Google's Ranking Factors


Picture Source :

Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is making your site and the site's individual pages visible and relevant to both search engines and search engine users.

As a beginner to search engine optimization (SEO) you need to understand that there is no magic way to rank your website in the first page of Google, Bing or Yahoo.

Search engines are governed by complex algorithms and it takes a lot of time and effort to ‘convince’ them that your website or web page deserves one of the top spots.


How Does Google Rank Websites?


CRAWLING : Google uses automated programs called spiders or crawlers, just like most search engines. Also like other search engines, Google has a large index of keywords and where those words can be found. What sets Google apart is how it ranks search results, which in turn determines the order Google displays results on its search engine results page (SERP). Google uses a trademarked algorithm called PageRank, which assigns each Web page a relevancy score.

For a typical search function, all the work cannot be done when a query is typed. To be as efficient and fast as Google, the work starts even before a search query is typed in. The pre-search work is called crawling and indexing.

Indexing : After retrieving information from websites, crawlers store them in a Search Index. This search index contains information from billions of web pages and according to Google, the information is over 100,000,000 GB in size.

A new index is created for every new word found. When a web page is indexed, it is added to the word indexes of all the words the web page contains. To increase the reliability of a search, Google has also created something called the Knowledge Graph.

<meta name="robots" content="......" />


2. Metadata

* The "title" meta tag

Create unique, accurate page titles for every pages you have. A <title> tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is. The <title> tag should be placed within the <head> element of the HTML document. You should create a unique title for each page on your site.


* The "description" meta tag


description meta tag

* Keyword Metadata

The "keyword" Meta Keyword Tag Is No Longer Used by Google in 2018,

Keyword metadata is rarely if ever used to tabulate search engine rankings. However, you should already know your keyword phrases, so it doesn't hurt to add them into your keyword metadata. You’ll want to include a variety of phrases. As a general rule, try to keep it to about 6-8 phrases with each phrase consisting of 1-4 words. A great example would be "computer science degree." 

3. Simple URLs convey content information


URLs like the one shown in the following image can be confusing and unfriendly.

unfriendly seo url

If your URL is meaningful, it can be more useful and easily understandable in different contexts, like this

friendly seo url

4. Text formatting and the use of H1, H2 and H3



<h1>Here is some text</h1>
<h2>Here is some text</h2>
<h3>Here is some text</h3>

How Many H1 Tags Can You Use On A Page for SEO Benefit?

John Mueller - Google

Question: “How many h1-tags should be used on a single webpage?”

Answer: “As many as you want.” John Mueller, Google

This argument seems to confuse and aggravate HTML experts, too.

Google evidently does not care that much, and it will probably attempt to ignore any attempt to manipulate it anyway.

Some argue that having more than one H1 per page is sensible in some instances (and HTML5 certainly allows for this, in some interpretations).

HOWEVER – and not getting into the actual HTML5 argument here, the W3C HTML5 Recommendation 28 October 2104 states:

5. Structured Data



structured seo


6. Use alt tags




7. Use standard image formats


8. Make your site interesting and useful


9. Know what your readers want (and give it to them)


11. Make your site mobile-friendly







12. Show useful 404 pages


  • Allowing your 404 pages to be indexed in search engines (make sure that your web server is configured to give a 404 HTTP status code or - in the case of JavaScript-based sites - include a noindex robots meta-tag when non-existent pages are requested).
  • Blocking 404 pages from being crawled through the robots.txt file.

13. User Sitemap

A sitemap is a list of all posts/pages of your website.  You need 2 types of sitemaps. First an xml sitemap to submit to Google, Bing and other search engines and second an html sitemap to help visitors find your content easier. It is recommended to place a link to your user sitemap from the main menu.

seo sitemap.xml

Refference :

Hashtag :
Share On :