Google Algorithm - SERPs

by 96 replies
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We all know Google utilizes probably as many as 200 ranking factors for its SERPs.

The major ones may include
- originality of content
- pr of webpage
- pr of homepage of site
- age of domain
- quality & quantity of backlinks to particular page
- quality & quantity of backlinks to homepage of site
- quality & quantity of backlinks to entire website
- unique linking domains to page
- unique linking domains to website
- edu. domain links
- gov. domain links
- dmoz
- yahoo directory ( though heard it is now no more in existence)
- On page factors e.g. meta tags

and so on....

Can you please
1. rank these factors in order(highest ranking --> lowest ranking) you believe they weight with Google
2. add other factors not included here
3. delete/identify any you believe is no more or never was a significant ranking factor.

The objective is to try and arrive at what may be near to the Google algorithm.

What motivates this is the realization that some absurdity seems to play out in the SERPs when you see a site you do not expect to rank higher, ranking higher than another site, apparently because of the "unknown Google algorithm"

Many thanks.
#search engine optimization #algorithm #google #serps

  • I've bolded the ones I think are important. I won't weight them or order them because they are all important. Kind of like water and air. You need both except to say links to a page are going to more directly help rankings than a link to another page/home page.

    plus its really not possible to link to websites without linking to individual pages
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • I am not going to rank these, but these ones are not factors.

    - pr of homepage of site
    - quality & quantity of backlinks to homepage of site (this can help to rank pages though based on the structure of the site, but is not a direct ranking factor)
    - quality & quantity of backlinks to entire website
    - unique linking domains to website

    These two myths piss me off that they are even still around. EDU/GOV links do not carry any special ranking power.
    - edu. domain links
    - gov. domain links


    This list looks like it is straight out of something like Market Samurai.

    And yes, you are right that the Yahoo Directory does not exist anymore, however there is a new product that has taken its place.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • You need to read up and do some research then Mike. Besides Pr of home page they are all factors.

      quality or quantity of backlinks to the home page will convey authority through the site (as you indicated ) so it can hardly be said to not be a factor. Plus almost all professional SEOs admit that there are diminishing returns on links from the same site at some point (plus one domain alone linking would look as spammy as hades ). So yes more than one site aka linking domains is a factor. Denying that would be silly
      • [1] reply
  • I think if you're going to pay attention to all the 200 parameters, then it will take years to rank a single website.

    The most important thing you need to pay attention to is on page factors,

    it has happened many times that a new website has outranked old domain name for a given keyword.

    my simple secret to ranking my sites to any given keyword is to optimize the site for on page factors and then find out my competitors source of backlinks and do the same. it's that simple for me.
  • Banned
    Doesn't matter in :


    • -
    • -
    • -
    • -
    • -
    • -
    • - unique linking domains to page
    • -
    • -
    • -
    • -
    • -
    • - On page factors
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • From all posts above, seems my deduction is that the most important ranking factors are
      - On page
      - unique linking domains to page
      - quantity and quality of backlinks to page

      Thanks guys.
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
    • Banned
      Wrong, no content is better than duplicate content.

      You know what's even more funny, you guys flag everything as zero influence on rankings but Google says they have 200 ranking factors, care to share 20 of them if all those small things don't matter?

      I bet they all matter to some degree as otherwise they would never be able to come up with 200.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • Quality of quantity of links....everything else is a distant 2nd in my opinion...
    • [1] reply
    • Sigh...I'll give it one last try . IF you think being accurate is "blatant" it probably still won't get through but heres a go in the limited time I have right now (or ever on this so obvious subject) - The only thing i can get from that statement is that you don't understand what a ranking factor in the algo is. A ranking factor is something that generally will HELP a website's (in some way linked together) page rank. Web 2.0s accounts are an exception not being generally linked to from the home page (some DO HELP RANKINGS while the post/title page is on the home page).

      Does the home page or other page authority help pages to rank on a typical website? Yes it does because on most sites some pages are linked. Link juice flowing through pages is a ranking factor ...pretty central one too because most sites do have some link structure.

