Have you been into SEO for a long time and dream of ranking in SERP organically? You would have written content that brings value to your target audience but still surprises why Google doesn’t make your website on top?
If so, the upcoming 200 Google ranking factors are for you.
Google always focuses on holding the market share as a search engine industry leader. To save them, they invest time, energy, and money in the building system and algorithms that bring the best content to the end-user.
Many people believe that Google only provides valid information, and it’s not a myth; it’s a fact. Yes, Google robots spend a huge crawl budget to discover and index “n” number of web pages from various websites and use algorithms and ranking factors to rank them.
In 2006, Google announced that they analyzed and understood 200 factors for ranking. Besides this, there were 1000 algorithm updates.
Only a few updates were noticeable like Panda, Penguin, Rank Brain, Humming Bird, Mobilegeddon, Medic, BERT, Core Updates, Page Experience, Product Review, Spam link updates, etc.
Others were unnoticeable; a small update created much impact on ranking. Despite focusing the threads of every algorithm update, focus on all SEO ranking factors.
Know them, imbibe them, adhere to them in your practice, and your organic traffic during each algorithm update will be taken care of.
We analyzed these 200 ranking factors from the Google patent and Google ranking system and added to our experience and examinations.
Let’s start with all 200 factors that help a webpage rank on the 1st page of SERP.
What Are Google Ranking Factors?
Ranking factors by Google are the streamlining process assigned to the Googlebot crawlers to pick the best content rank.
These ranking factors have scorecards kept on changing by Google Core updates to enhance better content for the end-user.
Search Engines need some rules to get the best out of the internet. So, Google looks at 200+ key factors that make sure they rank the best page on the internet for each user intent.
Before knowing all the SEO ranking factors, you should be clear with the concepts of How search engines work? And what are google search algorithms? These basics will be useful for understanding all Google ranking factors.
It is needed by SEO specialists/experts, marketing managers, website owners, and business owners who look for SEO services.
How any ranking factors do Google comprises? What are they?
Since Google is the largely used search engine, we call the Google ranking factor the SEO ranking factor.
The base of Google ranking factors is comprised of 9 categories. They are the following:
- Domain Factors
- Individual Webpage Factors
- Website Factor
- Backlink Factors
- User Experience and User Interface factors
- Special Google Algorithm Rule
- Brand Signals
- Spam Factors of Self Website (On-Page)
- Spam Factors of Referring Domains or Pages (Off-Page)
Domain Factors
1. Domain Age:
Google search advocate John Mueller once said Domain Age does nothing in ranking. Still, many data suggest that domain age impacts better ranking.
You can find the below data by Ahrefs, which demonstrated 3 years old web pages have a 200% higher chance of ranking on the 1st page compared to 2 years or 1-year-old domains.
2. Keyword in Domain:
There is a myth rolling out in the SEO community that keywords in the domain names can help in ranking, but it doesn’t. Keywords in the domain can build relevancy but not the ranking (until the domain is your brand name).
3. Top Level Domain (TLD):
TLD is not a ranking factor, yet focusing on a particular country, TLD with a specific country code would sometime help in ranking in particular. It has some constraints while ranking globally.
4. Domain Registration Length:
Domain registration length is the number of years a domain is paid for renewal in advance. Google advocates that Matt Cutts has denied domain registration length as Google ranking factors.
5. Keyword in Subdomain:
Expert SEO servicing companies always plan website architecture before investing in SEO. This architecture is made of subdomains and subdirectories. Keywords in subdomains help rank the page to some extent. Still, the relevancy, expertise, and authority of the webpage are the key ranking factors.
6. Domain History:
Website history can impact your website ranking. A domain with a history of legal or spammy issues will penalize your website. The domain with high authority helps in better ranking.
So, better check the history of any domain before purchasing.
7. Penalized Whois Owner:
When you buy a domain from a seller who has already been penalized by Google, you will ultimately make your website fade away from organic visibility in the Google search engine.
8. Prefer Public Whois to Private Whois:
Keeping your Whois public or private is up to you, and it doesn’t have a direct impact on SEO ranking. Still, keeping your data privacy as a priority, you can choose public Whois.
Webpage Factors:
1. Keyword in Title Tag:
One of the prime Google ranking factors is keyword in Title Tag. Crawlers like Googlebot discover and index the page relevancy by HTML title tag.
In recent times, Google came with an update of promoting H1 (header) in place of Title Tag in SERP and reduced the ranking weightage.
