200+ SEO factors.docx

www.digitalmedha.com Digital Medha & Advertising - A Google Partner Company
Domain Factors in SEO:
1. Domain Age: Higher domain Age will be given more priority than newly launched
domains
2. Keywords in Top Level Domain: Having top keywords in domain will acts as signal
relevancy
3. Keywords as first word in Domain: keywords which starts with their keywords will have
an edge over sites that dont have keywords or keywords in middle or end of domain.
4. Domain registration length(Legitimacy of domain): Valued domains are always
purchased for longer duration while doorway domains are often purchased for a year
5. Keywords in subdomain length: keywords appearing in sub domain can boost rankings
6. Domain History: Always check if your domain is opted for privacy in “Whois”
7. Exact match Domain:
8. Country TLD(Top level domain) extension: It helps site ranks for that particular country,
but limits the site ability to rank globally
Page Level Factors:
1. Keyword in Title Tag: Besides content, Title tag is second most important factor. Always
give your business driven keywords in Title Tag
2. Title Tag starts with keywords: Title Tags that starts with keyword tend to perform
better than title tags with keywords at the end of the title tag.
3. Keyword in Description Tag : Always start the description with keywords included as it is
also one of the relevancy signal
4. Keywords in H1 tag: H1 tags are second title tags that sends another relevancy signal to
search engines.
5. Keyword Density: Having keywords appear more than any other likely acts as a
relevancy signal
6. Content Length: Always make sure your content is min 500 words per page
7. Latent Semantic Keyword in content: LSI keywords help search engines extract meaning
from words more than one meaning. Check your keywords & LSI & include it in your
content
8. LSI in Keywords in Title & Description Tags: LSI keywords in page tags help google
recognize between synonyms & can acts as relevancy signal
9. Page loading speed: Make sure page is loaded below 5 sec as it is also one of the
ranking factor. Search Engines spiders can estimate your site speed based on page codes
& file sizes.

10. Duplicate content: Copied content will effect your site rankings & can even degrade
your website rankings
11. Rel= canonical: Always use canonical tags so you can prevent google from considering
duplicate pages
12. Image Optimization: Images on page send search engines important relevancy signals
through their file name, alt text, title & description etc.
13. Recency of content updates: The updated content will always be given priority & google
shows the date of pages last updated for certain pages searched on google
14. Magnitude of content updates: Edits or changes is a freshness factor. Adding or
removing sections is more significant update than switching around the order of few
words.
15. History of page updates: How often page has been updated over time, daily, weekly,
yearly. Frequency of page updates also play a role in freshness.
16. Keyword Prominence: Having keywords appeared in first 100 words of content
considered to be significant relevancy signal
17. Keywords in H2 & H3 .. H6 Tags: You can use other set of keywords in your headers.
18. Keyword word order: An exact match of searchers keyword in a page content will
generally rank better than same keyword. Ex: consider a search for “dog shaving
techniques”. A page optimized for phrase “dog shaving techniques will rank better than
page optimized for techniques for dogs shaving.
19. Outbound link quality: Many seos think that linking out to authority sites help send trust
singals to google
20. Grammar & spelling mistakes: Proper grammar & spelling is a quality signal
21. Syndicated content: Is the content original or copied or scraped from indexed page, as
it wont rank as well as original.
22. No of Outbound links: dont give too many dofollow links
23. Multimedia: Images, videos & other multimedia elements acts as content quality signals
24. No of Internal links pointing to page: No of internal links to a page indicates importance
relative to other pages on site
25. Broken Links: Having too many broken links on page will effect site rankings
26. Affiliate Links: It probably dont hurt your rankings but if its too many google algorithm
can penalise your site by degrading website rankings
27. HTML errors/ W3C validation: W3C allows internet users to check HTML and XHTML
documents for well-formatted markup. Markup validation is an important step towards
ensuring the technical quality of web pages.W3C validation helps you to get better
rankings in search engines
28. Domain Authority: Pages with higher domain authority will rank higher than a page with
a domain with less authority

