Here
is a checklist of the factors that affect your rankings with Google,
Bing, Yahoo! and the other search engines. The list contains positive,
negative and neutral factors because all of them exist. Most of the
factors in the checklist apply mainly to Google and partially to Bing,
Yahoo! and all the other search engines of lesser importance. If you
need more information on particular sections of the checklist, you may
want to read our SEO tutorial, which gives more detailed explanations of Keywords, Links, Metatags, Visual Extras, etc.
Keywords
| |||
|---|---|---|---|
1
|
Keywords in <title> tag
| This is one of the most important places to have a keyword because what is written inside the <title> tag shows in search results as your page title. The title tag must be short (6 or 7 words at most) and the the keyword must be near the beginning. |
+3
|
2
|
Keywords in URL
|
Keywords
in URLs help a lot - e.g. - http://domainname.com/seo-services.html,
where “SEO services” is the keyword phrase you attempt to rank well for.
But if you don't have the keywords in other parts of the document,
don't rely on having them in the URL.
|
+3
|
3
|
Keyword density in document text
|
Another very important factor you need to check.
3-7 % for major keywords is best, 1-2 for minor. Keyword density of
over 10% is suspicious and looks more like keyword stuffing, than a
naturally written text.
|
+3
|
4
|
Keywords in anchor text
|
Also very important, especially for the anchor text of inbound links,
because if you have the keyword in the anchor text in a link from
another site, this is regarded as getting a vote from this site not only
about your site in general, but about the keyword in particular.
|
+3
|
5
|
Keywords in headings (<H1>, <H2>, etc. tags)
|
One more place where keywords count a lot. But beware that your page has actual text about the particular keyword.
|
+3
|
6
|
Keywords in the beginning of a document
|
Also
counts, though not as much as anchor text, title tag or headings.
However, have in mind that the beginning of a document does not
necessarily mean the first paragraph – for instance if you use tables,
the first paragraph of text might be in the second half of the table.
|
+2
|
7
|
Keywords in <alt> tags
|
Spiders
don't read images but they do read their textual descriptions in the
<alt> tag, so if you have images on your page, fill in the
<alt> tag with some keywords about them.
|
+2
|
8
|
Keywords in metatags
|
Less
and less important, especially for Google. Yahoo! and Bing still rely
on them, so if you are optimizing for Yahoo! or Bing, fill these tags
properly. In any case, filling these tags properly will not hurt, so do
it.
|
+1
|
9
|
Keyword proximity
|
Keyword
proximity measures how close in the text the keywords are. It is best
if they are immediately one after the other (e.g. “dog food”), with no
other words between them. For instance, if you have “dog” in the first
paragraph and “food” in the third paragraph, this also counts but not as
much as having the phrase “dog food” without any other words in
between. Keyword proximity is applicable for keyword phrases that
consist of 2 or more words.
|
+1
|
10
|
Keyword phrases
|
In
addition to keywords, you can optimize for keyword phrases that consist
of several words – e.g. “SEO services”. It is best when the keyword
phrases you optimize for are popular ones, so you can get a lot of exact
matches of the search string but sometimes it makes sense to optimize
for 2 or 3 separate keywords (“SEO” and “services”) than for one phrase
that might occasionally get an exact match.
|
+1
|
11
|
Secondary keywords
|
Optimizing
for secondary keywords can be a golden mine because when everybody else
is optimizing for the most popular keywords, there will be less
competition (and probably more hits) for pages that are optimized for
the minor words. For instance, “real estate new jersey” might have
thousand times less hits than “real estate” only but if you are
operating in New Jersey, you will get less but considerably better
targeted traffic.
|
+1
|
12
|
Keyword stemming
|
For
English this is not so much of a factor because words that stem from
the same root (e.g. dog, dogs, doggy, etc.) are considered related and
if you have “dog” on your page, you will get hits for “dogs” and “doggy”
as well, but for other languages keywords stemming could be an issue
because different words that stem from the same root are considered as
not related and you might need to optimize for all of them.
|
+1
|
13
|
Synonyms
|
Optimizing
for synonyms of the target keywords, in addition to the main keywords.
