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50 Search Engine Ranking Factors

I have been asked this question many times and all the time I provide the same answer. The question asked is “What are the major search engine ranking factors?” So, what do you think are the factors which decide the ranking of the website in the search engine ranking?

Here are some of the factors (in no specific order) which can help gain your website a better ranking. Just make sure that you are not missing any of them.

This is the list of 50 such search engine ranking factors. These is the list which came to my mind right now. I may have missed on some of them. So, if you know of any and can add to the list, please comment it. I will add it in the list.

50 Search Engine Ranking Factors
1. Keywords in the title of the page
2. Keywords in the headings of the page (h1, h2, h3, etc.)
3. Keywords in domain name
4. Keywords in the file names of the pages, images or any other content search engine ranking factors
5. Keywords in bold, italics and underlined text
6. Keywords in alt text for the images
7. Keywords in the text of different color/size
8. Variations of keywords on the page (Eg: eat, ate, eaten, eating, eater, etc.)
9. Keyword density on the page
10. Appearance of the keyword in the above half of the page
11. Keywords in the description meta tag
12. Keywords in the keywords meta tag
13. Uniqueness of title, description and keywords with other pages of the site
14. Age of the domain
15. Age of the page
16. TLD of the domain (Eg: .in domains will rank better in google.co.in domain)
17. Hosting location
18. Pagerank of the site
19. Quality of the content (well written, informative, not duplicate) search engine ranking check list.png
20. Number of backlinks
21. Quality (PR) of the backlinks
22. Anchor text used for the backlinks
23. Title text (if any) used for the backlinks
24. Age of the backlink
25. Where the backlink appears on the page (top of the pages, bottom of the page)
26. Is the link in-content or exists with other links (pointing to some other site and separated with some specific text [like “,” or “|” ])
27. Number of total links on the page which is linking to you
28. Is the theme of the linking page is same as the linked page
29. Relevance of the keyword with the primary subject of the overall website.
30. Website load time (server response time and the size of the page)
31. Availability of the server (those 99.99% uptime things)
32. Outgoing links (to whom are you linking? Are the related?)
33. Number of pages in the site
34. Website navigation and accessibility (reach-ability of all the pages easily)
35. Links to the internal pages (yes, this will improve the ranking of the main page as well if the navigation is correct)
36. How many people come back from the site to the search engine after searching for the keyword (my be Google tracks this with toolbar)
37. Number of internal page links on your pages (not more than 100)
38. Number of external links on your pages (try to minimize)
39. Backlinks from .gov, .edu links (some thinks, its not a factor)
40. Using “-” hyphen (and not “_” underscore) in your file names wherever space is needed.
41. How often the site is updated
42. Duplicate content from other sources (negative effect)
43. Linking to bad sites (called bad neighborhood) (negative effect)
44. Keyword stuff on the pages or over optimization (negative effect)
45. The speed by which new links are building up for a site. Is it consistent over a longer period?
46. Backlinks from DMOZ and Yahoo directory are considered quite valuable.
47. Avoid session identifiers (SID)
48. Deletion of the pages (dead links on the site) without proper 301/302 redirect (negative effect)
49. HTML validation of the document (I am not sure how much effect it makes)
50. History of the domain (did it do anything bad in the past?)

Did I missed on something? Add them in the comments and I will add it here.

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Jim Karter on January 28th 2009 in Business, Google, Traffic Generation

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71 Responses to “50 Search Engine Ranking Factors”

  1. Brandon Walker responded on 28 Jan 2009 at 2:48 am #

    Thanks Jim for sharing this! I already new most of them, but I found a few new ones that I didn’t know about before. I will try some of those new SEO ranking factors on my new internet marketing site. Thanks again!

    Brandon Walker

  2. Neeraj responded on 28 Jan 2009 at 4:10 am #

    How does hosting location matter?

  3. BecauseILoveJimKarter, :) responded on 28 Jan 2009 at 6:54 am #

    Wow, this is one of your best posts yet. It could have been a report on its own by adding some more words and example for each of them, and sold for at least $27, :). Thanks a lot for sharing it for absolutely free. I appreciate it a great deal. I will ensure all my past and future sites meet these ranking factors.

  4. ZK@WebTrafficROI.com responded on 28 Jan 2009 at 8:24 am #

    Seems to me that you have provided your whole 6 years experience in these 50 points.