29. Page Authority: Pages with higher page authority will probably have more chances of
ranking higher than lower page authority sites
30. Page Rank: Higher page rank tends to rank better than others
31. URLS Length: Long urls may hurt search visibility
32. URL path: A page closer to homepage may get slight authority boost
33. URL String: Categories in URL string are read by google & may provide a thematic signal
to what a pages is about
34. Bullets & Numbered Lists: Google prefers pages with Bullets & numbered lists help
break up your content for readers making them more user friendly.
35. Priority of pages in sitemap: priority of pages is given via sitemap.xml file & it may
influence rankings
36. Quantity of other keywords page ranks: If page ranks for several other keywords it may
give google an internal sign of quality
37. Page Age: Although google prefers fresh content, an older page that regularly updated
my outperform new pages.
38. Parked Domains: Domain parking refers to the registration of an internet domain name
without that domain being associated with any services such as e-mail or a website. This
may have been done with a view to reserving the domain name for future development.
39. Useful content: Google distinguish between quality & useful content
Site Level Factors:
1. Content provides value & unique insights: Google stated that, sites featuring mostly
content from affiliate networks can suffer in Google's search rankings, because they do
not have enough added value content that differentiates them from other sites on the
web.
2. Contact us Page: Google quality document states that they prefer sites with an
appropriate amount of contact information
3. Domain Trust/ Site Rank: It is measured by how many links authority links your site has
got
4. Site Architecture: A well put site structure will help google to crawl & organise your
content
5. Site Updates: How often your site is updated
6. Number of pages: The number of pages a site has is a weak sign of authority. A very
large site can be distinguished it from thin sites
7. Presence of sitemaps: A sitemap helps search engines to index your pages easier and
more thoroughly & can improve visibility

8. Site uptime: Lots of downtime from site maintenance or server issues will hurt the
ranking
9. Server location: server locations may influence where your site ranks in different
geographical locations.
10. SSL certificate: Google confirmed that they index SSL certificates & use HTTPS as a
ranking signal
11. Terms of services & privacy pages: This helps to tell Google that site is a trustworthy
member of internet.
12. Duplicate Meta Information onSite: Duplicate meta information across your site may
bring down all your pages visibility
13. Breadcumb Navigation: This is a style of user friendly site architecture that help users &
search engines to know where they are on the site
14. Mobile optimized: It is always Fully responsive sites get an edge in searches from a
mobile devices. Always make sure site is mobile friendly
15. Youtube: There no doubt that youtube videos are more preferred in SERP.
16. Site usability: A site that is difficult to use or navigate can hurt ranking by reducing time
on site, pages viewed or bounce rate.
17. Use of Google Analytics: verifying your site in google analytics is also one of the ranking
factor
18. Use of Google Webmaster: You can see your complete seo performance & it is also one
of the ranking factor
19. User Review/ Site reputation: Reviews on your site can play an important factor in
ranking
BackLink Factors:
1. Linking Domain Age: Backlinks from aged domains may be more powerful than new
domains
2. # of linking root domains:The no of referring domains is one of the imp factor. It
includes only the number of unique root domains linking. Two links from the same
website would only be counted as one linking root domain.
3. # of Links from seperate c class Ips- Always go with links from seperate class C IP
addresses. (Here is why 'C' class IPs matter. Look at the website address below.
67.45.123.85. We break this one address into four separate classes.
The first set of numbers is the ‘A’ class
The second set is the ‘B’ class
The third set is the ‘C’ class

The fourth set is the ‘D’ class
Your websites is often hosted by servers with the same ‘C’ class of ips. So their ips might
look something like this:
67.45.123.87
67.45.123.79
Search engines know this and can spot when related sites cross link to each other from
within the same class C ip address. These links are often filtered out of the ranking
algorithms. If your site has too many of these types of links it can even bring a penalty to
your site)
4) # of Linking pages: The total number of linking pages - even if some are on the same domain
it is also calculated as ranking factor
5) Alt tags: Alt tags are image version of anchor texts
6) Links from .Edu sites:Links from .Edu sites are considered to be authority links.
7) Links from .Gov sites: Links from .gov sites are considered to be authority links.
8) Authority of Linking Page: The page rank of referring page is extremely important ranking
factor.
9) Authority of Linking domain: Referring domain’s authority may play an independent role in
links importance
Ex: PR2 page link from a site with homepage PR3 may be less worthy than PR2 page with PR8
.edu domain
10) Links from competitors: Links from other pages ranking in same SERP may be more valuable
for a page ranks for that particular keyword. But its always impossible so try to get link from
same content site
11) social shares of referring pages: Amount of page level social shares will influence the links
value
12) Links from Bad neighbour: Links from bad neighbours will effect your site
13) Guest posts: It is a part of white hat seo techniques & link juice is still calculated but not
that valuable as contextual link on the same page
14)Links to Homepage Domain- Links to a referring homepage will play important in site
evaluation
15)No Follow Links: Having certain % of no follow links will indicate your website a natural
vs unnatural link profile
16)Diversity of Link Types: Having unnaturally large percentage of links coming from single
source(Forums,blogs) will be sign of webspam. Links coming from diverse (different) sources is
a sign of natural link profile
17) Sponspored Link: Sponspored links will decrease the link values
18) Contextual links: Links given by highlighting words inside a pages content are considered
more powerful than empty page

