How Google Ranks Sites…

By Stephen Noton

Insight on the Google Algorithm

( ( S * Q ) + M ) * G = RANKING

S = Site Calculation

Q = Quality Calculation

M = Marketing Calculation

G = Google Calculation

S = Site Calculation

• Page Title = 40%

• Page URL = 5%

• Page Text = 10%

• Internal PageRank Distribution = 35%

• Text in Internal Linking = 10%

Page Title = 40%

• Google checks to see how close the users search matches the text in the title.

• Location of text and density play a factor into the scoring of the title.

• Using compound keyword phrases in titles is great way to increase traffic.

Page URL = 5%

• Google uses predictive content understanding based on text in the URL.

• Use - between words as _ or words connected prevent the text from being understood.

• Many external links will use just the URL, which furthers the reason to use dashes.

Page Text = 10%

• Google isn’t focused on keyword density or length of page content to score page text.

• Page text is best leveraged when further targeting compound keyword phrases.

• Also using common synonyms/related keywords can help increase relevant traffic

Internal PageRank Distribution = 35%

• Google uses the internal links to determine what content is important within a site.

• Fundamentally linking more to page H vs. page C can give page H a higher score in Google.

• Where linked within a page and the page the link is from also are apart of the scoring.

Text in Internal Linking = 10%

• Text in links helps Google’s predictive understanding and in ranking of content.

• Having varied text in your links gives you varied results in Google.

• Using generic links like “click here” or “learn more” can hurt your rankings in Google.

Q = Quality Calculation

• Keyword Quality = 40%

• Search Funnel Quality = 10%

• Predictive Site Quality = 50%

Keyword Quality = 40%

• Performance based using the pages actual CTR and the sites predicted CTR.

• Google further judges quality by the use of Google after a click to your site.

Search Funnel Quality = 10%

• Sites that show up in pre & post searches can have higher weighting.

• It is Google’s goal to give the user the best experience & information.

Predictive Site Quality = 50%

• Based on actual quality data, Google then projects the potential of a site.

• The better pages perform in Google the better a site does in Google.

M = Marketing Calculation

• External Linking = 70%

• Text in External Linking = 15%

• User Search Behavior = 10%

• Google Plus/Circles = 5%

External Linking = 70%

• Link sources, amount of links & life of links all account into the scoring.

• Link scoring changes is what most people report as algorithm changes.

Text in External Linking = 15%

• Text in links helps Google’s predictive understanding and in ranking of content.

• Text matching the page goal further validates the sites objectives.

User Search Behavior = 10%

• Google uses the users past visited sites to adjust rankings/scoring.

• Similar to search funnel but this isn’t limited to recent searches.

Google Plus/Circles = 5%

• Google looks for pages with +1’s from users within their circles.

• Applies to only Google+ users and only uses users in their circles

G = Google Calculation

• Google Settings = 100%

– Results automatically filtered by users location, Google URL & interface language.

– Results can be refined by user inputs: type of search/date of content/source of content.

Other Questions?