    But in this post Keyword is the main keyword and it came too many time … :)

  5. SEO Tips responded on 28 Jan 2009 at 9:10 am #

    Excellent resource Jim some strong points :)

  6. Dean Saliba responded on 28 Jan 2009 at 2:27 pm #

    Thanks for sharing. :0

  7. Ronak Bhagdev responded on 28 Jan 2009 at 4:10 pm #

    Thanks for sharing. Will be very helpful to Beginners. Dugg :)

  8. Dalirin responded on 28 Jan 2009 at 7:09 pm #

    How about using flash on a webpage??

  9. Jim Karter responded on 28 Jan 2009 at 8:52 pm #

    Neeraj, hosting location matters. For example if a site is for the people of India and hosting in India. Then the page will come quick due to less number of hops. Hence google prefers it for its geo-located servers.

    Dalirin, Google and other search engine says that have started recognizing links and content in flash if they are in specific format. But my suggestion would still remain away from them. I have never used any flash on any of my sites.

  10. Ramvie responded on 28 Jan 2009 at 10:00 pm #

    thanks for sharing

  11. Best Geek responded on 28 Jan 2009 at 10:14 pm #

    Usually, i will make sure to do keyword study correctly and choose my domain according to the selected keywords. Thanks for sharing this tips :)

  12. gite guru responded on 29 Jan 2009 at 1:36 am #

    Great list and a few that i’d not considered. A couple of comments…

    Worth mentioning backlinks need to be rel=follow it something a lot of people forget to check.

    Also when it comes to hosting, my understanding is that geographic location is only considered by Google when it cannot discern a geographic location from the domain extension.

    So if you have a .in address, Google will know you’re based in India irrespective of your hosting location, whereas if you have a .net, .com or .org extension it will not. If you have one of these domain extensions, you can override your hosting location by specifying the country you’re targeting within Google Webmaster Tools.

    I wrote a piece on this recently here: http://giteguru.com/starting-gite-website/domains-hosting-and-seo/

  13. Jim Karter responded on 29 Jan 2009 at 2:49 am #

    Yes, good point gite guru!

    Various search engines give more weightage to few things and less weightage to others.

  14. Eurothrift responded on 29 Jan 2009 at 3:24 am #

    A solid round-up of the basics, thanks! A little vague in many areas. For example, I think most people are aware that links from DMOZ/Yahoo directories are considered valuable - what might be a shade more helpful is an article or series of tips on getting listed in DMOZ ;) Good luck!

  15. Money Online responded on 29 Jan 2009 at 5:04 am #

    Thanks Jim for sharing this! I already knew many of them, but there a few i didn’t know. I will use them in the future.

    Thx again,
    MoneyAside

  16. Envirogle responded on 29 Jan 2009 at 7:30 am #

    excellent, list.

    However what you should also have included/mentioned, I know you are short on time so I will help out, is that, the list is not in order of best to worst, or in any real order, besides the order in which you thought of them and typed it out.

    @ gite guru

    Don’t discourage others though, you forgot to say that no follow links, had no negative effect, in fact you still can get visitors/traffic, and in the end that’s what you want, targeted traffic, you want to get follow links to rank high in google to get traffic, organic traffic, but getting links here and there in blogs will get you traffic, dofollow or not. :D

    So don’t worry if you have a few links that Google won’t use to get your rankings. :D

    @ Eurothrift

    Just a few tips.

    - Try not to submit over and over again. Once submitted wait. If you don’t get listed, wait a while, and in the mean time do either one of the tip below to make it more acceptable to the editors of DMOZ.
    - Meta Tags, get those looking good ;)
    - If one of your pages, ie your homepage most likely, is listed. DON’T STOP, if you have other pages, related to other topics, submit them in their related topics too :D
    - This is the greatest tip of all, it is not crucial, in anyway, to get listed in DMOZ, as you still can get that ohh so special #1 rank, your keyword, without being listed in DMOZ, although being #1 ranked for a certain keyword, may help in getting listed.

    @ becauseIloveJimKarter

    I guess that’s why we all love Jim! :D

    @ ZK@WebTrafficROI.com

    Sorry to burst your bubble, but he has had nearly 10 years in experience, of internet businesses, and bit less in marketing. :D

  17. Make Affiliate Money responded on 29 Jan 2009 at 3:34 pm #

    That is one hell of a list buddy and I am going to give you a link back to it!

