POSITIVE ON – Page Ranking Factors

KEYWORDS – In Body

1 Keyword density in body text : 5 – 20% (all keywords/ total words)

2 Individual keyword density: 1 – 3% (each keyword/ total words)

3 Keyword in H1 and H3 :Use H1 font style

4 Keyword font size :In strong, bold, italic, etc.

5 Keyword proximity for 2+ keywords) Adjacent is best

6 Keyword phrase order :Does order in page match order in query?

7 Keyword prominence (how early in page/tag) : Most important at top of page

KEYWORDS – In Header

8 Keyword in title tag :10 – 60 characters no special characters

9 Keyword in description meta tag: Shows theme – less than 200 chars.

10 Keyword in keyword metatag: Shows theme – less than 200 chars.

KEYWORDS – Other

11 Keyword in alt text :Should describe graphic

12 Keyword in URL :First word is best

13 Keyword in domain name: Same as site name – with hyphens

14 Keyword in links to site pages: (anchor text) Links out anchor text use keyword

LINKS OUT

15 To internal pages- keywords :Should contain keywords.

16 All internal links valid? :Validate all links.

17 To external pages :Keywords – Link only to good sites.

18 All external links valid?: Validate all links

19 Less than 100 links out total: Google says limit to 100, but readily accepts 2-3 times

that number

OTHER ON-Page Factors

20 File size :Small files preferred <40K (lots of them)

21 Hyphens in URL: Preferred method for indicating a space One or two= excellent for separating keywords

Four or more= BAD, starts to look spammy .Ten = Spammer for sure, demotion probable

22 Freshness of page: Newer the better – if news, retail or auction! Google likes fresh pages.

23 Frequency of Updates: Frequent updates = frequent spidering

24 Page Theming: Page exhibit theme?

25 Keyword stemming: Stem, stems, stemmed, stemmer,stemming, stemmist

26 Applied Semantics: Synonyms, CIRCA whitepaper

27 LSI :Latent Semantic Indexing – Speculation, no proof

28 URL length :Keep it minimized – less than 8 million characters

Note: For ALL the POSITIVE On-Page factors listed above, PAGE RANK can OVERRIDE them all. So can Google-Bombing

Alleged NEGATIVE ON-Page Ranking Factors

NEGATIVE

ON-Page Ranking Factors

29 Text presented in graphics form only: No ACTUAL body text on the page Text represented graphically is invisible to search engines.

30 Affiliate site? The Florida update went after affiliates with a vengeance – flower and travel affiliates were hit hard – cookie-cutter sites with massive inter-linking, but little unique content.

31 Over optimization penalty (OOP) :Penalty for over-compliance -if keyword is competitive, commercial Adword

32 Link to a bad neighborhood: Don’t link to link farms, FFAs

33 Poison words: “Links” in title tag, etc.

34 Excessive cross-linking: within the same C block (xxx.xxx.cc.xxx)

35 Stealing images/ text blocks from another domain: Copyright violation – Google responds strongly if you are reported

36 Keyword stuffing threshold: In body, meta tags, alt text, etc. = demotion

37 Keyword dilution: Targeting too many unrelated keywords on a page,which would detract from theming, and reduce the importance of your REALLY important keywords.

38 Page edit – can reduce consistency: Google is now switching between a “Newer” cache, and an “Older” cache, frequently drawing from BOTH at the same time. This was implemented to frustrate SEOers. Did your last edit substantially alter your keywords, or theme? Expect noticeable SERP bouncing.

39 Dynamic Pages: Problematic – know pitfalls – shorten URLs, reduce variables

40 Excessive Javascript :Don’t use for redirects, or hiding links

41 Flash page: Most (all-?) SE spiders can’t read Flash content Provide an HTML alternative, or lose out.

42 Use of Frames Spidering Problems with Frames

43 Robot exclusion “no index” tag: Intentional self-exclusion

44 Invisible text :OK – No penalty – Google lies about this. All over the place – nothing is ever done.

45 Gateway, doorway page: OK – No penalty – Google lies about this. Google rewards the hell out of these pages. Multiple entrance pages in the top ten SERPs – I see it daily.

46 Duplicate content:: OK – No penalty – Google lies about this. Google picks one (usually the oldest), and shoves it to the top.

47 HTML code violations :Doesn’t matter – Google lies about this. Unless of course, they are totally FUBAR. Simple HTML verification is NOT required.

Since the above 4 items are so controversial, I would like to add this comment:

There are many things that Google would LIKE to have webmasters do, but that they simply cannot control, due to logistical considerations. Their only alternative is to foment fear and doubt by implying that any violation of their “suggestions” will result in swift and fierce demotion.

IN GENERAL, this works pretty well to keep the populace in line. The fallacy of this is that even the casual observer can readily observe continuing, blatant exceptions to these official pronouncements. SPAM reports go into the bit bucket, unless specific-case, knob-tweaking penalty imposition is authorized. There are many anecdotes about GG “taking care” of a problem. Google states that they do not provide hand-tweaked “boosts”, but are silent about hand-tweaked demotions. They occur, fer shure. To believe otherwise is naive.

