190+ Google Ranking Factors List
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This document outlines current Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Google Ranking Factors, categorized into Domain Factors, Page-Level Factors, Site-Level Factors, Backlink Factors, User Interaction Factors, Special Google Algorithm Rules, Brand Signals, On-Site WebSpam Factors, and Off-Site WebSpam Factors.
A Google patent states: “Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain.”
Moz’s expert panel agrees that a keyword appearing in the subdomain can boost rankings.
A site with volatile ownership or several drops may tell Google to “reset” the site’s history, negating links pointing to the domain. Or, in certain cases, a penalized domain may carry the penalty over to the new owner.
Having a Country Code Top Level Domain (.cn, .pt, .ca) can sometimes help the site rank for that particular country but can limit the site’s ability to rank globally.
Although not as important as it once was, your title tag remains an important on-page SEO signal.
According to Moz, title tags that start with a keyword tend to perform better than title tags where the keyword appears at the end of the tag.
Google doesn’t use the meta description tag as a direct ranking signal. However, your description tag can impact click-through-rate, which is a key ranking factor.
Content with more words can cover a wider breadth and is likely preferable in the algorithm compared to shorter, superficial articles. Indeed, one recent ranking factors industry study found that the average first page Google result was about 1400 words in length.
Using a linked table of contents can help Google better understand your page’s content. It can also result in sitelinks.
There’s a clear correlation between depth of topic coverage and Google rankings. Therefore, pages that cover every angle likely have an edge vs. pages that only cover a topic partially.
Both Google and Bing use page speed as a ranking factor. Google now uses actual Chrome user data to evaluate loading speed.
While not a direct Google ranking factors, AMP may be a requirement to rank in the mobile version of the Google News Carousel.
Does a page’s content match the “entity” that a user is searching for? If so, that page may get a rankings boost for that keyword.
Identical content on the same site (even slightly modified) can negatively influence a site’s search engine visibility.
When used properly, use of this tag may prevent Google from penalizing your site for duplicate content.
Images send search engines important relevancy signals through their file name, alt text, title, description, and caption. Optimizing your images for search is critical to ensure they are able to be indexed properly.
Google Caffeine update favors recently published or updated content, especially for time-sensitive searches. Highlighting this factor’s importance, Google shows the date of a page’s last update for certain pages.
The significance of edits and changes also serves as a freshness factor. Adding or removing entire sections is more significant than switching around the order of a few words or fixing a typo.
How often has the page been updated over time? Daily, weekly, every 5 years? Frequency of page updates also plays a role in freshness.
Having a keyword appear in the first 100 words of a page’s content is correlated to first page Google rankings.
Having your keyword appear as a subheading in H2 or H3 format may be another weak relevancy signal. Googler John Mueller states: “These heading tags in HTML help us to understand the structure of the page.”
Many SEOs think that linking out to authority sites helps send trust signals to Google. And this is backed up by a recent industry study.
According to The Hilltop Algorithm, Google may use the content of the pages you link to as a relevancy signal. For example, if you have a page about cars that links to movie-related pages, this may tell Google that your page is about the movie Cars, not the automobile.
Proper grammar and spelling is a quality signal, although Cutts gave mixed messages a few years back on whether or not this was important.
Is the content on the page original? If it’s scraped or copied from an indexed page, it won’t rank as well or may not get indexed at all.
Often referred to as “Mobilegeddon,” this update rewarded pages that were properly optimized for mobile devices.
Websites that mobile users can easily use may have an edge in Google’s “Mobile-first Index.”
Hidden content on mobile devices may not get indexed (or may not be weighed as heavily) vs. fully visible content. However, a Googler recently stated that hidden content is OK, but also said that “…if it’s critical content it should be visible…”
According to a now-public Google Rater Guidelines Document, helpful supplementary content is an indicator of a page’s quality (and therefore, Google ranking). Examples include currency converters, loan interest calculators, and interactive recipes.
Do users need to click on a tab to reveal some of the content on your page? If so, Google has said that this content “may not be indexed.”
Too many dofollow OBLs can “leak” PageRank, which can hurt that page’s rankings.
Images, videos, and other multimedia elements may act as a content quality signal.
The number of internal links to a page indicates its importance relative to other pages on the site (more internal links = more important).
Internal links from authoritative pages on the domain have a stronger effect than pages with no or low PageRank.
Having too many broken links on a page may be a sign of a neglected or abandoned site. The Google Rater Guidelines Document uses broken links to assess a homepage’s quality.
There’s no doubt that Google estimates the reading level of webpages. But what they do with that information is up for debate. Some say that a basic reading level will help you rank better because it will appeal to the masses. But others associate a basic reading level with content mills like Ezine Articles.