Still, keyword in title tag make your webpages discoverable and indexable. Try to optimize title tag with less than 60 characters, relevant, and attract CTR.
It is advised not to over optimize (using multiple time) title tags.
2. Keyword at Beginning of Title Tag:
Title tags at the beginning of the page title is not a confirmed Google ranking factors. Practically, keyword at beginning of title tag helps in ranking.
As per nngroups (leading user experience researchers), first two words get more attraction in user’s eye. So, keyword at starting of the Title helps increasing click through rate (CTR).
3. Keyword in H1 (Header) Tag:
Header tag (h1) is found to be more relevant, is not over-optimized (repeated) with keywords, and has characters less than 60. This is why Google replaced the Title tag with the H1 tag in 61% of cases.
H1 (Header) tag with keyword is currently a Google ranking factor and often appears in SERP (search engine results page).
4. Keyword in Meta Description:
The meta description is another HTML code that appears in the organic results of SERP. So, the keyword in the meta description is one of the Google ranking factors.
Post passage indexing update, Google rewrites up to 70% of the time. Google confirms that is rewrites for specific reasons:
- Length of meta description more than 160 characters
- Over-optimizing meta description (Keyword stuffing)
- Irrelevant to the content of the webpage.
- Getting very low CTR
5. Keyword Density in the Content:
The number of times the focus keyword that is used in the total content is the keyword density. It is an important factor post hummingbird update, as Google then accesses user intent of any webpage rather than the number of times keywords are used.
Important SEO plugins like RankMath and Yoast suggest a 0.5% to 2% keyword density. These are just numbers. The most important is the web page’s relevancy, and the natural usage of keywords and related keywords are the key ranking factors.
6. Content Length:
When it comes to webpages of any intent, on average, pages with minimum 2000 words get higher chance of appearing in search engine result page (SERP). This was data shared by serpIQ Blogs.
So, content length is one of the prime Google ranking factor. Every search engine needs their visitors to stay long in websites, so high quality, informative, with detailed contents rank better.
7. Linked Table of Content:
Table of content helps both user and search engine to understand the structure and relevancy of the webpage.
When table of content is linked to the specific sub-headings, it gets chance to appear in SERP especially in meta description post passage indexing.
Linked table of content helps the users to navigate directly to the sub-headings that meets their needs.
8. Keyword Density and Frequency:
There is a lot of misconsumption rolled out regarding keyword density.
There is no recommendations by Google of how much time a focus or secondary keyword should be used in an article.
Some plugins like Yoast and Rankmath recommends keyword density to be between 0.5 – 2%. Does Google have ever mentioned the same? Ain’t.
Webmaster guideline on keyword stuffing says, usage of irrelevent keywords (without a natural purpose) that could change the context of the web page is called keyword stuffing.
So, more than focusing on keyword density, just focus on readability and user experience.
9. Usage of LSI Keywords:
Latent semantic index (LSI) keywords in web page help search engines to extract the exact meaning of the content.
Semantic keywords help search engine to discover exact meaning of the query and rank them to the relevant user-query.
10. Usage of Semantic Keyword in Title and Description:
In the above factor, we mentioned usage of semantic keywords can help matching exact user query.
Placing these semantic keywords in title and meta description can help search engines to rank. Also, when exact intent meets users, the CTR (Click Through rate) increases.
11. In Depth Quality Content:
There is not predefined metrics to evaluate what is a quality content? When a content is written by an expert in the niche (as per EAT algorithm), it gets better ranking.
Any content that is relevant and has in-depth information and get more social share are signaled as quality content.
Content that could satisfy the reader’s intent is a signal of useful content. Users get more information when a web page has in-depth content. (we are not talking about the number of words.)
In-depth content is something when the users complete information about their query.
For example, when a user searches for “YouTube Marketing,” your web page should provide details from the definition, set up a YouTube channel, customize the channel, create a video plan, YouTube SEO, YouTube Analytics, and finally, how to set up YouTube ads.
12. Useful Content:
Content that could satisfy the reader’s intent is a signal of useful content. Users get more information when a web page has complete detail on a particular query. (we are not talking about the number of words.)
The users complete information about their query is useful content.
For example, when a user searches for “YouTube Marketing,” your web page should provide details from the definition, set up a YouTube channel, customize the channel, create a video plan, YouTube SEO, YouTube Analytics, and finally, how to set up YouTube ads.
13. Page Loading Speed via HTML:
Web page loading speed is one of the Google ranking factors, as it provides high weightage to the usability of web pages (One of the basic Google Algorithm)
Apart from Google, Bing also looks at the page loading speed from HTML as one of the ranking factors.