19)Excessive 301 redirects: Links coming from 301 redirects will dilute the PR
20)Backlink Anchor Text: It sends strong relevancy signal & necessary to use
21)Internal Link Anchor Text: Internal Link anchor text is another relevancy signal, but probably
weighted differently than backlink anchor text
22)Link Title Attribute: The title attribute does not have direct SEO value for links. It can
influence click behavior for users, Although It may be helpful in improvement of you Click
Through Rate(CTR) that will give you indirect benefit for your SEO campaign.
23)Country TLD of Reffering Domains: Getting links from country specific top level domain
extensions may help you to rank better in that country.
24) Link locations in content: Links in beginning of content carries slightly higher weight than
links placed at the end of the content
24)Link Location on page: where a link appears on a page is important,links embedded in page
content are more powerful than links in the footer or sidebar area
25) Link domain Relevancy:A link from site in a similar niche is more powerful than an link from
an completely unrelated sites.
26)Page level Relevancy:Links from a page that closely tied to page content is more powerful
than a link from unrelated pages
27) Keyword in Title: Search Engines gives extra priority to links on pages that contain
Your page keyword in the title
28)positive link velocity: The rate at which you build links is called link velocity. The backlinks
that are obtained naturally tend to build over time, not overnight.
29)Negative link velocity: It will decrease website rankings as its signal of decreasing popularity.
30)Links from Hub Pages: Hubpages is a web 2.0 site, where you can post quality
content.Getting links from hub pages are considered top resources on a certain topic are given
special priority.
31)Links from Authority Sites: Links from authority sites will likely pass more link juice than a
link from small site
32) Co- Occurrences: Words that appear around your backlinks which helps google to
understand what the page is about
33) Backlink Age: According to google patent,older links have more raking power than newly
mintd backlinks
34)Links from real sites vs splogs: Google probably gives more weight to links coming from ral
site than a fake blogs.
35)Reciprocal links: Its always better to avoid link exchange methods
36)User Generated content Links: Google is able to identify links generated from UGC vs site
owner.
37)Schema.org Microformats: Pages that support microformats may rank above pages without
it.

38)Dmoz listed: The Open Directory Project, also called the ODP or DMOZ, is probably the single
most important internet directory. Its listings are used by Google, and by many other search
engines.
Many consider that google gives DMOZ listed sites a little extra trust
39)TrustRank of linking site: The trust worthiness of the site linking to you determines how
much TrustRank gets passed to you
40)Number of outbound links on a page: A link on a page with hundreds of outbound links
passes less PR than a page with only few outbound links
41) Forum profile links: Google considers forum backlinks too
42) Word count of linking content: A link from a 1000 word post is more valuable than a link
inside of 25 word
43) Quality of Linking content: Links from a poorly written content dont pass as much value as
links from well written contents
44) Sitewide Links: A sitewide link is an outgoing link which is on every page of a webpage. Site-
wide backlinks are often found in specific parts of page templates and thus are all over the
website. Sitewide links are oft
en in webpage footers. Sitewide backlinks are not bad if they are natural and relevant.
User Interaction:
1)Organic CTR for keyword: Pages that get clicked more in CTR may get a boost in SERP for that
keyword
2) Organic CTR for all keywords: A sites organic CTR for all keywords displays how much CTR for
each keyword you have.
3) Bounce Rate: Always make sure bounce rate for sites should be less
4) Direct Traffic: Google confirmed that it uses data from google chrome to determine whether
or not people visit a site. Sites with lot of direct traffic are likely higher quality than sites that
get very little direct traffic
5)Repeat Traffic: They may also look at whether or not users go back to a page or site after
visiting. Sites with repeat visitors may get a Google ranking boost.
6) Blocked Sites: Google has discontinued this feature in Chrome. However, Panda used this
feature as a quality signal.
7) Chrome Bookmarks: We know that Google collects Chrome browser usage data. Pages that
get bookmarked in Chrome might get a boost.
8) Google Toolbar Data: Search Engine Watch’s Danny Goodwin reports that Google uses
toolbar data as a ranking signal. However, besides page loading speed and malware, it’s not
known what kind of data they glean from the toolbar.

