Google uses more than 200 factors to determine your website’s search engine rankings. What are those factors? Which of them have the biggest effect on rankings? Google doesn’t fully provide that information. As search engine marketers, we have to use experience and research in addition to the information Google provides to answer these questions. Sometimes what Google tells us and what we experience in our own quest to improve SEO don’t match up. For example, three recent correlation studies meant to determine the importance of specific search engine ranking factors suggest that Google +1s and exact match anchor text links play a different role in search engine rankings than Google has publicly stated. Google’s recent update to the PageRank algorithm also suggests that PageRank may be more important than Google has suggested.

Our Digital Marketing Manager recently wrote an article addressing these discrepancies for SmartBrief on Social Media. Check out her post to learn more, and find out how to execute a successful search engine strategy despite the mystery.

“Trusting Your Experience When It Comes to Google’s Search-Ranking Factors.”