Affiliate links themselves probably won’t hurt your rankings. But if you have too many, Google’s algorithm may pay closer attention to other quality signals to make sure you’re not a “thin affiliate site.”
Lots of HTML errors or sloppy coding may be a sign of a poor quality site. While controversial, many in SEO think that a well-coded page is used as a quality signal.
All things being equal, a page on an authoritative domain will rank higher than a page on a domain with less authority.
Not perfectly correlated. But pages with lots of authority tend to outrank pages without much link authority.
Excessively long URLs may hurt a page’s search engine visibility. Several industry studies have found that short URLs tend to have a slight edge in Google’s search results.
A page closer to the homepage may get a slight authority boost vs. pages buried deep down in a site’s architecture.
Although never confirmed, Google has filed a patent for a system that allows human editors to influence the SERPs.
The category the page appears on is a relevancy signal. A page that’s part of a closely related category may get a relevancy boost compared to a page that’s filed under an unrelated category.
Another relevancy signal. A Google rep recently called this a “very small ranking factor.” But a ranking factor nonetheless.
The categories in the URL string are read by Google and may provide a thematic signal to what a page is about.
Citing references and sources, like research papers do, may be a sign of quality. The Google Quality Guidelines states that reviewers should keep an eye out for sources when looking at certain pages: “This is a topic where expertise and/or authoritative sources are important…” However, Google has denied that they use external links as a ranking signal.
Bullets and numbered lists help break up your content for readers, making them more user-friendly. Google likely agrees and may prefer content with bullets and numbers.
The priority a page is given via the sitemap.xml file may influence ranking.
Straight from the Google Quality Rater Document: “Some pages have way, way too many links, obscuring the page and distracting from the Main Content.”
If the page ranks for several other keywords, it may give Google an internal sign of quality. Google’s “How Search Works” report states: “We look for sites that many users seem to value for similar queries.”
Although Google prefers fresh content, an older page that’s regularly updated may outperform a newer page.
Citing the Google Quality Guidelines Document: “The page layout on highest quality pages makes the Main Content immediately visible.”
A Google update in December of 2011 decreased search visibility of parked domains.
Google may distinguish between “quality” and “useful” content.
Google has stated that they’re happy to penalize sites that don’t bring anything new or useful to the table, especially thin affiliate sites.
The Google Quality Document states that they prefer sites with an “appropriate amount of contact information.” Make sure that your contact information matches your whois info.
Many SEOs believe that “TrustRank” is a massively important ranking factor. A Google Patent titled “Search result ranking based on trust” seems to back this up.
A well put-together site architecture (e.g., a silo structure) helps Google thematically organize your content. It also helps Googlebot access and index all of your site’s pages.
Many SEOs believe that website updates — especially when new content is added to the site — work as a site-wide freshness factor. Although Google has recently denied that they use “publishing frequency” in their algorithm.
A sitemap helps search engines index your pages easier and more thoroughly, improving visibility. However, Google recently stated that HTML sitemaps aren’t “useful” for SEO.
Lots of downtime from site maintenance or server issues may hurt your rankings (and can even result in deindexing if not corrected).
Server location influences where your site ranks in different geographical regions. Especially important for geo-specific searches.
Google has confirmed that HTTPS is used as a ranking signal. According to Google, however, HTTPS only acts as a “tiebreaker.”
Short for “Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.” Google may give an edge to sites with high levels of E-A-T (especially sites that publish health-related content).
Duplicate meta information across your site may bring down all of your page’s visibility.
This is a style of user-friendly site architecture that helps users (and search engines) know where they are on a site. Google states: “Google Search uses breadcrumb markup in the body of a web page to categorize the information from the page in search results.”
With more than half of all searches done from mobile devices, Google wants to see that your site is optimized for mobile users. Google now penalizes websites that aren’t mobile-friendly.
There’s no doubt that YouTube videos are given preferential treatment in the SERPs (probably because Google owns it). Search Engine Land found that YouTube.com traffic increased significantly after Google Panda.
A site that’s difficult to use or navigate can hurt rankings indirectly by reducing time on site, pages viewed, and bounce rate (RankBrain ranking factors).
Some think that having these two programs installed on your site can improve your page’s indexing. They may also directly influence rankings by giving Google more data to work with (e.g., more accurate bounce rate, whether or not you get referral traffic from your backlinks, etc.). That said, Google has denied this as a myth.
A site’s reputation on sites like Yelp.com likely plays an important role in Google’s algorithm. Google even posted a rarely candid outline of how they use online reviews after one site was caught ripping off customers in an effort to get press and links.
