Quote:
|
Do google publish a hierarchical list of what affects your search ranking
|
No. But they do give
advice to webmasters.
Quote:
From the info i have gathered, the following affect SE ranking:
1. Name and description matching common words and those in turn matching a query
2. Intro text on homepage backing up above
3. CSS and not tables used for HTML (unfortunatley our site is tables!)
4. Using the H1 and H2 tags. Again we haven't used these, and I think we could add some - any info on how to use these effectively anywhere, as I am not completely sure about what they do.
5. Content - I guess this has to back up point 1 and 2
6. Links - does this include both internal and external ones, and are external ones more important?
7. Page ranking
8. Dmoz registration backing up description.
9. Google doesn't take into account key words at all.
|
(1) Partly correct. The
title matters; the description doesn't (but it's still useful because it encourages click-through).
(2) Partially correct. Text on the homepage will only affect the ranking on the homepage, not the whole site.
(3) Incorrect. Table-based layout is bad for several important reasons, but SE ranking is not one of them. SE's look at your content, not the boxes you slot it inside.
(4) Headings are likely to be weighted more strongly than other text. Using informative, logical headings can help indicate to search engines what your pages are about.
(5) Correct. SE's analyse content to guess what the subject matter is.
(6) Inbound links increase Pagerank. The best links are from high Pagerank pages on the same topic as your page. Outbound links will not increase your Pagerank, but
may decrease it if you link to "bad neighbourhoods". Links internal to your site are
thought to affect the distribution of Pagerank across your pages.
(7) Correct, but Pagerank itself is determined by inbound links (their quantity and quality).
(8) Dmoz listing counts as another high-PR link, and thus boosts Pagerank. Google's directory is taken directly from Dmoz. I don't have any reason to believe the Dmoz
description is important (but choose an accurate one, or you won't get into Dmoz).
(9) Incorrect. Google's content analysis will pick up your keywords, providing you have used them appropriately. It will also attempt to detect keyword spam.