    JZ

  18. Will Paccione responded on 29 Jan 2009 at 6:49 pm #

    Great post, thanks.

  19. zoki responded on 29 Jan 2009 at 7:06 pm #

    Great article.

    @ 35. Links to the internal pages (yes, this will improve the ranking of the main page as well if the navigation is correct)

    Have you tested does google only counts (for link reputation of a page) anchor text of first occurrence in html code (of this link) from a page this page is linked from.

    I am not sure how this apply if you have javascript/image/nofollow link first. Does this anchor counts(image link may have no anchor)?

    Lets say that nofollow link is first.What then? If google count just this anchor text,does it count seo juice from this link.

    2)Does it mater how long url is.
    I have notices.
    domain.com/zoki/smile.php rank worse than just domain.com/smile.php

  20. zoki responded on 29 Jan 2009 at 7:09 pm #

    @Envirogle

    I do not believe you can get dmoz listing for free. Editors sels links from dmoz like crazy for $100-$500.

    If you do not believe me feel free open an account on a freelancer site such as getafreelancer.com and post project in seo section you wanna dmoz listing.If you offer more than $200 you will have 20 bids in few hours.

  21. Jim Karter responded on 29 Jan 2009 at 9:43 pm #

    Some good points and tips from all you readers. Thanks.

    Yes, the list is no particular order. I just typed them as it came to my mind.

    Zoki, for images links always use “title” and “img” tag. It works on the similar link on anchor test.

    Also, the links to internal pages helps in a way that the PR and ranking of the internal pages increase which in turn (if the navigation is correctly taken care of) pass the link juice to the main site, hence enhancing its ranking.

    About the length of the URL, I don’t think there is much difference. But I have a vague feeling that Google favors 4 character or less .com domains a bit. But thats just a feeling.

  22. Deepak responded on 30 Jan 2009 at 10:50 am #

    hi jim……submitting to directories is also a good option?what should be the number of directories to be submitted daily so that google doesnt raise a red flag?

  23. ebali responded on 30 Jan 2009 at 12:25 pm #

    AFAIK, google & yahoo also show different SERP for different countries. that’s why local server got more power for local visitors.

  24. ebali responded on 31 Jan 2009 at 2:38 am #

    i just remember one point more,
    put keyword in your url, not just domain name (point 3). you can put keywords on folder names, file names, variables, etc. as long as it appear in the url.

    addition for domain name (point 3).
    you can also use subdomains and put your keywords there. in this way, you can buy cheap general meaningless TLD domain and put all of your websites in the subdomains.

  25. maddy responded on 31 Jan 2009 at 7:04 am #

    Nice posts Jim..

    I was so much amused and got curious about you, That i applied so many methods to find out you domain portfolio which myself succeeded 75% that is around 200 domains. Man you are a real genius in selecting niches. But i assure you i wont disclose this to anybody, As that is not good biz ethics. Hats off to your hard work my dear IITian, I hope one day i can refer you as one of my inspirations in life.

    I like to you as my friend, I will be happy to see a email from you, Write me at rewadotech@gmail.com, I am also from India (south India)

  26. zoki responded on 31 Jan 2009 at 12:24 pm #

    @ebali
    Keyword in domain is much more powerfull than url according to my test.

    @maddy
    He is also link building genius :)

  27. Puspanjali responded on 31 Jan 2009 at 10:43 pm #

    Wow. What a terrific list.
    Actually I am seeing more such style of posting which seems effective as the readers are usually multi-tasking while browsing and have little attention span.

    Such posts are also scanable. Just mentally discard what you already know while making note of the new points mentioned in the post. Since I am new to all this, I devoured every piece of information.

  28. Online Deals Blog responded on 01 Feb 2009 at 8:09 am #

    Great list Jim. There are actually quite a few that I never considered before.

  29. Murali responded on 01 Feb 2009 at 9:24 am #

    Good List!. Jim, when you have the time could you do a post on how one can protect his domains and websites from hackers.

  30. Stephanie Hijazi responded on 02 Feb 2009 at 10:12 am #

    Woow, this is lot task if i want to to be a king in google search engine

  31. Envirogle responded on 02 Feb 2009 at 8:18 pm #

    @ zoki

    I am sorry to say, but yes you can get listed in dmoz for free, but many more people are making rubbish sites, arcades, lyric sites, recipe sites, all content is not unique, and in no way will get listed. Unless you purchase it.

