Everybody asks: “What are the ranking factors of Google?” The honest answer is that Google does not publish a full list, and its systems use many signals which change over time. Be careful with articles which claim “the 200 factors” as an exact list. Here we separate what Google has said openly from what is guessed.
Things Google has talked about openly
Area
What it means
Relevance and meaning
The page must match the search words and the intent. See Search Intent
Location, language and settings of the user can change the results
Freshness
For some searches, like news, newer content is better
Spam policies
Pages which break the spam policies are demoted
Things you can work on (in short)
On the page: title, headings, content, images, internal links, structured data.
On the site: speed, mobile support, HTTPS, clean structure, sitemap, no duplicate pages.
Outside: good backlinks, brand mentions, reviews.
User experience: easy navigation, no heavy popups, clear answers.
Common myths
Myth
Reality
The meta keywords tag helps ranking
It is not used by Google
Keyword density must be 2 to 3 percent
There is no ideal percentage
More pages always means more ranking
Quality matters more than quantity
Social media likes and shares directly improve ranking
Google says they are not a direct ranking factor
Meta description is a ranking factor
It is not, but it can change the clicks
You must update the content every week
Update when it is really needed
What about user behavior?
People discuss clicks and time on page as ranking signals. Google has said it does not use things like bounce rate from Analytics for ranking. But a page which does not satisfy people is not a good page anyway, so work on it.
Rankings change
Google updates its systems many times a year. Some are big updates which are announced as core updates. If your traffic changes after one, do not panic and do not change everything. Check the official guidance, compare your pages with the pages which are now better, and improve the real quality.
Note:
You do not need to know all factors. Build a useful and fast website, make it easy to crawl, and earn trust. These things stay important after every update. Next: Google Search Console.