Core Web Vitals are “more than a tiebreaker” in terms of their impact on rankings.
Backlinks from aged domains may be more powerful than from new domains.
The number of referring domains is one of the most important ranking factors in Google’s algorithm, as seen from an industry study of 11.8 million Google Search results.
Links from separate IP addresses suggest a wider breadth of sites linking to you, which can help with rankings.
The total number of linking pages (even from the same domain) may impact rankings.
As noted in a description of Google’s original algorithm: “First, anchors often provide more accurate descriptions of web pages than the pages themselves.” Obviously, anchor text is less important than before (and, when over-optimized, works as a webspam signal). But keyword-rich anchor text still sends a strong relevancy signal in small doses.
Alt text acts as anchor text for images.
Matt Cutts has stated that TLD doesn’t factor into a site’s importance. Google has said they “ignore” lots of Edu links. However, that doesn’t stop SEOs from thinking that there’s a special place in the algorithm for .gov and .edu TLDs.
The authority (PageRank) of the referring page has been an extremely important ranking factor since Google’s early days and still is.
The referring domain’s authority may play an independent role in a link’s value.
Links from other pages ranking in the same SERP may be more valuable to a page’s ranking for that particular keyword (due to the fact that they’re highly relevant pages).
Although speculative, some SEOs believe that Google won’t fully trust your website until you get linked to from a set of “expected” authority sites in your industry.
Links from so-called “bad neighborhoods” may hurt your site.
Although links from guest posts still pass value, they likely aren’t as powerful as true editorial links (plus, “large-scale” guest posting can get your site into trouble).
According to Google, links from ads should be nofollowed or use the rel=sponsored attribute. However, it’s likely that Google is able to identify and filter out followed links from ads.
Links to a referring page’s homepage may play special importance in evaluating a site’s — and therefore a link’s — weight.
Google’s official word is: “In general, we don’t follow them.” This suggests that they do in certain cases. Having a certain percentage of nofollow links may also indicate a natural vs. unnatural link profile.
Having an unnaturally large percentage of your links coming from a single source (e.g., forum profiles, blog comments) may be a sign of webspam. On the other hand, links from diverse sources are a sign of a natural link profile.
Links tagged as “rel=sponsored” or “rel=UGC” are treated differently than normal “followed” or rel=nofollow links.
Links embedded inside a page’s content are considered more powerful than links on an empty page or found elsewhere on the page.
Backlinks coming from 301 redirects dilute some PageRank, according to a Webmaster Help Video.
Internal link anchor text is another relevancy signal. That said, internal links likely have much less weight than anchor text coming from external sites.
The link title (the text that appears when you hover over a link) may also be used as a weak relevancy signal.
Getting links from country-specific top-level domain extensions (.de, .cn, .co.uk) may help you rank better in that country.
Links in the beginning of a piece of content may carry slightly more weight than links placed at the end of the content.
Where a link appears on a page is important. Generally, a link embedded in a page’s content is more powerful than a link in the footer or sidebar area.
A link from a site in a similar niche is significantly more powerful than a link from a completely unrelated site.
A link from a relevant page also passes more value.
Google gives extra love to links from pages that contain your page’s keyword in the title (“Experts linking to experts.”)
A site with positive link velocity usually gets a SERP boost as it shows your site is increasing in popularity.
A negative link velocity can significantly reduce rankings as it’s a signal of decreasing popularity.
The Hilltop Algorithm suggests that getting links from pages that are considered top resources (or hubs) on a certain topic are given special treatment.
A link from a site considered an “authority site” likely passes more juice than a link from a small, relatively unknown site.
Although the links are nofollow, many think that getting a link from Wikipedia gives you a little added trust and authority in the eyes of search engines. Google has denied this.
The words that tend to appear around your backlinks help tell Google what that page is about.
According to a Google patent, older links have more ranking power than newly minted backlinks.
Due to the proliferation of blog networks, Google probably gives more weight to links coming from “real sites” than from fake blogs. They likely use brand and user-interaction signals to distinguish between the two.
A site with a “natural” link profile is going to rank highly and be more durable to updates than one that has clearly used black hat strategies to build links.
Google’s Link Schemes page lists “Excessive link exchanging” as a link scheme to avoid.
Google can identify UGC vs. content published by the actual site owner. For example, they know that a link from the official WordPress.com blog is very different than a link from besttoasterreviews.wordpress.com.
Links from 301 redirects may lose a little bit of juice compared to a direct link. However, Matt Cutts says that 301s are similar to direct links.