      Sooooo it (the authority from the home page or other page/pages on the website) IS a ranking factor.Should anyone look at home page authority and say I cannot rank against this? No because the algo is multi layered and there are different factors including number of hops/distance from the page with authority. The overwhelming majority of websites have some link structure though so saying its not a factor is no matter what you claim inaccurate and potentially misleading. You'll probably still deny it but I don't think I can explain it any simpler.

      The linking domains not being a factor is just very poor advice theres no excuse for . Like I said citing exclusions doesn't disprove what we see in the serps. its relatively rare for one source links to rank a site in a competitive serp. Also you seem to separate internal linking from the pages they link from but internal links are no ranking factor at all except for the strength of the page they come from. Straightforward and simple. They are a part of the algo.
  • The discussion of SEO has been done to death already. Ultimately it all boils down to the fact that you need to have great content that visitors genuinely enjoy viewing, and lots of links from real websites who really want to show your content to their viewers.
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      I have a new domain sitting at position #22 for a 30,000 per month traffic keyword with only about 10 backlinks from my own network of domains/pages, 1 webpage & zero content on the new domain.

      I agree give traffic what they want (decent content) but decent content doesn't rank pages, optimized links & text rank pages.

      I do need to get busy with creating content before I reach page one of the SERPs, the last thing I need is competition reporting a ranked page with Lorem Ipsum text (lol).
  • Homepage links are only as meaningful as the internal linking structure of the target domain allows them to be.

    All else comes down to links-to-pages, internal link structure and text elements (titles, headings, alt/des tags, etc).

    Really, a domain could have zero homepage links but with a strong internal link structure would still do well purely from links-to-pages. It's all about controlling and intelligently distributing inbound link juice to any page without letting it bleed out or "terminate" suddenly.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Just in case you think like Mike ...I don't deny that at all.My point is if its meaningful its a part of the algo and the emphasis in the Op is not merely any ole home page links but quality and quantity of that or other pages than the ranking page.

      When we say anything else like social is not a part of the algo we are saying it doesn't count. Sam e with Meta tags - doesn't count. You can have all the social signals in the world and the perfect structure and your tweets will not do anything for any of your pages You CANNOT say you can have a powerful say real PR5 page and it does nothing for your internal pages with good on page so its a factor. Denying that is just utterly ridiculous. Shuck s ev en wit half baked structure you are going to get benefit.

      Thats the other thing - the on page is already listed as a factor and structure is a part of on page so some structure is already assumed in the premise. I'm sorry it s just silly to say something is not a factor that with on page is. really silly,

      Its just BASIC SEO - what helps is part of the algo.
      • [1] reply
  • [DELETED]
  • Meanwhile I'd love to see the evidence that more diversity of domains linking to you is not a factor but all I have heard is crickets.
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    • Banned
      I moved 80 clients recently, from about 30-50 domains linking per client down to 15.

      And those 15 links pass on almost twice the amount of juice then those 30-50 ever did.

      Guess what's the end result?

      Every single client ranks a little worse than before.

      Amount of referring domains / IP's plays a fairly large role and imo always did.

      It's not for nothing that I start an extra 5 OBL network again, and start to do some link exchanges on the dedicated domains of clients, without leaving obvious obl footprints or diminishing the relevance, so that means everyone gets 2-3 more links max from that, the rest will come from the new 5 OBL network.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Hi Dele,

    Thanks for sharing very useful information about search engine ranking factors order is like following in my opinion.
    - originality of content
    - On page factors e.g. meta tags
    - dmoz
    - pr of webpage
    - pr of homepage of site
    - quality & quantity of backlinks to particular page
    - quality & quantity of backlinks to homepage of site
    - quality & quantity of backlinks to entire website
    - unique linking domains to page
    - unique linking domains to website
    - edu. domain links
    - gov. domain links
    - age of domain
    - yahoo directory ( though heard it is now no more in existence)

    Regards,
    Reddy Sekhar,
    SEO Analyst.
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      I just read the first few posts, don't feel much for reading the whole discussion.

      All I can say Mike Anthony is right and the rest just WOW'd me with their nonsense.

