On Page SEO
There are “over 200 SEO factors” that Google uses to rank pages in the Google search results (SERPs). What are the search engine optimization rules?
Here is the speculation – educated guesses by SEO webmasters on top webmaster forums. Should you wish to achieve a high ranking, the various confirmed and suspected Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Rules are listed below.
Alleged POSITIVE ON-Page SEO Google Ranking Factors (38)
(Keeping in mind the converse, of course, that when violated, some of these factors
immediately jump into the NEGATIVE On-Page Ranking Factors domain.)
The term “Keyword” below refers to the “Keyword Phrase”, which can be one word or more.
Green rows confirmed by Google patent of Aug. 10, 2006
| Note - Patent Claim # |
Factor # |
POSITIVE ON-Page SEO Factors |
Brief Note |
| 50 | - | KEYWORDS | Google patent - Topic extraction For keyword selection, try Google Ad Words – Google Trends |
| HOT | 1 | Keyword in URL | First word is best, second is second best, etc. |
| HOT | 2 | Keyword in Domain name | Same as in page-name-with-hyphens |
| - | Keywords – Header | ||
| HOT | 3 | Keyword in Title tag | Keyword in Title tag – close to beginning Title tag 10 – 60 characters, no special characters. |
| - | 4 | Keyword in Description meta tag | Shows theme – less than 200 chars. Google no longer “relies” upon this tag, but will often use it. |
| - | 5 | Keyword in Keyword metatag | Shows theme – less than 10 words. Every word in this tag MUST appear somewhere in the body text. If not, it can be penalized for irrelevance. No single word should appear more than twice. If not, it may be considered spam. Google purportedly no longer uses this tag, but others do. |
| - | Keywords – Body | ||
| - | 6 | Keyword density in body text | 5 – 20% – (all keywords/ total words) Some report topic sensitivity – the keyword spamming threshold % varies with the topic. |
| - | 7 | Individual keyword density | 1 – 6% – (each keyword/ total words) |
| HOT | 8 | Keyword in H1, H2 and H3 | Use Hx font style tags appropriately |
| - | 9 | Keyword font size | “Strong is treated the same as bold, italic is treated the same as emphasis” . . . Matt Cutts July 2006 |
| - | 10 | Keyword proximity (for 2+ keywords) | Directly adjacent is best |
| - | 11 | Keyword phrase order | Does word order in the page match word order in the query? Try to anticipate query, and match word order. |
| - | 12 | Keyword prominence (how early in page/tag) | Can be important at top of page, in bold, in large font |
| - | Keywords – Other | ||
| - | 13 | Keyword in alt text | Should describe graphic – Do NOT fill with spam (Was part of Google Florida OOP – tripped a threshold – may still be in effect to some degree as a red flag, when summed with all other on-page optimization – total page optimization score – TPOS). |
| - | 14 | Keyword in links to site pages (anchor text) | Links out anchor text use keyword? |
| - | NAVIGATION – INTERNAL LINKS | ||
| SITE | 15 | To internal pages- keywords? | Link should contain keywords. The filename “linked to” should contain the keywords. Use hyphenated filenames, but not long ones – two or three hyphens only. |
| SITE | 16 | All Internal links valid? | Validate all links to all pages on site. Use a free link checker. I like this one. |
| SITE | 17 | Efficient – tree-like structure | TRY FOR two clicks to any page – no page deeper than 4 clicks |
| SITE | 18 | Intra-site linking | Appropriate links between lower-level pages |
| 54 | - | NAVIGATION – OUTGOING LINKS | |
| 55 | 19 | To external pages- keywords? | Google patent - Link only to good sites. Do not link to link farms. CAREFUL – Links can and do go bad, resulting in site demotion. Unfortunately, you must devote the time necessary to police your outgoing links – they are your responsibility. |
| 56 | 20 | Outgoing link Anchor Text | Google patent - Should be on topic, descriptive |
| 61, 62 | 21 | Link stability over time | Google patent - Avoid “Link Churn” |
| - | 22 | All External links valid? | Validate all links periodically. |
| - | 23 | Less than 100 links out total | Google says limit to 100, but readily accepts 2-3 times that number. ref 2k |
| - | 121 (added) |
Linking to Authority | Some say this gives a boost - Others say that is absurd. However, it certainly is the opposite of linking to trash, which WILL hurt you. |
| - | OTHER ON-Page Factors | ||
| - | 24 | Domain Name Extension Top Level Domain – TLD |
.gov sites seem to be the highest status .edu sites seem to be given a high status .org sites seem to be given a high status .com sites excel in encompassing all the spam/ crud sites, resulting in the need for the highest scrutiny/ action by Google. Perhaps one would do well with the new .info domain class.<update> – Nope. Spammers jumped all over it – no safe haven there. Not so much, now – .info sites can rank highly. |
| - | 25 | File Size | Try not to exceed 100K page size (however, some subject matter, such as this page, requires larger file sizes). Smaller files are preferred <40K (lots of them). |
| - | 26 | Hyphens in URL | Preferred method for indicating a space, where there can be no actual space One or two= excellent for separating keywords (i.e., pet-smart, pets-mart) Four or more= BAD, starts to look spammy Ten = Spammer for sure, demotion probable? |
| 6, 7 12, 13 |
27 | Freshness of Pages | Google patent - Changes over time Newer the better – if news, retail or auction! Google likes fresh pages. So do I. |
| 8, 9 | 28 | Freshness – Amount of Content Change | New pages – Ratio of old pages to new pages |
| 27 | 29 | Freshness of Links | Google patent - May be good or bad Excellent for high-trust sites May not be so good for newer, low-trust sites |
| - | 30 | Frequency of Updates | Frequent updates = frequent spidering = newer cache |
| - | 31 | Page Theming | Page exhibit theme? General consistency? |
| - | 32 | Keyword stemming | Stem, stems, stemmed, stemmer, stemming, stemmist, stemification |
| - | 33 | Applied Semantics | Synonyms, CIRCA white paper |
| - | 34 | LSI | Latent Semantic Indexing – Speculation, no proof |
| - | 35 | URL length | Keep it minimized – use somewhat less than the 2,000 characters allowed by IE – less than 100 is good, less is even better |
| - | OTHER ON-SITE Factors | ||
| 5 | 36 | Site Size – Google likes big sites | Larger sites are presumed to be better funded, better organized, better constructed, and therefore better sites. Google likes LARGE sites, for various reasons, not all positive. This has resulted in the advent of machine-generated 10,000-page spam sites – size for the sake of size. Google has caught on and dumped millions of pages, or made them supplemental. |
| 4 | 37 | Site Age | Google patent - Old is best. Old is Golden. |
| 3 | 38 | Age of page vs. age of site | Age of page vs. age of other pages on site Newer pages on an older site will get faster recognition. |
The SEO Rules listed below are NOT listed by weight, and not by any presumed relevance – THAT exercise is left up to the reader!
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