    No way dmoz will get you listed, your site has to stand out, and at least some of the content should be unique, ie, if you have an arcade, buy a few flash games, unique to your arcade, if you have a recipe site, buy a few recipes, if you have an article directory, except you just purchased a database of articles, add a few fresh unique articles every so often.

    So many webmasters think their sites are great, but they just don’t cut it. So many purchase sites, not creating it themselves, and thinking everything is unique, and well, it just isn’t.

    Some sites like Lyric, sites can never be unique as you have scripts these days that automate the process of adding lyrics, and it does it automatically. Everyone webmasters are looking for turnkeys, and small scripts, but chances are another person bought the script too ;), a lot more people, and a few changes to the looks will change nothing.

    There is a very high standard at dmoz, and most webmasters just can’t get listed. I don’t mean to demoralize you, it definitely is possible, your just not helping yourself, buying a turnkey and expect it to get listed a week after you made it.

    Many tips to help you, if you go online and just search on Google and read.

  32. Envirogle responded on 02 Feb 2009 at 8:20 pm #

    @ jim

    Sorry for the double comment Jim.

    But do you have a domain portfolio, or do you just focus on sites, and don’t really bother with domains.

    Cheers

  33. zoki responded on 02 Feb 2009 at 8:31 pm #

    @Envirogle

    Actually they probably sometimes list some good sites for free there.

    But because of all link selling there is ALMOST no way you can get listed even with quality site.

    Nobody wants do work for free nor dmoz editors.

    I have never submitted my site to dmoz because it isn’t worth for 5 minutes of my time.

  34. zoki responded on 02 Feb 2009 at 8:32 pm #

    Also my sites has nothing to do with duplicate content.

    As you have noticed there are many garbage site in dmoz.

  35. Jim Karter responded on 02 Feb 2009 at 10:40 pm #

    Envirogle, I have a collection of domains in my portfolio. But those are not for domaining purpose. But those are just with one or two pages content things which I will be using in the future.

  36. Ruby Web responded on 04 Feb 2009 at 2:10 am #

    I’d be lying if I said I read all of them, 50! that’s a long list, but consists of great pointers. Will bookmark this for future reference.

  37. ZK@Internet Marketing Blog responded on 05 Feb 2009 at 1:04 pm #

    @ Envirogle : thats awesome, I am blessed to have found this site and experienced bloggers who can help me

  38. Make Affiliate Money responded on 07 Feb 2009 at 4:53 pm #

    I personally think No. 45 about speed of linking is critical to success with Google and the “sandbox”. Be careful out there guys.

  39. Julius money making blogs responded on 07 Feb 2009 at 5:34 pm #

    This is a great list on how your site will be in Top 50 in search engine…thanks for posting this list and shared with us.

    Cheers,

    Julius “aka” webmoney

  40. Caroline responded on 09 Feb 2009 at 12:56 am #

    Nice post as usual. Only the experienced know about this. Thank you for your willingness to share it.

  41. Travel Dude responded on 09 Feb 2009 at 11:49 am #

    41. How often the site is updated
    I constantly see sites from the 90s that rank extraordinary well with their old, garbage, pages. :/

  42. Ricky C responded on 09 Feb 2009 at 12:13 pm #

    Holy… that is a nice tips you’d put there. All of them are true and well worth accepted. Well done Jim!

  43. Mega Champ responded on 09 Feb 2009 at 9:58 pm #

    To IMHO its really hard to keep tack of all the factors, but yes its a nice list and even if someone takes cares of half of it, he/she will seeing nice traffic results.

  44. Murali responded on 11 Feb 2009 at 1:12 am #

    Jim, I just came across your post on the aricash scam and what I don’t understand is why you would even consider promoting a site that looks so cheap and with even cheaper looking products.

  45. izu mou responded on 13 Feb 2009 at 3:35 am #

    Super tips.Thanks Mr karter…

  46. Freedownloadsok.com responded on 14 Feb 2009 at 7:10 pm #

    Great post jim. In my opinion, content updating and link building are the most important things to increase our web SERP.Cmiiw.