      It's time to stay a little more up to date and do some testing guys, that's the only advice I can give you.
  • Mike for the last time, I said that links to a home page do not impact internal pages if there is no link path between them. That's all I was pointing out.

    I'm not sure what part of that you are arguing with.

    If there is a link path between a home page and the internal page in question, then the links to the home page can be a factor.

    And the diversity thing is the same thing. If their is no link path to the page you are looking at, it does not matter what kind of diversity in links the rest of the site has.

    Google does not say that because a domain has great link diversity it should boost ALL of its pages. Pages get boosted through the flow of links.

    Again though, you have to look at the relationship of the page you are trying to rank or evaluate. If the diversity all goes to the home page, and the page you are looking at is 7 hops deep on the site, it really is not going to play much of a roll unless you are talking about an absolutely incredible link profile to the home page.

    That is why as posts roll deeper and deeper on the public blog network sites, the links are weaker and weaker. PBN's usually have nearly all of their links (and diversity) pointed at the home page.

    I used the Web 2.0 example just because it is a common example that everyone would be familiar with. New pages on 2.0 sites are inherently weak because they have no relationship to the home page of the site (or generally any other page throughout the site), where most of the links would be found.

    It is no different than home page PR not being a ranking factor. You even agreed with that. So what is the difference? How can home page PR not be a ranking factor, but home page links are a ranking factor? Both of their influence's has to flow through links.

    Bottom line is this...

    Yes, a strong home page will pass on its influence throughout the site as long as it can flow through links. Every additional link it has to flow through to get to a page, the weaker that influence is. If there is no path to a particular page, the home page's link profile makes zero difference.
    • [2] replies
    • Banned
      What I don't get is why are you pointing out such huge exception? Everyone knows (or should know) that the root domain of a web2.0 platforms helps nada.
      • [2] replies
    • uggh......MIke Niko has read the thread too and gotten the same sense so the whole you are getting me wrong twisting what I said nonsense will work even less this time. You said multiple time that home page and other pages are not direct ranking factors in the algo. its crapola. most sites on the internet have linked pages so 90% of the time its a direct factor for those

      You can dance, swim , do somersualts its what you said and I have not time today for your games. this is even worse -

      Your right its the same kind of nonsense. Mike thats like saying external links are not a factor because 404 errors exist or because they were never placed. Most sites have links from home and other pages to internal page . The questions was what factors play a part and are in the algo. you said unique domains are not in the algo as a ranking factor Sheesh you goofed. If you would just be honest and say hey I mispoke but its all this dancing and dishonesty to claim you never said what you said.

      Put up another wall of text to divert from what you said. its not going to change anything
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Mike, forget everything else in the thread. Do you agree with this statement?

    • [1] reply
    • Why? because you want us too. the thread is about whats in the algo -

      Yep..checked again

      "Google algorithm - SERPS"

      its not about whether this or that site doesn't have links . its what is in the algo. Why is this so hard for you to comprehend?????? The Op is asking how to rank his sites an use whats in the algo

      Is the home page authority on a website which traditionally and overwhelmingly have links from its home and other pages a direct factor in the algo? Yes.

      Is multiple domains and votes from multiple parties a factor in the algo for ranking? Yes

      You said no. deal with that. if a site doesn't have internal links does it change whats in the algo? does the line in the computer code disappear at Google. The question is about the algo for the purpose of using it to rank Everything else is just doing a dance
      • [1] reply
  • All in all, i think both Mike Anthony and Mike Friedman are arriving at the same conclusion but in different ways. What can be deduced from the arguments is that
    the homepage is an indirect ranking factor only to the extent that it has a link path to the page in question.
    Below, i present an extract of the SERP for the keyword phrase "googles current ranking algorithm"

    I refer to the major ranking factors deduced above i.e.
    - On page
    - unique linking domains to page
    - quantity and quality of backlinks to page

    I still cannot seem to see how the SERP below justifies the rating of the above factors as the most influential, as there does not seem to be a correlation between these factors and the order of the results. In fact, what seems most obvious to me from the results is what Mike Anthony and Mike Friedman had been arguing about above. i.e. Not much influence of the home page backlinks on the particular page's ranking.

