What matters and what doesn't for Google ranking

[TUTTI]

The German company Sistrix (paper in German) analyzed the web page elements of top ranked pages in Google to find out which elements lead to high Google rankings. They analyzed 10,000 random keywords, and for every keyword, they analyzed the top 100 Google search results.

Which web page elements lead to high Google rankings?
Sistrix analyzed the influence of the following web page elements: web page title, web page body, headline tags, bold and strong tags, image file names, images alt text, domain name, path, parameters, file size, inbound links and PageRank.

Linda wrote: Copyrighted articles cannot be copied in full, so I had to delete the rest.

Please click then scroll down to #1 to read the full article. Good basic SEO info.
Higher search engine rankings: New Google rankings study

[Daniel Cassidy]

I think that these are general things that all search engines look for when trying to decide the best placement of a page in their results pages. I think that out of everything inbound one way links are what really matters in Google and also a variety of them from different authority sites.

Page rank is questionable as far as effecting results because I have seen many PR0 websites and sites with a PR1 or 2 rank in the top 10. If you have a backlink from a high PR site, some of that is passed on to you.

Keywords are also becoming less relevant with the introduction of LSI. This is how Google finds highly relevant results. The spiders can tell when you are trying to hard to rank and will penalize you for it. LSI written content has not only primary keywords, but related keywords that are analyzed to show relevancy in your web page.

Google also like to see websites that are organized and put together nice. You should always use CSS when constructing your pages and keep everything neat and consistent. Read about SILO structure and it's impact on search engine rankings.

There is no way to really force a position in Google. As far as tags are concerned the only ones that really matter are title and description because that is what the user sees in the results when searching and is what they are going to want to click on. You need a strong call to action in your title and drop your main keywords a couple of times in the description so they come out bold in the results.

All you really need to worry about is writing good unique content and getting strong backlinks to the content. Links and content equal search traffic.

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Daniel! Well said and good points!

[MrCat]

Good points Daniel! Very well said!


Just like to comment on this:

Page rank is questionable as far as effecting results because I have seen many PR0 websites and sites with a PR1 or 2 rank in the top 10...

PR is used in Google's algo. There are instances that a high PR site is given priority in the rankings. In such case where two competing sites have equal scores in SERP, the higher PR site will outrank the lower PR site.

[mccain]

Hi,

Nice post. There is a lot of information for the newbies here.
Keywords and anchor tags play a vital role in getting indexed in the major search engines.

McCain.

[fitnfree]

I think frequent updating plays a role, too. At least it seems to be helping me.

[marketingmama]

Just see what Stomper says and you'll be just fine. They are top notch classy dudes with a true helpful attitude.

Sheree