This is good for sites in English, for which search engines are smart
enough to use synonyms as well, when ranking sites but for many other
languages synonyms are not taken into account, when calculating rankings
and relevancy.
|
+1
|
14
|
Keyword Mistypes
|
Spelling
errors are very frequent and if you know that your target keywords have
popular misspellings or alternative spellings (i.e. Christmas and
Xmas), you might be tempted to optimize for them. Yes, this might get
you some more traffic but having spelling mistakes on your site does not
make a good impression, so you'd better don't do it, or do it only in
the metatags.
|
0
|
15
|
Keyword dilution
|
When
you are optimizing for an excessive amount of keywords, especially
unrelated ones, this will affect the performance of all your keywords
and even the major ones will be lost (diluted) in the text.
|
-2
|
16
|
Keyword stuffing
|
Any artificially inflated keyword density (10% and over) is keyword stuffing and you risk getting banned from search engines.
|
-3
|
Links - internal, inbound, outbound
| |||
17
|
Anchor text of inbound links
|
As
discussed in the Keywords section, this is one of the most important
factors for good rankings. It is best if you have a keyword in the
anchor text but even if you don't, it is still OK. However, don't use
the same anchor text all the time because this is also penalized by
Google. Try to use synonyms, keyword stemming, or simply the name of
your site instead
|
+3
|
18
|
Origin of inbound links
|
Besides
the anchor text, it is important if the site that links to you is a
reputable one or not. Generally sites with greater Google PR are
considered reputable. Links from poor sites and link farms can do real
harm to you, so avoid them at all costs.
|
+3
|
19
|
Links from similar sites
|
Generally
the more, the better. But the reputation of the sites that link to you
is more important than their number. Also important is their anchor text
(and its diversity), the lack/presence of keyword(s) in it, the link
age, etc.
|
+3
|
20
|
Links from .edu and .gov sites
|
These
links are precious because .edu and .gov sites are more reputable than
.com. .biz, .info, etc. domains. Additionally, such links are hard to
obtain.
|
+3
|
21
|
Number of backlinks
|
Generally
the more, the better. But the reputation of the sites that link to you
is more important than their number. Also important is their anchor
text, is there a keyword in it, how old are they, etc.
|
+3
|
22
|
Anchor text of internal links
|
This also matters, though not as much as the anchor text of inbound links.
|
+2
|
23
|
Around-the-anchor text
|
The
text that is immediately before and after the anchor text also matters
because it further indicates the relevance of the link – i.e. if the
link is artificial or it naturally flows in the text.
|
+2
|
24
|
Age of inbound links
|
The older, the better. Getting many new links in a short time suggests buying them.
|
+2
|
25
|
Links from directories
|
Could
work, though it strongly depends on which directories. Being listed in
DMOZ, Yahoo Directory and similar directories is a great boost for your
ranking but having tons of links from PR0 directories is useless or even
harmful because it can even be regarded as link spamming, if you have
hundreds or thousands of such links.
|
+2
|
26
|
Number of outgoing links on the page that links to you
|
The fewer, the better for you because this way your link looks more important.
|
+1
|
27
|
Named anchors
|
Named
anchors (the target place of internal links) are useful for internal
navigation but are also useful for SEO because you stress additionally
that a particular page, paragraph or text is important. In the code,
named anchors look like this: <A href= “#dogs”>Read about
dogs</A> and “#dogs” is the named anchor.
|
+1
|
28
|
IP address of inbound link
|
Google denies
that they discriminate against links that come from the same IP address
or C class of addresses, so for Google the IP address can be considered
neutral to the weight of inbound links. However, Bing and Yahoo! may
discard links from the same IPs or IP classes, so it is always better to
get links from different IPs.
