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November 18, 2015 at 2:15 am #993324Up::0
http://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors
*According to the author.Which ones do you agree with?
November 18, 2015 at 3:02 am #1191006Up::0Hi Paul – I’ll compress my answer to this and your other query into one here with a point from the link you brought up:
“162. Number of Google+1’s: Although Matt Cutts gone on the record as saying Google+ has “no direct effect” on rankings, it’s hard to believe that they’d ignore their own social network.”
Do you see the difficulty here? Authorised reps like Cutts and Mueller tell us stuff, they tell us in plain English… but some folks will go on to make up their own theories…
…even with no evidence!
…because they find it hard to believe otherwise!
A bit like buying AdWords will surely help your organic ranking…!
My guess is most of those folk are the religious type, they believe stuff without evidence because it just seems to make sense to them and to hell with the facts!
November 18, 2015 at 9:00 am #1191007November 18, 2015 at 10:57 am #1191008Up::0Hi Paul,
I’ve only sampled some of the statements in the article you reference but that is enough to suggest to me BEWARE of its advice!From what I’ve seen over the years, most of the Internet articles about how G ranks pages are various degees of garbage!
That there are only 200 ranking factors is spurious according to this old 2010 G article.
Dear Bing, We Have 10,000 Ranking Signals To Your 1,000. Love, Google
I won’t get into this ranking factor numbers argument but it does seem the author of the article you quote does not have all that much experience with SEO and marketing.
I suggest that the most important elements of SEO are strategic and tactical. I.e. It is about how you compete with the 500kg gorillas in the search engines so that you attract potential clients for the least cost.
If I can suggest, SEO has NEVER primarily related to SE algorithm ranking factors it relates to delivering relevant info to prospective clients.
Those who look for a magic ranking formula are going to fail and waste their money on SEO scams!
Regs,
JohnWNovember 18, 2015 at 7:50 pm #1191009November 19, 2015 at 7:55 am #1191010Up::0GuestMember, post: 224314, member: 54653 wrote:Interesting thoughts John. Remember the question was, “Which ones do you agree with”?
Hi Paul,
Like all the lists of SE ranking factors I’ve read this one contains some irrelevancies, inaccuracies and important omissions.To me these lists are pretty pointless because:
- many SE refrerrals are lost because of SE robot indexing problems
- people don’t answer relevant questions posed in SEs
- the list does not address the relative importance of attributes
- which factors may be usable by a specific website
This list seems to be less accurate/useful than others I’ve read.
Eg: Some dubious ranking factors, others that are site indexing issues or factors that are about SE spam:
4. Domain registration length
6. Domain History
8. Public vs. Private WhoIs
9. Penalized WhoIs Owner
15. Keyword is Most Frequently Used Phrase in Document
16. Content Length
17. Keyword Density
18. Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords in Content (LSI): (What does this mean?)
20. Page Loading Speed via HTML: Both Google and Bing use page loading speed as a ranking factor. Search engine spiders can estimate your site speed fairly accurately based on a page’s code and filesize.
21. Duplicate Content – not a negative ranking factor.
22. Rel=Canonical
23. Page Loading Speed via Chrome
24. Image Optimization
25. Recency of Content Updates – Only applies to a small number of search types.So, in my book 56% of the first 25 factors are not ranking signals, are wrongly stated as ranking signals or rarely come into play. I can’t be bothered going through more of this article.
People might learn more by entering this search query in Google: small business SE ranking factors
Now ask why this FS post ranks on G Au at #4 and the Backlinko article is nowhere to be seen?
A Tip: There are only 10 pages world-wide that contain this test keyword yet only one of them is in the top 10 G results.
That should relegate a bunch of “keyword” ranking factors suggested in the article.
Regs,
JohnWNovember 19, 2015 at 9:15 am #1191012November 19, 2015 at 8:59 pm #1191013Up::0JohnW, post: 224360, member: 6375 wrote:Hi Paul,
Like all the lists of SE ranking factors I’ve read this one contains some irrelevancies, inaccuracies and important omissions.To me these lists are pretty pointless because:
- many SE refrerrals are lost because of SE robot indexing problems
- people don’t answer relevant questions posed in SEs
- the list does not address the relative importance of attributes
- which factors may be usable by a specific website
This list seems to be less accurate/useful than others I’ve read.
Eg: Some dubious ranking factors, others that are site indexing issues or factors that are about SE spam:
4. Domain registration length
6. Domain History
8. Public vs. Private WhoIs
9. Penalized WhoIs Owner
15. Keyword is Most Frequently Used Phrase in Document
16. Content Length
17. Keyword Density
18. Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords in Content (LSI): (What does this mean?)
20. Page Loading Speed via HTML: Both Google and Bing use page loading speed as a ranking factor. Search engine spiders can estimate your site speed fairly accurately based on a page’s code and filesize.