Pages that support microformats may rank above pages without it. This may be a direct boost or the fact that pages with microformatting have a higher SERP CTR.
The trustworthiness of the site linking to you determines how much “TrustRank” gets passed on to you.
PageRank is finite. A link on a page with hundreds of external links passes less PageRank than a page with a handful of outbound links.
Because of industrial-level spamming, Google may significantly devalue links from forums.
A link from a 1000-word post is usually more valuable than a link inside of a 25-word snippet.
Links from poorly written or spun content don’t pass as much value as links from well-written content.
Matt Cutts has confirmed that sitewide links are “compressed” to count as a single link.
RankBrain is Google’s AI algorithm. Many believe that its main purpose is to measure how users interact with the search results (and rank the results accordingly).
According to Google, pages that get clicked more in CTR may get a SERP boost for that particular keyword.
A site’s organic CTR for all keywords it ranks for may be a human-based, user interaction signal (in other words, a “Quality Score” for the organic results).
Not everyone in SEO agrees bounce rate matters, but it may be a way of Google to use their users as quality testers (after all, pages with a high bounce rate probably aren’t a great result for that keyword). A large study by SEMRush found a correlation between bounce rate and Google rankings.
It’s confirmed that Google uses data from Google Chrome to determine how many people visit a site (and how often). Sites with lots of direct traffic are likely higher quality sites vs. sites that get very little direct traffic. The SEMRush study found a significant correlation between direct traffic and Google rankings.
Sites with repeat visitors may get a Google ranking boost.
“Pogosticking” is a special type of bounce. In this case, the user clicks on other search results in an attempt to find the answer to their query. Results that people pogostick from may get a significant rankings drop.
Google collects Chrome browser usage data. Pages that get bookmarked in Chrome might get a boost.
Pages with lots of comments may be a signal of user-interaction and quality. One Googler said comments can help “a lot” with rankings.
Google pays very close attention to “dwell time”: how long people spend on your page when coming from a Google search. This is also sometimes referred to as “long clicks vs short clicks.” In short: Google measures how long Google searchers spend on your page. The longer the time spent, the better.
Google gives newer pages a boost for certain searches.
Google may add diversity to a SERP for ambiguous keywords, such as “Ted,” “WWF,” or “ruby.”
Websites that you visit frequently get a SERP boost for your searches.
Search chain influences search results for later searches. For example, if you search for “reviews” then search for “toasters,” Google is more likely to rank toaster review sites higher in the SERPs.
According to an SEMRush study, Google chooses Featured Snippets content based on a combination of content length, formatting, page authority, and HTTPS usage.
Google gives preference to sites with a local server IP and country-specific domain name extension.
Search results with curse words or adult content won’t appear for people with Safe Search turned on.
Google has higher content quality standards for “Your Money or Your Life” keywords.
Google “downranks” pages with legitimate DMCA complaints.
The so-called “Bigfoot Update” supposedly added more domains to each SERP page.
Google sometimes displays different results for shopping-related keywords, like flight searches.
For local searches, Google often places local results above the “normal” organic SERPs.
Certain keywords trigger a Top Stories box.
After the Vince Update, Google began giving big brands a boost for certain keywords.
Google sometimes displays Google Shopping results in organic SERPs.
Google images sometimes appear in the normal, organic search results.
Google has a dozen or so Easter Egg results. For example, when you search for “Atari Breakout” in Google image search, the search results turn into a playable game.
Domain or brand-oriented keywords bring up several results from the same site.
This is a special algorithm designed to clean up “very spammy queries.”
Branded anchor text is a simple but strong brand signal.
People searching for brands shows Google that your site is a real brand.
If people search for a specific keyword along with your brand (e.g., “Backlinko Google ranking factors” or “Backlinko SEO”), Google may give you a rankings boost when people search for the non-branded version of that keyword.
Brands tend to have Facebook pages with lots of likes.
Twitter profiles with a lot of followers signal a popular brand.
Most real businesses have company LinkedIn pages.
In February 2013, Google CEO Eric Schmidt claimed: “Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results.”
A social media account with 10,000 followers and 2 posts is probably interpreted a lot differently than another 10,000-follower strong account with lots of interaction. Google filed a patent for determining whether social media accounts were real or fake.
Really big brands get mentioned on Top Stories sites all the time. Some brands even have a feed of news from their own website on the first page.
Brands get mentioned without getting linked to. Google likely looks at non-hyperlinked brand mentions as a brand signal.
Real businesses have offices. It’s possible that Google fishes for location-data to determine whether a site is a big brand.
Sites with low-quality content (particularly content farms) are less visible in search after getting hit by a Panda penalty.