Alleged POSITIVE OFF-Page Google Ranking Factors

POSITIVE

OFF-Page Ranking Factors

48 Page Rank: Based on the # and quality of links to you

49 Total incoming links (“backlinks”): What FAST counts best (www.alltheweb.com).NOT any more – Yahoo (parent) just broke it.

50 Incoming links from PR4+ pages: What Google counts (link:www.sitename.com).

51 All external links valid? Acceleration of link popularity Link acquisition speed boost – speculative

FOR EACH INCOMING LINK

52 Page rank of the referring page: Based on the quality of links to you

Usually, links less than PR4 are NOT listed by Google.

53 Anchor text of inbound link to you: Contains keyword, key phrase?

#1 result in SERP does NOT EVEN need to have the keyword(s) on the page, ANYWHERE!!! What does that tell you? (Enables Google-bombing – search for “miserable failure“)

54 # of outgoing links on referrer page: Fewer is better

55 Position of link on referrer page: Early in HTML is best

56 Keyword density on referring page :For search keyword(s)

57 HTML title of referrer page: Same subject/ theme?

58 Link from “Expert” site? Big time boost (Hilltop or Condensed Hilltop)

Recently reported to give a big boost !

59 Referrer page – Same theme: From the same or related theme?

60 Referrer page – Different theme: From different or unrelated theme?

61 Image map link: Problematic

62 Javascript link: Problematic- attempt to hide link

DIRECTORIES

63 Site listed in DMOZ Directory: Big boost, although denied

64 DMOZ category: Theme fit category?

General or geographic category? Both?

65 Site listed in Yahoo Directory: Big boost

66 Site listed in LookSmart Directory: Boost

67 Site listed in inktomi: Use Pure Search (flaky lately) to check your inktomi position, or default HotBot

68 Site listed in other directories (About, etc.): Directory listing boost

69 Link from Expert site? (Hilltop or Condensed Hilltop): Big time boost (Hilltop or Condensed Hilltop)

Large size, quality incoming links

70 Site Age – Old shows stability: Boost for long-established sites

71 Site Age – Very New Temporary boost for very new sites

72 Site Directory Structure: Influences SERPs – logical, consistent, conventional

73 Site Map and more site map: Complete – keywords in anchor text

74 Site Size: Sites with many pages preferred

Confers authority upon site, thus page

Bigger sites = better SERPs

75 Site Theming: Site exhibit theme?

PAGE METRICS: Currently implemented through the Google tool bar?

76 Page traffic: # of visitors, trend

77 Time spent on page: Relatively long time = indicates relevance hit

SITE METRICS: Currently implemented through the Google tool bar?

78 Site Traffic: # of visitors, trend

79 Time spent on page: Relatively long time = indicates relevance hit

Alleged NEGATIVE OFF-Page Google Ranking Factors

NEGATIVE

OFF-Page Ranking Factors

80 Zero links to you: You can get into the Google index by free submission, BUT you MUST have at least 1 (one) incoming link (backlink) from some website somewhere, that Google is aware of, to REMAIN in the index.

81 Cloaking: Google promises to Ban!

82 Links from bad neighborhoods, affiliates: Google says that incoming links from bad sites can’t hurt you, because you can’t control them. Ideally, this would be true.

However, some speculate otherwise, esp., when other associated factors are thrown into the mix, such as web rings.

83 Penalties – resulting from Domain Hijacking (work with Google to fix) Should result in IMPRISONMENT, forthwith! Grand Theft, mandatory minimum sentence. The criminal COPYS your entire website, and HOSTS it elsewhere, with . . . a few changes.

84 Penalty – TOS violation: WMG is the worst offender – gobbles up tons of Google server time by nervous Nellie webmasters. Google even mentions them by name. I think that Google will spank you when you cross the threshold, of say, 100 queries per day for the same term, from the same IP. Google can block your IP.

85 Server Reliability – S/B >99.9%: What is your uptime? Ever notice a daily time when your server is unavailable, like about 1:30 AM? How diligent must Googlebot be? This is the worst reason to get dropped – you just aren’t there!

86 Rank Manipulation by Competitor Attack: Impossible by Google definition (except for a few nasty tricks, like making your competition appear to be link spammers)

Ideally, there SHOULD be nothing that your competition can do to directly hurt your rankings.

However, an astute observer noticed that Google recently changed their website to read :

Old verbiage = “There is nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking …”

New verbiage = “There is ALMOST nothing a competitor can do …”

An obvious concession that Google thinks that at least some dirty tricks work!

Notes to the above list:

87. There are no published rules – these are my continuingly changing guesstimates.

88. If your keywords are Rare and Unique, then Page Rank doesn’t matter.

89. If your keywords are very Competitive, then Page Rank becomes important.

90. The fewer incoming links that you have, the more important on-page factors are.

91. There are a million ifs, ors, buts . . . I am attempting a concise summary.

Exceptions to EACH of the POSITIVE ON-Page factors are frequent and many.

However, I feel that it is important to score highly on as many factors as possible, since factor weight and even factor consideration are changing constantly – CYA. Not to mention the other SEs.

92. Google will not show you a back link with a PR of less than 4.