What Are The 200 Signals Google Uses To Rank Pages?

[mocgiit]

I was going about my daily work load and I was reading an article about how there were about 100 onpage and off page factors that the algos consider for SEO. So over the last few weeks I took about an hour out of my busy day to try to list all the 100 factors involved with SEO. I got to about 37. It made me ask this question "Do I know what I am doing?”

I have been doing SEO for about 6 years now so I would love to see if any one can come close to 100. Its always good to test your knowledge.

[atlanta404]

37??? I'd love to see them - please post!

[Nivik23]

The only factor that I think is important is:

1)Owning the search engine

That usually helps your ranking

Honestly though, I don't think it would be all that hard to come up with a list of 100 things when you consider that numerous items in the list are able to be listed numerous times based upon set combinations

For example you take one set of factors such as:

keyword
keyword vector

then overlay that set upon another set:

weight
density

then overly that set upon yet another:

site content
backlink content

Then have independent sets:

# Server Errors
% Server Errors
Location
Lanuage

and on and on. Then put them all together in a nice package with coefficients and operators. Such a list though is highly speculative and we all know how tempermental SE's are, so any such "list" is mostly pointless imo.

I mean come on, scientists have trouble coming up with equations doing experiments that involve < 10 variables and reality stays the same, imagine coming up with an equation with > 100 variables in which every different location and time yielded different results but you couldn't figure out what the results were until some unknown delay in time had passed which was variable itself.

There's no way someone can reverse engineer a major SE's algo or even the all variables in the algo. If I was major SE, I'd throw in a few variables just to screw with people trying to figure out the variables. Who says they don't. They might consider it a way to give their SERP's a little "personality".

Then again I'm not an "Expert" of SEO, or anything for that matter and am quite happy to stay that way.

NiV23

[Chris Boggs]

OK let's see if we can get 100...

I'll throw in "content around links." Whos' next? Including nivik's there's 11 now.

[shor]

Rand's search engine ranking factors has 103 listed. Of course, the number of these that a) truly matter and b) is within our control and/or influence is subject to continuing debate

[Chris Boggs]

Originally Posted by shor

Rand's search engine ranking factors has 103 listed. Of course, the number of these that a) truly matter and b) is within our control and/or influence is subject to continuing debate

nice list thanks for posting. of course I'll have to get on Rand for calling them Title Tags instead of Page Titles

[phaithful]

Well if we're talking about Rand and SEOMoz, there was a post on the blog from Michael Martinez Neeewssss Fffllaaaaaa-uussshhhh: Google now using 200+ ranking factors

On May 10, SearchEngineWatch revealed (in Slide 17) that Google claims to be using 200+ "signals" to determine search results rankings.

Since Rand's got 103... I think we're still missing 97

[mocgiit]

Originally Posted by shor

Rand's search engine ranking factors has 103 listed. Of course, the number of these that a) truly matter and b) is within our control and/or influence is subject to continuing debate

Man I what a great article. I think it is time for me to change careers. or just start my own personal search engine and have a simple algo.

[caugas]

Originally Posted by shor

Rand's search engine ranking factors has 103 listed. Of course, the number of these that a) truly matter and b) is within our control and/or influence is subject to continuing debate

Shor, thanks for posting this, this is helpful!!!!

[netklick]

I think they should add some people factor like the (www)oozm.com (live link edited) search engine has. Allow people to dictate what should move up and down.

[vipjun]

You can add data from the google tool bar that just got installed on all the Dell PC's

[PhilC]

Rand's article is interesting but, like any other such piece, including this thread, it's mostly based on speculation. There are a number of factors that Google published at the beginning, which are bound to still be used, but the rest are just speculation.

It's interesting to note that the #1 and #2 items in Rand's article are the wrong way round. This article explains why.

[Chris Boggs]

Originally Posted by PhilC

It's interesting to note that the #1 and #2 items in Rand's article are the wrong way round. This article explains why.

nice article Phil...very well written and accurate, in my opinion.

[MarkEllison]

Vaughns 1 Pagers lists 118!!


This is a descent checklist---site is ugly as sin however..

[mocgiit]

Originally Posted by PhilC

It's interesting to note that the #1 and #2 items in Rand's article are the wrong way round. This article explains why.

Great Article. So off page links are more powerful then onpage links? With my experience my on page text link really dont give me a jump in the SERP.

[PhilC]

Thanks, guys.

In the beginning, links from any page were probably all the same, although they didn't tell us all of the data that they stored about each links word. Even so, they've probably changed it a bit since then.

[fulton savage]

Originally Posted by netklick

Allow people to dictate what should move up and down.

This most likely happens transparently using SERP CTR, which I think is better.

Outgoing SERP link:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start...mbrella&e=9797

[maxd]

There are only 2 factors in google. Old domain and lots of links. This 100 factors crap makes me laugh. well maybe 4, I would also go for on page factors and a large indexed unique content site. That is all.

[vayapues]

Originally Posted by maxd

There are only 2 factors in google. Old domain and lots of links. This 100 factors crap makes me laugh. well maybe 4, I would also go for on page factors and a large indexed unique content site. That is all.

I hope I have the pleasure of competing against you in the future for competitive keywords, and I hope that you keep that attitude, so I can smoke you.
Old domain is powerful, but so is a new domain that is registered for the next 10 years. domain tenure and inbound links are great, but they can without question be beat by good old fashioned onsite and offsite SEO.
If you are only focusing on these two, or even four issues, and are successful, it does not mean that they are the only factors that matter, it simply means that you have yet to go up against real SEOs. My personal list is shorter than 100, but it is a lot longer than 4.

[vayapues]

I would also go for on page factors

how many on page factors?