Website or web pages that load less than 2.5 seconds on mobile has the potential to rank in SERP.
14. Page Loading Speed tested on Chrome:
Google uses Chrome lab tests to understand the website loading speed of both mobile and desktop.
You can get the details of the chrome test from the lighthouse or Chrome Devtools.
15. Core Web Vitals
16. No Duplicate Content on the same site
Duplicate content, sometimes known as “Identical content,” has been demonstrated to negatively impact websites and incur costs for site owners in the form of worse search engine rankings and lost traffic.
It is possible that Google would not penalize your website for having duplicate content if you use the Rel=Canonical tag in the proper manner.
17. Image Optimization through alt text, title text
It is usual practice to refer to the alt and title properties of an image as the “alt tag” or “alt text” and the “title tag,” respectively.
These details are also used by search engines like Google to comprehend the context of an image; specifically, to determine what an image depicts and why it was created in the first place.
As you hover your mouse over the element, a tooltip containing the title attribute will appear. There is no necessity for a title attribute. To add insult to injury, the majority of the time whatever is included is completely unnecessary.
18. Freshness of Content (recently)
The term “fresh content” refers to information that is either recently updated, being updated often, or was published very recently.
Stale content, on the other hand, is content that hasn’t been updated in a significant amount of time, while fresh content is the antithesis of stale content.
A component in ranking is how recently the information was created. Although upgrading older material or writing about current events or news in a timely manner will assist raise your results, providing fresh content involves much more than just those two things.
19. Page Age
20. How many edits were made to the content during update
21. Historical data on page updates
22.Proper use of Rel=Canonical
The issue of duplicating material can be remedied with the use of the HTML element known as rel=canonical. Webmasters will use this tag when they have two pages on their site that are virtually identical to one another.
This tag communicates to Google and other search engines which page should be considered the “original” or “canonical” version of the content.
When you suspect that you may have a problem with duplicate content but it would be counterproductive to remove one version of the material or to perform a 301 redirect, you should make use of the rel=canonical tag instead.
23. Presence of key words in Subheading
One of the most significant things you can do to make it simpler not just for people but also for search engines to understand the content of your website is to employ keywords in your subheadings.
When it comes to maximising the effectiveness of the material in the most effective way possible, subheadings are an essential component.
Because of this, subheadings ought to be utilised effectively in order to improve the overall quality of the content and hence the performance of the content.
24. Presence of keyword in first 100 words(or) 10% of content
It can be found within the very first hundred words of the post that you are about to publish on your website.
It is possible that it is not as helpful for crawlers as it formerly was, but included it surely won’t hurt, and it can assist make the connection between the content and title much more smooth for your readers.
25. Grammar and Spelling
Although correct spelling and grammar are not officially considered to be Google ranking factors, they do play a role in the overall elements that determine Google rankings.
It is difficult to conceive of anything being considered “high-quality” if it has a large number of typos as well as errors in grammar and spelling.
When a user comes across content that has a number of spelling and grammar errors, it can create an unfavourable impression on them.
It is crucial to keep this in mind since, even though spelling and grammar might not always effect a website’s ranking, it can leave a negative impression on a user.
26. Uniqueness (or) Originality of the page’s content
27. Entity Matter
28. Number of Internal links
The term “internal link” refers to a hyperlink that “targets” the same domain as the domain on which the link itself resides (source).
In common parlance, a link that is considered to be internal is one that directs users to another page that is located on the same website.
29. Mobile Usability & Friendliness
Google started using “mobile-friendliness” as a ranking factor for mobile search. In layman’s terms, that means that if your website is mobile friendly, mobile ready or responsive , when someone does a Google search on their mobile phone, your website will rank higher than a website that is not mobile friendly or responsive.
30. Hidden content on Mobile
Since the beginning of search engines, hidden text has been widely regarded as an unethical and spammy marketing tactic.
If the content is visible on the desktop version of the site, then it will crawl and use the data for ranking your mobile site as well because they share indexing signals between the desktop and mobile versions. However, hidden content is discounted in the ranking.
31. Presence of Multimedia (Images & Videos)
32. Page Optimized for Mobile
Your website is considered optimised if it displays beautifully even when viewed on a mobile device. In addition, it should load quickly, and it should be simple to navigate and use. If you are able to accomplish this for a mobile device, then your website should also look great when viewed on a full-screen desktop device.
33. Number of outbound links