|
+1
|
29
|
Inbound links from link farms and other suspicious sites
|
Presumably,
this does not affect you, provided the links are not reciprocal. The
idea is that it is beyond your control to define what a link farm links
to, so you don't get penalized when such sites link to you because this
is not your fault. However, some recent changes to the Google algorithm
suggest the opposite. This is why, you must always stay away from link
farms and other suspicious sites or if you see they link to you, contact
their webmaster and ask the link to be removed.
|
0
|
30
|
Many outgoing links
|
Google
does not like pages that consists mainly of links, so you'd better keep
them under 100 per page. Having many outgoing links does not get you
any benefits in terms of ranking and could even make your situation
worse.
|
-1
|
31
|
Excessive linking, link spamming
|
It
is bad for your rankings, when you have many links to/from the same
sites (even if it is not a cross- linking scheme or links to bad
neighbors) because it suggests link buying or at least spamming. In the
best case only some of the links are taken into account for SEO
rankings.
|
-1
|
32
|
Outbound links to link farms and other suspicious sites
|
Unlike inbound links from link farms and other suspicious sites, outbound links to bad neighbors
can drown you. You need periodically to check the status of the sites
you link to because sometimes good sites become bad neighbors and vice
versa.
|
-3
|
33
|
Cross-linking
|
Cross-linking
occurs when site A links to site B, site B links to site C and site C
links back to site A. This is the simplest example but more complex
schemes are possible. Cross-linking looks like disguised reciprocal link
trading and is penalized.
|
-3
|
34
|
Single pixel links
|
when
you have a link that is a pixel or so wide it is invisible for humans,
so nobody will click on it and it is obvious that this link is an
attempt to manipulate search engines.
|
-3
|
Metatags
| |||
35
|
<Description> metatag
|
Metatags
are becoming less and less important but if there are metatags that
still matter, these are the <description> and <keywords>
ones. Use the <Description> metatag to write the description of
your site. Besides the fact that metatags still rock on Bing and Yahoo!,
the <Description> metatag has one more advantage – it sometimes
pops in the description of your site in search results.
|
+1
|
36
|
<Keywords> metatag
|
The
<Keywords> metatag also matters, though as all metatags it gets
almost no attention from Google and some attention from Bing and Yahoo!
Keep the metatag reasonably long – 10 to 20 keywords at most. Don't
stuff the <Keywords> tag with keywords that you don't have on the
page, this is bad for your rankings.
|
+1
|
37
|
<Language> metatag
|
If
your site is language-specific, don't leave this tag empty. Search
engines have more sophisticated ways of determining the language of a
page than relying on the <language>metatag but they still consider
it.
|
+1
|
38
|
<Refresh> metatag
|
The
<Refresh> metatag is one way to redirect visitors from your site
to another. Only do it if you have recently migrated your site to a new
domain and you need to temporarily redirect visitors. When used for a
long time, the <refresh> metatag is regarded as unethical practice
and this can hurt your ratings. In any case, redirecting through 301 is
much better.
|
-1
|
Content
| |||
39
|
Unique content
|
Having
more content (relevant content, which is different from the content on
other sites both in wording and topics) is a real boost for your site's
rankings.
|
+3
|
40
|
Frequency of content change
|
Frequent
changes are favored. It is great when you constantly add new content
but it is not so great when you only make small updates to existing
content.
|
+3
|
41
|
Keywords font size
|
When
a keyword in the document text is in a larger font size in comparison
to other on-page text, this makes it more noticeable, so therefore it is
more important than the rest of the text. The same applies to headings
(<h1>, <h2>, etc.), which generally are in larger font size
than the rest of the text.
|
+2
|
42
|
Keywords formatting
|
Bold
and italic are another way to emphasize important words and phrases.
