“How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man” sang Bob Dylan, one of the most influential figures in US music and cultural field where he has been reigning for several decades now. However, our quests are somewhat similar when we hum: How many factors must an SEO overcome to reach Google’s top SERP list? In other words, on what factors Google algorithm actually depends on?

To be precise, Google algorithm mulls over 200 different factors while evaluating the importance of a page, of which here are some of the most significant ones.

>>  Links – To as well as from the site, especially the quality of those links and relation between the links. Google also checks the links with pages on your site and how well does it interrelate as well as the rate of change if it changes too often.

>>  Site Content – It includes relevance, keyword density and interrelationship between whatever appears on the page and that on the site. Also, how often does it change and the rate of alteration.

>>  Visitor correlated factors – the volume of visitor return, number of visits received, increase and decrease in terms of new visitors.

>>   Domain name related factors – The period of domain name registration (the age of ownership). Has the ownership undergone any change during that period; if so, on how many occasions?

Web page elements that are monitored by search engines

According to a recent study, changes affecting the following web page elements are likely to influence the position of the page in search results, too.

• Keywords that are associated with a web page
• Keywords that are included in a web page
• Anchor texts used in links on the page
• Location of text or images on the page
• Occurrence of document changes over a period
• The bulk of web page content that has undergone some change
• Changes in anchor text

Page Rank

Google’s original patent, developed by Larry Page and Serge Brin was developed while they were still students at Stanford University. This patent focused solely on links to and from your site and the authority of these links. Google’s algorithms have gotten much more complex since then. However, here is what the current scenario looks like.

On-Page (Keyword-specific) Ranking factors

• Keyword Use in the Title Tag
• Keyword Use in the form of first word or words in the Title Tag
• Keyword Use in the Root Domain Name
• Keyword Use in H1 Headline tag
• Keyword Use in Internal Link Anchor Text on page
• Same in External Link Anchor Text on page
• Keyword Use in the first 50 or 100 words in HTML on the page
• Keyword Use in the subdomian name
• Keyword Use in the page name URL
• Same in page folder URL
• Same in other Headline Tags (h2 – h6)
• Same in Image Alt Text
• Keyword Use / number of repetitions in HTML Text on page
• Keyword Use in Image names (jpg)
• Keyword Density formula (number of keywords/Total number of Terms)
• Keyword Use in List items on the page
• Keyword Use in the page’s Query Parameters
• Keyword Use in I or em Tags
•  Keyword Use in Meta description Tag
• Keyword use in the page’s File Extension
• Keyword Use in Comment tags in the HTML
• Keyword Use in the Meta Keywords Tag.

What experts are saying about Page Rank?

In a recent interview when Google’s Matt Cutts was asked about commenting on PageRank Sculpting, his response was clear and concise as he observed:  I wouldn’t recommend it, because it isn’t the most effective way to utilize your PageRank. In general, I would let PageRank flow freely within your site. The notion of “PageRank sculpting” has always been a second- or third-order recommendation for us. I would recommend the first-order things to pay attention to are 1) making great content that will attract links in the first place, and 2) choosing a site architecture that makes your site usable/crawlable for humans and search engines alike.