    How can one explain for example the many pages with very high no. of unique domains pointing to the particular pages and yet with lower rankings than those with much lower unique domain backlinks pointing to the particular pages? I don't think quality of the backlinks will account for such wide disparity.

    Another deduction i can make is that PR of the particular page is not of much importance.

    What other deductions can you make guys as to the most influential google ranking factors?

    Thanks as usual.

    • [3] replies
    • My entire argument was about links to the home page not being a ranking factor. That was my first post in this thread, which you then refuted. So what part am I lying about?

      Now you are saying we weren't talking about home page links, when clearly we were. I could quote plenty of more posts.

      Home page authority, on its own, is not a part of the algorithm. Pretty simple to understand. Incoming links are a part of the algorithm, whether they come from a home page, internal page, or external page. No links. No authority gets passed. Just like in the Scrapebox example. There are thousands of other examples out there too. Even if your estimation is true that 90% of the websites out there are using internal links and doing so fairly efectively, 10% of the internet is still a hell of a lot of webpages.

      So again, argue your points all you want. Argue against any points I made.

      Questioning my honesty is just lowbrow, unfounded, and unappreciated.
      • [2] replies
    • Banned
      A Home page doesn't matter for ranking an internal page. You could noindex a blank HTML Home page & still rank internal pages all day long.






      Quality as far as external links is really all about things like:
      • Will the backlink stick for months/years?
      • Is the backlink page indexed in Google SERPs?
      • Does the backlink page have 100s of spammy links pointing at 100s of spammy domains that will draw attention (manual slap link profile snooping).
      • Spammy links will rank pages but there's a trade off, you risk getting a manual review, tripping a spam filter, getting deindexed, etc... So..., If the domain is disposable you have nothing to lose. If the domain is a branded business name like a small business, you have everything to lose If the domain is slapped/deindexed.

      Backlinks are not one size fits all, you want to rank a page/domain for days/weeks/months (spammy links) or years (relevant links)?






      Correct, the PR for the money page doesn't matter because:
      • Public PR is no longer updated.
      • Even when public PR was updated it was quarterly at best, so a page could go months before showing an increase in PR while ranking in the SERPs those same months.
      • PR is/was for inbound links (authority votes).
    • Hey Dele unfortunately your example really isn't related to anything we have been discussing except that many factors rank a site not just one. It is highly unlikely any of the sites are targeting that term, get much anchor text links for that term or even have pages optimized to rank for it

      Overall google tries to serve up the most relevant page it can find when there are few other indicators like links that it is relevant. In those cases links won't matter much and neither will a lot of the other metrics.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • With time and experience, we all figure out which factors are most important to Google..
  • You guys are arguing over this, fail to refer back to the original post. MikeF is saying, you don't need to write both of those out. Look at what is bold. You don't need to list:

    - pr of webpage

    And

    - pr of homepage of site

    MikeF is saying, the homepage doesn't get any extra consideration. Saying PR of webpage, or - quality & quantity of backlinks to particular page is enough.

    You don't need to say webpage and homepage. A page being the homepage doesn't create extra juice on its own.

    Hypothetically speaking, if you can point 100 quality links at a particular page, if you decide to point it at the homepage, that fact doesn't magically create extra juice then if you decided to point those same links at an internal page. The authority of those 100 links will pass the same to an internal page as it would homepage. There is no magic because it's a homepage. It's just a page.

    From there it's your internal linking that takes over.

    Another hypothetical. You have a homepage that has NO navigation, and NO internal links whatsoever. Nothing. Just text and links to external websites. If you point 100 quality links to that homepage, it will help that homepage rank, but will not help any other page on your site, right?

    Because the homepage isn't more special than any other page.

    1,000 links to the homepage doesn't help an internal page unless there is a link trail to that internal page. But it didn't have to be the homepage.

    1,000 links to an internal page, that then linked to the final internal page is the same thing.
    • [1] reply
    • Nope Mike is saying they are not direct ranking factor at all regardless and its not just the home page he's wrong about but links to entire site and unique linking domains which he doesn't even qualify by saying it has indirect value either.


