Cos'è un fattore di ranking?
A ranking factor is the signal, metric, or criterion that search engines use to evaluate and rank webpages on search results pages. These include on-page elements (like content quality and relevance) and off-page elements (like backlinks and domain authority).
The impact of these factors varies significantly. While some, like content quality, can have a considerable influence on a page’s position on the search results page, others, such as the URL structure, have a minor effect.
Importance of the Ranking Factors
Ranking factors allow search engines to evaluate and determine the most relevant content to show to the visitor. You can think of them as a method of grading the webpages that are relevant to a search term and displaying the highest-scoring ones to the visitor.
This keeps the search results page fair and structured. From the blogger’s perspective, bloggers know that webpages that rank higher attract more organic traffic. This gets their content in front of more eyes and increases their chances of earning leads and customers for their business.
So, the ranking factors incentivize them to adhere to search engine optimization best practices like producing valuable content, improving site speed, and earning authoritative backlinks. It also encourages them to create sites that are usable and provide visitors with a great user experience.
List of Some Confirmed Google Ranking Factors
Google keeps its ranking factors a closely guarded secret. It is impossible to say how many there really are, but even moderate sources mention that Google has over 200 ranking factors, while other sources say there could be up to 600.
That said, here are some confirmed ranking factors Google uses to evaluate the webpages it displays on its results page.
1 Page Experience
Google uses the page experience to assess the user experience of a webpage. The page experience factor itself is based on multiple signals, including:
- Usage of HTTPS
- Il Segnali Web fondamentali
- How mobile-friendly the page is
- Absence of intrusive interstitials on the page
- Absence of excessive ads that interfere with the page’s content
- Site designs that allow visitors to distinguish the main content from the rest of the page’s content
Overall, Google will reward mobile-friendly sites that use HTTPS and have great Core Web Vitals. Such sites should not contain intrusive interstitials, ads, or content that overwhelms the main content.
2 Content Freshness
Content freshness has been a major aspect of the Google Search algorithm and became even more critical after Google updated its indexing system in 2010. The new indexing system is called Google Caffeina and has been used ever since.
Content freshness does not apply to all queries. Instead, it only applies to queries that indicate the visitor wants to view fresh content. Google knows when you require fresh content, so your search term does not need to include a date.
For example, a query like “income brackets” and “weather today” indicates the searcher wants fresh content. However, search terms like “birthday cake recipe” and “yoga for beginners” do not need to return fresh results.
3 Collegamenti in entrata
Inbound links, also called backlinks, are a very popular ranking factor. Even new bloggers and SEOs know that sites with many backlinks will rank on search results pages.
However, not all inbound links are equal. Inbound links from high-authority sites are more helpful than those from low-authority sites. Search engines may even consider low-quality inbound links spammy, which can hurt your SEO.
4 Collegamenti interni
Un internal link is a link from a page to another page on the same site. They help search engines understand the hierarchy and relationship between the pages on a site. Visitors also use them to discover related content. However, they are less influential than inbound links.
5 Content Relevance
Google aims to connect searchers with content that is relevant to their query. One signal Google uses to determine relevance is parole chiave. Specifically, when the keywords in the search query match those on the page, it may indicate the search term is relevant to the query.
Such keywords typically appear at various locations, including the visible content, alt text, image title, H1 heading, meta title, and Meta Description. Keywords that appear at the beginning of the content are also considered more relevant than those that appear later.
However, this does not mean that content will rank for a keyword because it contains the keyword. Google has systems that ensure that it only returns relevant and helpful content and not content that is stuffed with keywords.
6 High-Quality Content
People-first content refers to content that is helpful and written for people rather than search engines. Such content is comprehensive, original, and insightful. Its main heading and page title perfectly summarize the content on the webpage.
High-quality content is also correctly formatted, contains trustworthy sources, and shows expertise. Talking of expertise, high-quality content and sites should demonstrate E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).
E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor. However, it affects how Google evaluates several ranking factors, including the content quality and backlinks. A site would struggle to rank if it is not considered trustworthy.
Similarly, Google requires sites to possess high E-E-A-T to rank for specific keywords. For example, a regular blog will not rank for a keyword like “What to do during an earthquake” even if it contains highly relevant content.
7 Content Usability
Content usability refers to a visitor’s ability to access and use the webpages displayed on the search results page. As a rule, content that visitors can access and use will rank higher than content that is inaccessible.
However, content usability only kicks in when other signals are somewhat equal. At this point, Google would consider signals and factors like mobile-friendliness and page speed to evaluate the most usable content.
8 User Search History
Google uses the user’s search history to personalize their results page. However, this ranking factor is only relevant when you are logged into your Google account. Otherwise, Google will not consider it for your results.
That said, the user search history is a controversial ranking factor, particularly for users who think it will put them into a bubble where they are only shown results related to their previous searches.
Google has refuted this by confirming that personalization has a minor effect on the search results page. Google added that there is little difference between a personalized and non-personalized results page.
9 Testo di ancoraggio
Anchor texts are another confirmed ranking factor. They allow visitors and search engines to better understand the relationship between the content on the webpage providing and receiving the link.
10 Openness
Openness is a strong ranking factor per local SEO. Openness here refers to the business’s opening times.
Google wants to connect visitors to businesses that are open at the moment. So, it typically improves the visibility of businesses that are open at the time of the query and reduces the visibility of those that are closed.
Openness is such a strong ranking factor that businesses that are not open at the time of the query are known to vanish from Google’s local search results pages.
11 Struttura dell'URL
The URL structure is a very lightweight ranking factor. However, unlike other ranking factors, Google only takes it into account before crawling the URL. Specifically, Google reviews the words in the URL to better understand the page’s content. Google doesn’t really have any use for the URL structure after crawling.