in ALT Tags and IMAGE Tags - When
an image is used in place of anchor text, the alt acts as anchor
text. Whilst very important for Image search, this is not as important
for Web search.
Keyword Use in Bold/Strong Tags - this has some
weighting factor - Bolds are for markup, strong is for emphasis,
therefore, use strong tags and highlight no more than 3-5 keyphrases
variations on a page.
Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag - Whilst meta
descriptions are not so highly weighted in large search engines
such as Google, they are still used as the site description for
many smaller directories and engines. They rank highly for display
purposes in getting users to click through the result. Make sure
they are unique for each page - or you may be penalized.
Keyword Use in Meta Keywords Tag - Not used by
Google, used a little by Yahoo, but sitll used in smaller engines.
Positive Page Attributes
Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure
- the number and importance of internal links pointing
to the target page can be the sole driver of positon 1 rankings
or totally ignored. It's more about certain pages getting enough
emphasis to get indexed and ranked. In large sites, internal link
popularity is a factor in ranking deep content pages.
Quality/Relevance of Links to External Sites/Pages
- external links on the page should only point to high quality,
topically-related pages on other sites. External linking promotes
the concept of authority and hub websites, so can be important for
new sites.
Age of Page - New pages may get temporary elevation
in search ranking. However, older pages gain trust, especially if
they are well cited and do not have many broken links in them. New
pages on Blogs and News sites may tend to have high PageRank values
due to internal site structure.
Amount of Indexable Text Content - refers to the
amount of visible HTML text on a page; pages with all flash and
images rarely rank well. Longer and more athoritative documents
are better than breaking articles into many shorter pages. This
avoids the search engines perceiving the pages as spam articles
of similar size. However, some SEO masters have gained high ranking
with under 15 words on the page!!
Quality of the Document Content - search engines
most likely use text, visual or other analysis methods to determine
the validity and value of content. Good content is KING - good content
attracts great links.
Broad > Narrow Hierarchy of Page Content -
follow the standard journalistic style of a detail introduction,
a broad level overview mid section, followed by a return to specificity
and detail in the final summary paragraph. This helps search engines
understand how documents relate to each other, and effectivley distributes
your link authority.
Frequency of Updates to Page - rather than at
page level, concentrate on frequency of updates the whole site.
Number of Trailing Slashes - this is determined
by the folder depth of the page. Try not to go beyond the fourth
level. The page ranking is not so affected, but I have found that
beyond this level, the pages were just not getting indexed. A shame
- as I found organizing my website much easier and more meaningful
with a deep structure.
Accuracy of Spelling & Grammar - this is more
important for visitor appeal. Use of misspellings can be valuable
when targeted for rankings- misspelt targeted keyword phrases.
W3C HTML Validation of Document - forget it. There
are more important things to worry about!
Site/Domain Attributes
Global Link Popularity of Site - links from any
and all sites across the web in terms of both link quality and quantity.
Whilst individual web page assessment is regarded as the most important;
there is division as to whether the PageRank mechanism will automatically
distribute the page rank among web pages on the website. Google
maintain they value a page in its own right - but my observations
lead to doubt. Make sure pages are not orphaned - with no links
to it.
Age of Site - this refers to the launch of indexable
content seen by the search engines and NOT the original registration
of the domain, which I have found to be quite incorrect. So if you
have a lot of domains just sitting around - at least add a few pages
to them and get them working, building up an age profile. Aging
has taken on more signifigance in the ranking factors within the
past two years. Building a hub and spoke structure for multiple
sites has advantages - new sites benefit when they have a clear
connection to a"parent" site that has already gained trust.
Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site - relevance
is how closely the subject relationship between the sites/pages
linking to the target page and the target keyword. Relevant links
are just good business.
Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community -
A new niche site with just a few links from authority sites is often
enough to rank the site above the authorities for niche-related
keywords.
Rate of New Inbound Links to Site - Avoid too
rapid an increase in inbound links, especially from low quality
'spam' sites. A steady strong increase can make a rapid rise, although
expect a delay before rankings improve.
Relevance of Site's Primary Subject Matter to Query
- aren't search results all about this !!
Historical Performance of Site - as Measured by
Time Spent on Page, Clickthroughs from SERPs, Direct Visits, Bookmarks,
etc. These metrics may be measured through use of Google toolbar,
free wifi, Google analytics etc NOTE: Alexa rankings have become
highly unreliable since they changed their measurement to only those
using the Alexa toolbar - my sites went from sub 100,000 to over
2million in Alexa ranking in just a few weeks - shortly following
Trend Mico 2007 incompatibility with Alexa toolbar, meaning many
users no longer had it loaded.
Manual Authority/Weight Given to Site by Google
- Google is occassionally suspected or accused of applying manual
manipulation to a domain or page. How true this is, one can only
guess.
TLD Extension of Site (edu, gov, us, ca, com,
etc) - Third Level Domains such as .tv and .go are much less desirable
than .com, .net, etc
Rate of New Pages Added to Site - Deviation from
the norm, rather than the quantity is probably more likely to trigger
a red flag with Google. A good site will continually update or add
to its content for the benefit of its readers.
Number of Queries for Site/Domain over Time -
no evidence that this helps or harms a site.
Verification of Site with Google Webmaster Central
- Does not help with ranking, however can increase crawling rate
and re-inclusion requests from webmaster central are given more
attention. May help with indexing if website is restructured to
decrease the level of folders to maximum of 4.
Inbound Link Attribute
Anchor Text of Inbound Link - many still maintain
that Anchor Text is still the single most important factor. However,
over the past year or two Google has moved away from anchor text
and more toward domain authority and number of quality citations.
Global Link Popularity of Linking Site - the link
populairty of the linking page and site is probably the most important
factor when deciding on a link.
Topical Relationship of Linking Page - support
for this varies widely, but it certainly pays to have only a few
relevant sites linking in, rather than thousands of non-relevant
spam or link farm sites.
Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community -
Google has not been too interested in community linking until recently,
so this one may take time to get a hold.
Age of Link - 3-4 months is a minimum target for
Google, and the longer after that the better.
Topical Relationship of Linking Site - this varies
in importance, depending upon whether the page your link is on is
relevant, and if the whole site is topically relevant to your site.
Text Surrounding the Link - surrounding text is
given more weight when the anchor text is non keyword focused such
as "click here" This is also becoming more important
to Google with image's, where the content is based on surrounding
text as much as any image feature.
Internal Link Popularity of Linking Page within Host Site/Domain
- contributes to deep linking strategy to raise the profile in internal
pages, instead of just linking to home pages.
Domain Extension of Linking Site - even if not
contributing mathematically to the algorithm, .edu and .gov links
are valuable because of the number of trusted and powerful links
from great websites.
Google Toolbar PageRank of Linking Page - I find
these far too unreliable to offer any indication, however it pays
to remember that Google uses PageRank values to help set crawling
priorities and to determine if a document should go in the regular
or supplmental index.
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