21. Duplicate Content – not a negative ranking factor.
22. Rel=Canonical
23. Page Loading Speed via Chrome
24. Image Optimization
25. Recency of Content Updates – Only applies to a small number of search types.So, in my book 56% of the first 25 factors are not ranking signals, are wrongly stated as ranking signals or rarely come into play. I can’t be bothered going through more of this article.
People might learn more by entering this search query in Google: small business SE ranking factors
Now ask why this FS post ranks on G Au at #4 and the Backlinko article is nowhere to be seen?
A Tip: There are only 10 pages world-wide that contain this test keyword yet only one of them is in the top 10 G results.
That should relegate a bunch of “keyword” ranking factors suggested in the article.
Regs,
JohnWI always seem to have a but John.
Here is my But…
If you search “small business search engine ranking factors”, backlinko appears at number 5 behind the 4 MOZ articles. FS is #16
November 19, 2015 at 9:34 pm #1191014Up::0MD Clean, post: 224386, member: 58759 wrote:I always seem to have a but John.Here is my But…
If you search “small business search engine ranking factors”, backlinko appears at number 5 behind the 4 MOZ articles. FS is #16
Hi Paul,
My mistake and well spotted. I posted the wrong search thread. It should have been: small business SEO ranking factorsThis is the one where:
- This FS page is ranked #5
- The Backlinko article is down at #25 in my results.
- There are only 10 pages world-wide that contain the keyword
A word to FS Business Owners,
Anyone checking their own site’s ranking needs to start with as many ranking factors excluded as possible.- Do you have your browsing history switched off?
- Are you logged into your G+ account?
- Have you cleared your browser memory?
- Are you displaying more than 10 results per page?
Any one of these can dramatically impact a set of search results.
Were these ranking parameters mentioned in the article?
Regs,
JohnWNovember 19, 2015 at 9:51 pm #1191015Up::0Quite right John, “BUT”… if you use the search term ” SEO ranking factors”, a much broader term and presumably harder to rank for”, Backlinko is at #4.
It proves your original point in a different way though – people use all sorts of search terms and the site that targets the most different combinations of possible search queries will get the best SEO results,
November 19, 2015 at 10:56 pm #1191016Up::0MD Clean, post: 224392, member: 58759 wrote:Quite right John, “BUT”… if you use the search term ” SEO ranking factors”, a much broader term and presumably harder to rank for”, Backlinko is at #4.It proves your original point in a different way though – people use all sorts of search terms and the site that targets the most different combinations of possible search queries will get the best SEO results,
Hi Paul,
Every single search query brings different algorithm parameters into play at different times. Did the article address this critical SEO issue?Think of the complexity created by these search factors:
- G has said that 15 billion of its monthly searches have never been used before in its 15(?)year existence.
- G made around 1,000 algorithm changes last year.
- G crawls and updates 600 billion URLs per month.
- There are around 100 billion searches made every month and no two pages (of around 30 trillion) will rank the same.
Then we have an articles written that seems not to understand the diffeence betwen SE crawling/indexing, SE spam issues nor bothers to check the accuracy of its algo ranking statements…
Oh, And does the article reference G’s “rankbrain” algo update which G has said is now its third most important ranking signal? What an omission from a “complete list”!
To be fair, G. announced this a week after this article was published but given its ranking importance, you’d think the author would have amended his list to include it.
IMHO, articles like this do more harm than good!
FSs, Please forgive my vitriol. It is not aimed at the person who posted the article link.
At times I get frustrated by the constant need to respond to SEO articles of limited accuracy, substance or value. Unfortunately, the web is full of them.
Regs,
JohnWNovember 19, 2015 at 11:33 pm #1191017Up::0Respectfully John I disagree. There are up to 10K ranking factors. As such, these kinds of articles give humans a way to process information in an easy to understand way.
As such, their overall effect is positive IMO.
I don’t know if rankbrain is switched on in Au yet but if it is, it is not (yet) very smart. When I look at my SERPS, they bounce all around the place based on whether the search term is plural or not eg cleaner/cleaners. Most are within 1 result of each other but I did a new page a few weeks ago and the results are 3 pages apart.
Same for word variations eg, cleaner/cleaning which *should* in *most* contexts be proxies for each other IMO.
November 20, 2015 at 12:33 am #1191018Up::0Hi Paul,
How will small business owners know what info is accurate?Why try to process inaccurate info?
“Google told us that there was a gradual rollout of RankBrain in early 2015 and that it’s been fully live and global for a few months now.” (Ref. 27 Oct 15: FAQ: All About The New Google RankBrain Algorithm)
Perhaps the single biggest determinant of any page’s ranking is the competition for the search terms.
Eg: If you are adding an “s” to the search terms “commercial cleaner” when searching from the Gold Coast, you could expect an even bigger change in ranking results for someone doing the same thing in Sydney. What may also get involved in these differences is the number of sites that implement SEO. Is it high in Sydney vs. Gold Coast or is it ignored in both locations?
The playing field is never level.
Best Regs,
JohnW -
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