Search Engine Rankings & Algorithms

By on October 9th, 2006. Posted in Algorithm Tagged in ,

Search Ranking Factors

Let’s have a quick look at a report by SeoMoz who have grouped together some of SEO’s finest brains to break down various on-page and off-page ranking factors.

The top ten ranking factors are as follows (rankings out of 5):

    1. Title Tag – 4.57
    2. Anchor Text of Links – 4.46
    3. Keyword Use in Document Text – 4.38
    4. Accessibility of Document – 4.3
    5. Links to Document from Site-Internal Pages – 4.15
    6. Primary Subject Matter of Site – 4.00
    7. External Links to Linking Pages – 3.92
    8. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community – 3.77
    9. Global Link Popularity of Site – 3.69
    10. Keyword Spamming – 3.69

A thoroughly informative read and I really like the stats and evaluation. There are no surprises for the top 10 – although I am somewhat surprised that H1 tags were not considered of higher value.

Google’s Ranking Algoritm Explained

Secondly, courtesy of SeoMoz (again…) – Google’s ranking algorithm explained nice and simple in easy to grasp maths!

GoogScore = (KW Usage Score * 0.3) + (Domain Strength * 0.25) + (Inbound Link Score * 0.25) + (User Data * 0.1) + (Content Quality Score * 0.1) + (Manual Boosts) – (Automated & Manual Penalties)

Yes, this is a simple maths formula in comparison to traditional page rank algorithms articles.

Again I really like the stats and its simplicity. It ties in nicely with SeoMoz’s ranking factors and although not an exact science, if you understand all that and have found a place for it to sit in your brain, you won’t go far wrong :) !