9) Number of Comments: Pages with lots of comments may be a signal of user
interaction and quality.
10) Dwell Time: 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”. If people spend a lot of time on your site, that may be used as a quality signal.
Special Algorithm Rules
1) Query Deserves Freshness: Google gives newer pages a boost for certain searches
2)Query Deserves Diversity: Google may add diversity to a SERP for ambiguous keywords, such
as “Ted”, “WWF” or “ruby”.
3) User Browsing History: Sites that you frequently visit while signed into Google get a SERP
bump for your searches.
4) User Search History: Search chain influence search results for later searches For example, if
you search for “reviews” then search for “toasters”, Google is more likely to show toaster
review sites higher in the SERPs.
5) Geo Targeting: Google gives preference to sites with a local server IP and country specific
domain name extension.
6) Safe Search: Search results with curse words or adult content won’t appear for people with
Safe Search turned on.
7)Google+ Circles: Google shows higher results for authors and sites that you’ve added to your
Google Plus Circles
8)DMCA Complaints: Google “downranks” pages with DMCA complaints
9)Domain Diversity: The so called “Bigfoot Update supposedly added more domains to each
SERP page.
10)Transactional Searches: Google sometimes displays different results for shopping related
keywords, like flight searches.
11). Local Searches: Google often places Google+ Local results above the “normal”
organic SERPs.
12) Google News Box: Certain keywords trigger a Google News box:
13) Shopping Results: Google sometimes displays Google Shopping results in organic SERPs:
14) Image Results: Google elbows our organic listings for image results for searches commonly
used on Google Image Search.
15) Easter Egg 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 (!). Shout out to Victor Pan
for this one.

16). Single Site Results for Brands: Domain or brandoriented keywords bring up several results
from the same site (http://searchengineland.com/googlenowshowing
3ormoreresultsfromsamedomain49066).
Social Signals
1)Number of Tweets: Like links, the tweets a page has may influence its rank in Google.
2) Authority of Twitter Users Accounts: It’s likely that Tweets coming from aged, authority
Twitter profiles with a ton of followers have more of an effect than tweets from new, low -
influence accounts.
3)Number of Facebook Likes: Although Google can’t see most Facebook accounts it’s likely they
consider the number of Facebook likes a page receives as a weak ranking signal.
4)Facebook Shares: Facebook shares — because they’re more similar to a backlink — may have
a stronger influence than Facebook likes
5)Authority of Facebook User Accounts: As with Twitter, Facebook shares and likes coming
from popular Facebook pages may pass more weight.
6)Pinterest Pins: Pinterest is an insanely popular social media account with lots of public data.
It’s probably that Google considers Pinterest Pins a social signal.
7)Votes on Social Sharing Sites: It’s possible that Google uses shares at sites like Reddit,
Stumbleupon and Digg as another type of social signal.
8)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.
9)Authority of Google+ User Accounts: It’s logical that Google would weigh +1’s coming from
authoritative accounts more than from accounts without many followers.
10). Known Authorship: In February 2013, Google CEO Eric Schmidt famously 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.”Although the Google+ authorship program has been shut down it’s likely
Google uses some form of authorship to determine influential content producers online (and
give them a boost in rankings).
11) Social Signal Relevancy: Google probably uses relevancy information from the account
sharing the content and the text surrounding the link.
12) Site Level Social Signals: Sitewide social signals may increase a site’s overall authority, which
will increase search visibility for all of its pages.