  47. Military Aircraft responded on 17 Feb 2009 at 9:33 pm #

    That Was Really Great Post Jim, What Ever You Explain For SERP Factor That Was Excellent, I already Knew Many Of Them, But There A Few I Did Not Know. I Will Use Them In The Future, Thanks For Sharing This.

  48. Ruby Web responded on 19 Feb 2009 at 3:58 am #

    Quite a comprehensive list….it is also a good idea to verify that your site is W3C compliant. It does make a difference.

    As far as DMOZ goes, it is generally considered that bribing an editor is pretty much the only way in, especially in high value niches….

  49. Uttam Pegu responded on 20 Feb 2009 at 2:04 pm #

    Excellent Article! Thank you very much for sharing your experience.

  50. Erdwärme responded on 22 Feb 2009 at 10:55 am #

    I have questions to the Factors Number 45. How much backlinks i can create per day for a new domain, that my domain dont go to the sandbox?

  51. Jim Karter responded on 23 Feb 2009 at 5:53 am #

    In my opinion, its not that much about “how many links a day” but its more about the consistency of the “number of new links each month.”

  52. SEO Tips responded on 24 Feb 2009 at 11:45 am #

    I totally agree Jim, its best to keep the amount of links you build consistent above all else.

  53. Erdwärme responded on 24 Feb 2009 at 11:53 am #

    Ohh you mean if i set 300 Backlinks every month that is ok, but i must set then every month 300 Backlinks? I am right?

    Big thanks!

  54. Do-follow Blog responded on 24 Feb 2009 at 1:19 pm #

    Good article, you gave me more idea’s by this article. I think i need to learn new ways now. keep writing excellent articles thanks

  55. Connor responded on 25 Feb 2009 at 5:02 am #

    Wow. Where was this a couple of years ago when I first started. :) Thanks for sharing your experience.

  56. Make Money Online responded on 26 Feb 2009 at 10:38 pm #

    Incredible post on seo, I found this very useful thanks dude!

  57. miguel responded on 27 Feb 2009 at 2:21 pm #

    Hi,

    Nice effort, you missed or didn’t define about 50 that I have programmed into my mimic algorithm I’m afraid. You have a very good list there but Google uses a few more than that.

    Not knocking you though. :-)

  58. Adi Moga responded on 01 Mar 2009 at 4:02 pm #

    I might add 51 point: bookmark this page :)

  59. Puking snake responded on 06 Mar 2009 at 11:51 pm #

    “7. Keywords in the text of different color/size”

    Are there certain color/size combos that are more effective in terms of SEO than others?

  60. Komodo Dragon responded on 11 Mar 2009 at 10:09 am #

    I think one of the most important factors is outside links that are coming into the website. I think that the outside incoming links can over-come alot of on-page factors. Offcourse on-page factors are Super important, but without the offpage factors you’re work is almost lost.

  61. Easy Internet Marketing@RohKat responded on 12 Mar 2009 at 10:54 pm #

    This post of yours really got the high rank. You have described it properly and perfectly.

    With point to point explanation.

  62. Current account responded on 14 Apr 2009 at 1:40 pm #

    Not sure how the age of a page will matter. ab it contradictory if you think the TLD matter but also the age of a page also does.

  63. rahul responded on 15 May 2009 at 12:18 pm #

    really a good post jim..

  64. Joe responded on 08 Jun 2009 at 3:36 am #

    Nice post as usual. Thank you Jim for your willingness to share it with us! -)

  65. techsense responded on 15 Jun 2009 at 10:45 pm #

    thanxxxxx for sharing…….

  66. Hengki responded on 20 Jun 2009 at 3:28 am #

    Thanks Jim for sharing this.

  67. Executive Training responded on 06 Jul 2009 at 10:32 pm #

    Good post. I learn many new search engine ranking factors. Thanks.

  68. Fndurhost responded on 07 Jul 2009 at 9:34 am #

    Hi,
    Thanks for tips and sharing.

  69. marcus @make money online responded on 14 Jul 2009 at 8:38 pm #

    Great post. I don’t know this to be true, but some say google likes sites better when they have video and pictures on them.

  70. aloestore responded on 24 Jul 2009 at 7:03 pm #

    I keep coming back to this article, I find it really great!

  71. Hindi Radio responded on 08 Aug 2009 at 1:40 am #

    Perfect listing! 100% agreed with the points you have made! one confusion… is it advisable to use flash and javascript on the page?

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