However, use bold, italic and larger font sizes within reason because
otherwise you might achieve just the opposite effect.
|
+2
|
43
|
Age of document
|
Recent documents (or at least regularly updated ones) are favored.
|
+2
|
44
|
File size
|
Generally
long pages (i.e. 1,500-2,000 words or more) are not favored, or at
least you can achieve better rankings if you have 3 short (500-1,000
words) rather than 1 long page on a given topic, so split long pages
into multiple smaller ones. On the other hand, pages with 100-200 words
of text or less are also disliked by Google.
|
+1
|
45
|
Content separation
|
From
a marketing point of view content separation (based on IP, browser
type, etc.) might be great but for SEO it is bad because when you have
one URL and differing content, search engines get confused what the
actual content of the page is.
|
-2
|
46
|
Poor coding and design
|
Search
engines say that they do not want poorly designed and coded sites,
though there are hardly sites that are banned because of messy code or
ugly images but when the design and/or coding of a site is poor, the
site might not be indexable at all, so in this sense poor code and
design can harm you a lot.
|
-2
|
47
|
Illegal Content
|
Using
other people's copyrighted content without their permission or using
content that promotes legal violations can get you kicked out of search
engines.
|
-3
|
48
|
Invisible text
|
This
is a black hat SEO practice and when spiders discover that you have
text specially for them but not for humans, don't be surprised by the
penalty.
|
-3
|
49
|
Cloaking
|
Cloaking
is another illegal technique, which partially involves content
separation because spiders see one page (highly-optimized, of course),
and everybody else is presented with another version of the same page.
|
-3
|
50
|
Doorway pages
|
Creating
pages that aim to trick spiders that your site is a highly-relevant one
when it is not, is another way to get the kick from search engines.
|
-3
|
51
|
Duplicate content
|
When you have the same content on several pages on the site, this will not make your site look larger because the duplicate content
penalty kicks in. To a lesser degree duplicate content applies to pages
that reside on other sites but obviously these cases are not always
banned – i.e. article directories or mirror sites do exist and prosper.
|
-3
|
Visual Extras and SEO
| |||
52
|
JavaScript
|
If
used wisely, it will not hurt. But if your main content is displayed
through JavaScript, this makes it more difficult for spiders to follow
and if JavaScript code is a mess and spiders can't follow it, this will
definitely hurt your ratings.
|
0
|
53
|
Images in text
|
Having
a text-only site is so boring but having many images and no text is a
SEO sin. Always provide in the <alt> tag a meaningful description
of an image but don't stuff it with keywords or irrelevant information.
|
0
|
54
|
Podcasts and videos
|
Podcasts
and videos are becoming more and more popular but as with all
non-textual goodies, search engines can't read them, so if you don't
have the tapescript of the podcast or the video, it is as if the podcast
or movie is not there because it will not be indexed by search engines.
|
0
|
55
|
Images instead of text links
|
Using
images instead of text links is bad, especially when you don't fill in
the <alt> tag. But even if you fill in the <alt> tag, it is
not the same as having a bold, underlined, 16-pt. link, so use images
for navigation only if this is really vital for the graphic layout of
your site.
|
-1
|
56
|
Frames
|
Frames are very, very bad for SEO. Avoid using them unless really necessary.
|
-2
|
57
|
Flash
|
Spiders
don't index the content of Flash movies, so if you use Flash on your
site, don't forget to give it an alternative textual description.
|
-2
|
58
|
A Flash home page
|
Fortunately
this epidemic disease seems to have come to an end. Having a Flash home
page (and sometimes whole sections of your site) and no HTML version,
is a SEO suicide.
|
-3
|
Domains, URLs, Web Mastery
| |||
59
|
Keyword-rich URLs and filenames
|
A very important factor, especially for Yahoo! and Bing.
|
+3
|
60
|
Site Accessibility
|
Another
fundamental issue, which that is often neglected. If the site (or
separate pages) is unaccessible because of broken links, 404 errors,
password-protected areas and other similar reasons, then the site simply
can't be indexed.