      If mike had said you can rank on links to the page alone no one would have disputed it. Its when he said it was not a direct factor in the algo where he blew it. Internal juice flow within a site is a ranking factor. Pretty direct too in many cases. MIke says no even when the links are there its only indirect.

      No one in this thread claimed that Deez or that it was magical or special or any of the things you just wrote. Mike made that up. Its utterly false. All some of us said was the home page and any other page with authority on a site linking to the site you are trying to rank IS a factor and frankly SHOULD be used to maximize ranking ability.

      let me explain why this is important in link building. At some point everybody should want to get natural links to their site and right now even spam links are utilizing naked url for anchor text . A HUGE part of links you will get are just straight domain URLs. WF gets tons of these - warriorforum.com

      You can end up with a LOT of link equity on your home page (AND OTHER PAGES as I have added SEVERAL times). telling newbs when they are doing SEO that the home page has no direct part to play in the ranking of their internal pages makes them overlook a way that MANY webmaster get pages to rank.

      As I have tried to say and has been rejected. Say its a ranking factor and explain that it depends, doesn't always apply and the distance from the pages with authority affects it but don't tell newbs its no direct factor when it often is. Internal link juice is third only to on page content relevancy and exterior links and yes in many cases the home page is where that authority is most built up.

      Look at his list of what doesn't factor at all - he ended up denying even factors for quality and quantity of all links coming in to the entire website (which help to determine the strength of the internal link juice flowing) even besides the home page. Thats wrong. you should be aware of the overall links strength coming into to your entire website and utilize that link juice - not claim its not a factor.

      So its not just a home page issue . Mike denied as you can see from above list that the overall link profile to a website is a potential ranking factor in doing SEO.

      Its just plain wrong.
      • [1] reply
  • For me the most important factor to get ranking over search engine is to have quality contents, on paging and overall representation of the website. Off paging factor are equally responsible, but the important one is to have a perfect on paging of that website.
  • The ranking factors Google uses for its SERP are categorized under 10 different categories.
    These categories are Domain Factors, Page-Level Factors, Site-Level Factors, Backlink Factors, User Interaction, Special Algorithm Rules, Social Signals, Brand Signals, On-Site WebSpam Factors and Off Page Webspam Factors.

    If ON page of Website is implemented in proper way and if you follow Your best OFF page strategy then there is no doubt to rank best such website in Google SERP's
  • Google Changes Search Algorithm to Oust Content Farms - This is the headline for the first link below. We, as have others, have used RSS to copy content and make webpages for clients look more current and change more often. Even if this used to give us a bump, google's approach is to say NEVER MORE !!

    1. Maybe google cried uncle to bing and yahoo here. The other SERP's always did this.
    2. Sometimes I can find websites that actually will take a webpage and look for duplicate content
    3. Google has never put much into any meta tag, except description. Title I agree still matters. This is an interesting insight, and if true, makes my life easier.
    4. Google has at least added heuristics to compare anchor text to actual target page content to prevent google wacking.

    If anybody is learning about SEO, your assertions are a good place to start building an understanding.
  • Whoever thinks PR is still a factor is somebody to ignore in all areas of SEO advice. PR died ages ago and people from Matt Cutts through to SMX hosts have all said the same thing. Good gravy, there some clowns around here.
    • [1] reply
    • Banned
      Sure 15-20 years of internet history all changes in slightly over a year that PR hasn't been updated.

      I bet Facebook will be a PR1 now internally.

      Enjoy relying on Ahrefs, Majestic and Moz for the strength of backlinks to a domain
      • [2] replies
  • Thank you for the list, do you have a list of .edu list? I will highly appreciate it. Is it true that 1,000 - 2,000 words on content are ranking well on SERP?
    • Banned
      [DELETED]
  • One SEO guy I heard from was adamant the most important thing a person can do to rank high with Google is to post great content CONSISTENTLY. He told me this would take care of most of my SEO results. I found it to be an interesting idea but have not tested it.
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