Linking out to “bad neighborhoods” — like spammy pharmacy or payday loan sites — may hurt your search visibility.
Sneaky redirects are a big no-no. If caught, it can get a site not just penalized, but de-indexed.
The official Google Rater Guidelines Document says that popups and distracting ads are a sign of a low-quality site.
Google may penalize sites that display full-page “interstitial” popups to mobile users.
Google penalizes sites for over-optimizing, including keyword stuffing, header tag stuffing, and excessive keyword decoration.
A Google Patent outlines how Google can identify “gibberish” content, which is helpful for filtering out spun or auto-generated content from their index.
Google wants the page you show to Google to be the page that users ultimately see. If your page redirects people to another page, that’s a “Doorway Page.” Google doesn’t like sites that use Doorway Pages.
The “Page Layout Algorithm” penalizes sites with lots of ads (and not much content) above the fold.
Going too far when trying to hide affiliate links (especially with cloaking) can bring on a penalty.
A nickname given to a series of Google updates starting in 2017. According to Search Engine Land, Fred “targets low-value content sites that put revenue above helping their users.”
Google isn’t the biggest fan of affiliates. Many think that sites that monetize with affiliate programs are put under extra scrutiny.
Google hates autogenerated content. If they suspect that your site’s pumping out computer-generated content, it could result in a penalty or de-indexing.
Going too far with PageRank sculpting — by nofollowing all outbound links — may be a sign of gaming the system.
If your server’s IP address is flagged for spam, it may affect all sites on that server.
Keyword stuffing can also happen in meta tags. If Google thinks you’re adding keywords to your title and description tags to game the algorithm, they may hit your site with a penalty.
If your site gets hacked, it can get dropped from the search results. Search Engine Land was completely deindexed after Google thought it had been hacked.
A sudden (and unnatural) influx of links is a sure-fire sign of phony links.
Sites hit by Google Penguin are significantly less visible in search. Penguin now focuses more on filtering out bad links vs. penalizing entire websites.
Lots of links from sources commonly used by black hat SEOs (like blog comments and forum profiles) may be a sign of gaming the system.
A high percentage of backlinks from topically unrelated sites can increase the odds of a manual penalty.
Google has sent out thousands of “Google Search Console notice of detected unnatural links” messages. This usually precedes a ranking drop, although not 100% of the time.
According to Google, backlinks from low-quality directories can lead to a penalty.
Google frowns on links that are automatically generated when a user embeds a “widget” on their site.
Getting an unnatural amount of links from sites on the same server IP may help Google determine that your links are coming from a blog network.
Having “poison” anchor text (especially pharmacy keywords) pointed to your site may be a sign of spam or a hacked site. Either way, it can hurt your site’s ranking.
A 2013 Google Patent describes how Google can identify whether an influx of links to a page is legitimate. Those unnatural links may become devalued.
Article directories and press releases have been abused to the point that Google now considers these two link-building strategies a “link scheme” in many cases.
There are several types of manual actions, but most are related to black hat link building.
Getting caught selling links can hurt your search visibility.
New sites that get a sudden influx of links are sometimes put in the Google Sandbox, which temporarily limits search visibility.
Use of the Disavow Tool may remove a manual or algorithmic penalty for sites that were victims of negative SEO.
A successful reconsideration request can lift a penalty.
Google has caught onto people that create — and quickly remove — spammy links, also known as a temporary link scheme.
On-page SEO involves optimizing elements directly on your website to enhance its visibility in search engine results. This includes creating compelling, keyword-rich content, refining meta titles and descriptions, using proper heading structures (H1, H2), and ensuring fast page load times. It’s about making your site both search-engine-friendly and engaging for users.
Off-page SEO focuses on activities outside your website to build its credibility and authority. The cornerstone is earning high-quality backlinks from trusted, relevant websites, which signal to Google that your site is reputable. Other efforts include social media promotion and gaining brand mentions across the web.
Google My Business (GMB) is a powerful tool for local SEO, helping businesses appear in local searches and on Google Maps. A fully optimized GMB profile—complete with accurate details (business name, address, phone), relevant categories, customer reviews, and regular updates like posts or photos—can significantly improve local visibility.
A Google ranking test evaluates how well a website ranks for specific keywords in search engine results pages (SERPs). By using tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or Moz, you can track keyword positions, assess performance, and pinpoint optimization opportunities.
In short, on-page SEO shapes your website’s internal quality, while off-page SEO builds its external credibility.
SEO can be divided into three primary categories:
Google evaluates websites using over 200 ranking factors, grouped into several categories:
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