|
+3
|
61
|
Sitemap
|
It is great to have a complete and up-to-date sitemap, spiders love it, no matter if it is a plain old HTML sitemap or the special Google sitemap format.
|
+2
|
62
|
Site size
|
Spiders
love large sites, so generally it is the bigger, the better. However,
big sites become user-unfriendly and difficult to navigate, so sometimes
it makes sense to separate a big site into a couple of smaller ones. On
the other hand, there are hardly sites that are penalized because they
are 10,000+ pages, so don't split your size in pieces only because it is
getting larger and larger.
|
+2
|
63
|
Site age
|
Similarly to wine, older sites are respected more.
The idea is that an old, established site is more trustworthy (they
have been around and are here to stay) than a new site that has just
poped up and might soon disappear.
|
+2
|
64
|
Site theme
|
It
is not only keywords in URLs and on page that matter. The site theme is
even more important for good ranking because when the site fits into
one theme, this boosts the rankings of all its pages that are related to
this theme.
|
+2
|
65
|
File Location on Site
|
File
location is important and files that are located in the root directory
or near it tend to rank better than files that are buried 5 or more
levels below.
|
+1
|
66
|
Domains versus subdomains, separate domains
|
Having a separate domain is better – i.e. instead of having blablabla.blogspot.com, register a separate blablabla.com domain.
|
+1
|
67
|
Top-level domains (TLDs)
|
Not
all TLDs are equal. There are TLDs that are better than others. For
instance, the most popular TLD – .com – is much better than .ws, .biz,
or .info domains but (all equal) nothing beats an old .edu or .org
domain.
|
+1
|
68
|
Hyphens in URLs
|
Hyphens
between the words in an URL increase readability and help with SEO
rankings. This applies both to hyphens in domain names and in the rest
of the URL.
|
+1
|
69
|
URL length
|
Generally
doesn't matter but if it is a very long URL-s, this starts to look
spammy, so avoid having more than 10 words in the URL (3 or 4 for the
domain name itself and 6 or 7 for the rest of address is acceptable).
|
0
|
70
|
IP address
|
Could
matter only for shared hosting or when a site is hosted with a free
hosting provider, when the IP or the whole C-class of IP addresses is
blacklisted due to spamming or other illegal practices.
|
0
|
71
|
Adsense will boost your ranking
|
Adsense
is not related in any way to SEO ranking. Google will definitely not
give you a ranking bonus because of hosting Adsense ads. Adsense might
boost your income but this has nothing to do with your search rankings.
|
0
|
72
|
Adwords will boost your ranking
|
Similarly
to Adsense, Adwords has nothing to do with your search rankings.
Adwords will bring more traffic to your site but this will not affect
your rankings in whatsoever way.
|
0
|
73
|
Hosting downtime
|
Hosting downtime
is directly related to accessibility because if a site is frequently
down, it can't be indexed. But in practice this is a factor only if your
hosting provider is really unreliable and has less than 97-98% uptime.
Try using a reputed hosting provider such as Hostgator for hosting.
|
-1
|
74
|
Dynamic URLs
|
Spiders
prefer static URLs, though you will see many dynamic pages on top
positions. Long dynamic URLs (over 100 characters) are really bad and in
any case you'd better use a tool to rewrite dynamic URLs in something more human- and SEO-friendly.
|
-1
|
75
|
Session IDs
|
This is even worse than dynamic URLs. Don't use session IDs for information that you'd like to be indexed by spiders.
|
-2
|
76
|
Bans in robots.txt
|
If
indexing of a considerable portion of the site is banned, this is
likely to affect the nonbanned part as well because spiders will come
less frequently to a “noindex” site.
|
-2
|
77
|
Redirects (301 and 302)
|
When not applied properly, redirects
can hurt a lot – the target page might not open, or worse – a redirect
can be regarded as a black hat technique, when the visitor is
immediately taken to a different page.
|
-3
|
informative post...
ReplyDelete