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Search Engine Ranking Factors

Factors used by search engines to rank your website

Brandon Himpfen

Approximately 200 factors to help you rank higher in search engines like Google and Bing.

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About

About

About the Book

Search Engine Ranking Factors includes approximately 200 factors, divided into nine categories, that will help your website or blog rank higher in search engines.

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Author

About the Author

Brandon Himpfen

Brandon Himpfen is certified as a web optimization analyst and has been published over 100 open-source code projects since 2001. In recent years, Brandon Himpfen has also started publishing free datasets, and templates for Microsoft Office and Google Drive. You can view dozens of web design and web development tutorials of Brandon Himpfen’s blog. 

Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction

Domain Factors

  1. Domain Age
  2. Keyword Appears in Top Level Domain
  3. Keyword As First Word in Domain
  4. Domain Registration Length
  5. Keyword in Subdomain Name
  6. Domain History
  7. Exact Match Domain (EMD)
  8. Public vs. Private Whois
  9. Penalized Whois Owner
  10. Country TLD extension

Page-Level Factors

  1. Keyword in Title Tag
  2. Title Tag Starts with Keyword
  3. Keyword in Description Tag
  4. Keyword Appears in H1 Tag
  5. Keyword is Most Frequently Used Phrase in Document
  6. Content Length
  7. Keyword Density
  8. Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords in Content (LSI)
  9. LSI Keywords in Title and Description Tags
  10. Page Loading Speed
  11. Duplicate Content
  12. Rel=Canonical
  13. Image Optimization
  14. Recency of Content Updates
  15. Magnitude of Content Updates
  16. Page Updates History
  17. Keyword Prominence
  18. Keyword in H2, H3 Tags
  19. Keyword Word Order
  20. Outbound Link Quality
  21. Outbound Link Theme
  22. Grammar and Spelling
  23. Original Content
  24. Helpful Supplementary Content
  25. Number of Outbound Links
  26. Multimedia
  27. Number of Internal Links Pointing to Page
  28. Quality of Internal Links Pointing to Page
  29. Broken Links
  30. Reading Level
  31. Affiliate Links
  32. HTML Markup Validation
  33. PageRank
  34. URL Length
  35. URL Path
  36. Human Editors
  37. Keyword in URL
  38. References and Sources
  39. Bullets and Numbered Lists
  40. Priority of Page in Sitemap
  41. Quantity and Quality of Other Keywords Page Ranks For
  42. Page Age
  43. User Friendly Layout
  44. Parked Domains
  45. Useful Content
  46. AMP
  47. Table of Contents

Site-Level Factors

  1. Content Provides Value and Unique Insights
  2. Contact Us Page
  3. Site Architecture
  4. Number of Pages
  5. Presence of XML Sitemap
  6. Site Uptime
  7. Server Location
  8. SSL Certificate
  9. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
  10. Duplicate Meta Information On-Site
  11. Breadcrumb Navigation
  12. Mobile Optimized
  13. YouTube
  14. Site Usability
  15. User reviews/Site reputation

Backlinks Factors

  1. Backlinks from Aged Domains
  2. Number of Linking Root Domains
  3. Number of Links from Separate C-Class IPs
  4. Number of Linking Pages
  5. Alt Attribute for Images
  6. Links from .edu or .gov Domains
  7. PR of Linking Page
  8. Authority of Linking Domain
  9. Links From Competitors
  10. Social Shares of Referring Page
  11. Links from Bad Neighborhoods
  12. Guest Posts
  13. Backlinks to the Homepage
  14. Nofollow Links
  15. Diversity of Backlinks
  16. Sponsored Links
  17. Excessive 301 Redirects to Page
  18. Backlink Anchor Text
  19. Internal Link Anchor Text
  20. Country TLD of Referring Domain
  21. Link Location In Content
  22. Link Location on Page
  23. Linking Domain Relevancy
  24. Page Level Relevancy
  25. Link Velocity
  26. Links from “Hub” Pages
  27. Wikipedia Backlinks
  28. Backlink Age
  29. Links from Real Sites vs. Splogs
  30. Reciprocal Links
  31. User Generated Content Links
  32. Schema.org
  33. Being DMOZ Listed
  34. Being Yahoo! Directory Listed
  35. Forum Profile Links
  36. Word Count of Linking Content
  37. Quality of Linking Content
  38. Site-wide Links

User Interaction Factors

  1. Organic Click Through Rate for a Keyword
  2. Organic CTR for All Keywords
  3. Bounce Rate
  4. Direct Traffic
  5. Repeat Traffic
  6. Chrome Bookmarks
  7. Google Toolbar Data
  8. Number of Comments
  9. Dwell Time

Special Algorithm Rules

  1. Query Deserves Freshness
  2. Query Deserves Diversity
  3. User Browsing History
  4. User Search History
  5. Geo Targeting
  6. Safe Search
  7. Google+ Circles
  8. DMCA Complaints
  9. Domain Diversity
  10. Transactional Searches
  11. Local Searches
  12. Google News
  13. Big Brand Preference
  14. Shopping Results
  15. Image Results
  16. Single Site Results for Brands

Social Signals

  1. Number of Tweets
  2. Authority of Twitter Users Accounts
  3. Number of Facebook Likes
  4. Facebook Shares
  5. Authority of Facebook User Accounts
  6. Pinterest Pins
  7. Votes on Social Sharing Sites
  8. Number of Google+’s
  9. Authority of Google+ User Accounts

Brand Signals

  1. Brand Name Anchor Text
  2. Branded Searches
  3. Official Linkedin Company Page
  4. Brand Mentions on News Sites
  5. Co-Citations
  6. Number of RSS Subscribers
  7. Brick and Mortar Location With Google+ Local Listing

WebSpam Factors

  1. Panda Penalty
  2. Links to Bad Neighborhoods
  3. Popups or Distracting Ads
  4. Page / Site Over-Optimization
  5. Ads Above the Fold
  6. Hiding Affiliate Links
  7. Affiliate Sites
  8. Autogenerated Content
  9. IP Address Flagged as Spam
  10. Meta Tag Spamming
  11. Unnatural Influx of Links
  12. Penguin Penalty
  13. Link Profile with High % of Low Quality Links
  14. Linking Domain Relevancy
  15. Links from the Same Class C IP
  16. “Poison” Anchor Text
  17. Manual Penalty
  18. Google Sandbox
  19. Google Dance

Glossary

  1. Domain Name
  2. Domain Name Whois
  3. Pagerank
  4. Special Character

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