Search ranking factors

The SEOmoz website has an article on the most important Google Search Ranking Factors.

I’ll often be asked about Meta Tags, Page Rank and other SEO techneques that were important 5 years ago but not too many people outside the SEO community really know what the current top ranking factors are.

Without going into all the details, here’s the Top 10’s that you should look at:

Top 10 Positive Factors

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag
2. Anchor Text of Inbound Link
3. Global Link Popularity of Site
4. Age of Site
5. Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community
8. Keyword Use in Body Text
9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
10. Topical Relationship of Linking Page

And whilst we’re looking at the top things to do, you should also keep in mind a few things NOT to do:

Top 5 Negative Factors

1. Server is Often Inaccessible to Bots
2. Content Very Similar or Duplicate of Existing Content in the Index
3. External Links to Low Quality/Spam Sites
4. Duplicate Title/Meta Tags on Many Pages
5. Overuse of Targeted Keywords (Stuffing/Spamming)