Brand Signals
1) Brand Name Anchor Text: Branded anchor text is a simple — but strong —brand signal.
2)Branded Searches: It’s simple: people search for brands. If people search for your site in
Google Google likely takes this into consideration when determining a brand.
3) Site Has Facebook Page and Likes: Brands tend to have Facebook pages with lots of likes.
4)Site has Twitter Profile with Followers: Twitter profiles with a lot of followers signals a
popular brand.
5)Official Linkedin Company Page: Most real businesses have company Linkedin pages.
6)Employees Listed at Linkedin: Rand Fishkin thinks that having Linkedin profiles that say they
work for your company is a brand signal.
7)Legitimacy of Social Media Accounts: 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.
8)Brand Mentions on News Sites: Really big brands get mentioned on Google
News sites all the time. In fact, some brands even have their own Google News feed on the first
page:
9)CoCitations: Brands get mentioned without getting linked to. Google likely looks at non-
hyperlinked brand mentions as a brand signal.
10)Number of RSS Subscribers: Considering that Google owns the popular Feedburner RSS
service, it makes sense that they would look at RSS Subscriber data as a popularity/brand signal.
11)Brick and Mortar Location With Google+ Local Listing: Real businesses have offices. It’s
possible that Google fishes for location data to determine whether or not a site is a big brand.
12)Website is Tax Paying Business: Moz reports that Google may look at whether or not a site
is associated with a taxpaying business.
OnSite WebSpam Factors
1) Panda Penalty: Sites with low quality content (particularly content farms) are less visible in
search after getting hit by a Panda penalty
2)Links to Bad Neighborhoods: Linking out to “bad neighborhoods” — like pharmacy or payday
loan sites — may hurt your search visibility.
3)Redirects: Sneaky redirects is a big nono.If caught, it can get a site not just penalized, but de-
indexed.
4)Popups or Distracting Ads: The official Google Rater Guidelines Document says that popups
and distracting ads is a sign of a low quality site.

5)Site Over Optimization: Includes onpage factors like keyword stuffing, header tag stuffing,
excessive keyword decoration.
6)Page Over Optimization: Many people report that — unlike Panda — Penguin targets
individual page (and even then just for certain keywords).
7)Ads Above the Fold: The “Page Layout Algorithm penalizes sites with lots of ads (and not
much content) above the fold.
8)Hiding Affiliate Links: Going too far when trying to hide affiliate links (especially with
cloaking) can bring on a penalty.
9)Affiliate Sites: It’s no secret that Google isn’t the biggest fan of affiliates. And many think that
sites that monetize with affiliate links are put under extra scrutiny.
10) Auto generated Content: Google isn’t a big fan of auto generated content. If they suspect
that your site’s pumping out computer generated content, it could result in a penalty or de-
indexing.
11)Excess PageRank Sculpting: Going too far with PageRank sculpting by no following all
outbound links or most internal links — may be a sign of gaming the system.
12)IP Address Flagged as Spam: If your server’s IP address is flagged for spam, it may hurt all of
the sites on that server
13)Meta Tag Spamming: Keyword stuffing can also happen in meta tags. If Google thinks you’re
adding keywords to your meta tags to game the algo, they may hit your site with a penalty.
Off Page Webspam Factor
1) Penguin Penalty: Sites that were hit by Google Penguin are significantly less visible in search.
2) Link Profile with High % of Low Quality Links: Lots of links from sources commonly used by
black hat SEOs may be a sign of gaming the system.
3) Linking Domain Relevancy: The famous analysis by MicroSiteMasters.com found that sites
with an unnaturally high amount of links from unrelated sites were more susceptible to
Penguin.
4)Unnatural Links Warning: Google sent out thousands of “Google Webmaster Tools notice of
detected unnatural links” messages. This usually precedes a ranking drop, although not 100% of
the time
5)Links from the Same Class C IP: Getting an unnatural amount of links from sites on the same
server IP may be a sign of blog network link building.
6)“Poison” Anchor Text: 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.

7)Manual Penalty: Google has been known to hand out manual penalties, like in the well
publicized Interflora fiasco
8)Selling Links: Selling links can definitely impact toolbar PageRank and may hurt your search
visibility.
9)Google Sandbox: New sites that get a sudden influx of links are sometimes put in the Google
Sandbox which temporarily limits search visibility.
10)Google Dance: The Google Dance can temporarily shake up rankings. According to a Google
Patent this may be a way for them to determine whether or not a site is trying to game the
algorithm.
11)Disavow Tool: Use of the Disavow Tool may remove a manual or algorithmic penalty for
sites that were the victims of negative SEO.
12)Reconsideration Request: Did your site suffer a penalty? Then a reconsideration request can
lift you the penalty and make your site get going..
13)Temporary Link Schemes: Never go for temporary link schemes. Google seems to have
caught people who create and quickly remove such spammy and temporary links.

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