The exact way that Google calculates the importance of a page is a closely guarded secret. What we do know are the factors included in that calculation and the estimated importance they are given.
- Page Rank
- Page Rank
What is Pagerank®?
The factor which has the largest impact on where your page appears in a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is it’s Google PageRank®. Again, the exact way that Google calculates a PageRank® isn’t known. We do however know that it takes into consideration the domain age, the age of the content and, above all, the incoming links to a page. The quality and quantity of these links have the largest impact on PageRank® and are integral to the SEO process. Using these factors Google then calculates the importance of the page and gives it a numerical value between 0 and 10 with 10 representing pages of greatest importance.
PageRank®, though it is very important, is not the only factor which Google uses to decide the SERP position of a page. In addition to the quality of a page’s inbound links, Google also factors in the number of both inbound and outbound links to a page. Google will also give greater importance to pages which are registered with human reviewed online directories such as DMOZ and the yahoo directory.
Are Keywords Still Important?
Keywords, though they don’t have the authority they once did, still have a very big part to play in dictating your page’s position in a SERP. When calculating the importance of your page, Google will take into consideration whether the search term is contained in either the page’s URL, tags or as anchor text. The frequency and density of the search phrase on your page will also greatly influence your page’s position.
There are other factors which do play a part of Google’s calculation. The structure of your site and amount of pages registered to a domain will both be taken into consideration by Google. What will also inform part of their calculation are any negative factors attached to a site. Negative factors might include unnatural keyword stuffing, links to or from undesirable sites or repetitive use of bad language on a site.
Constant improvements in the rankings
The way that Google and other major search engines rank their SERP’s is always being improved. It is worth remembering that their goal is to provide the most useful results from a search term. If your site consistently provides real value to its visitors and you pay close attention to the technical components of SEO mentioned here, then your ranking in SERP’s will certainly rise.
