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Search Engine Ranking Factors V3
================================

Published August 2009
---------------------

Overview

Ranking Factors

Link Building Tactics

Additional SEO Data

Contributors

Top 5 Ranking Factors
---------------------

1. 

Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links

73% very high importance73%

2. 

External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links)

71% very high importance71%

3. 

Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)

67% very high importance67%

4. 

Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag

66% very high importance66%

5. 

Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted
Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.)

66% very high importance66%

See all ranking factors

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Top 5 Negative Ranking Factors
------------------------------

1. 

Cloaking with Malicious/Manipulative Intent

68% very high importance68%

2. 

Link Acquisition from Known Link Brokers/Sellers

56% high importance56%

3. 

Links from the Page to Web Spam Sites/Pages

51% moderate importance51%

4. 

Cloaking by User Agent

51% moderate importance51%

5. 

Frequent Server Downtime & Site Inaccessibility

51% moderate importance51%

See all negative ranking factors

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Top 5 Most Contentious Factors
------------------------------

1. Cloaking by Cookie Detection 16.3% strong contention

2. Cloaking by JavaScript/Rich Media Support Detection 15.4%
  moderate contention

3. Hiding Text with same/similar colored text/background 15.3%
  moderate contention

4. Cloaking by IP Address 15.3% moderate contention

5. Cloaking by User Agent 15.2% moderate contention

Note: Consensus and contention percentages are calculated based on the
standard deviations of contributor answers.

Participants were asked to apply the ranking factors to Google’s
search engine, and although we’ve found that it’s largely applicable
to other major US engines (Bing, Yahoo! & Ask), some variance almost
certainly exists.

Overall Ranking Algorithm
-------------------------

Algorithm Elements

24% Trust/Authority of the Host Domain

22% Link Popularity of the Specific Page

20% Anchor Text of External Links

15% On-Page Keyword Usage

7% Traffic and Click-Through Data

6% Social Graph Metrics

5% Registration and Hosting Data

See more detailed SEO opinions

---------------------------------------------------------------------

About The Survey
----------------

Every two years, SEOmoz surveys top SEO experts in the field worldwide
on their opinions of the algorithmic elements that comprise search
engine rankings. This year features contributors from the US, UK,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, the Ukraine, the Dominican
Republic and many more.

Each participant was asked to rate more than 100 search ranking
factors along with specific questions about hot issues in the SEO
field. This document, representing the collective wisdom of expert
practitioners, is, in opinion, one of the most useful resources for
SEO practitioners of all varieties, helping to provide transparency
into what matters (and doesn’t) for best practices in search engine
optimization.

Enjoy! And feel free to provide feedback via this blog post.

Rand Fishkin,
SEOmoz Co-Founder & CEO

Special thanks to: Sam Niccolls & Timmy Christensen of SEOmoz without
whom this document wouldn’t exist and to David Mihm, whose companion
spin-off, Local Search Ranking Factors, features excellent data in a
similar format on Google’s Local/Maps rankings. And also, thanks to
Wildfire Marketing for initial design work.

Complete Rankings Data
----------------------

The following ranking factors were rated by our panel of 72 SEO
experts. Their feedback is aggregated and averaged into the percentage
scores below. For each, we’ve calculated the degree to which the
experts felt this factor was important for achieving high rankings as
well as the degree of variance in opinion, estimated using the
standard deviation of the contributors’ answers. Thus, factors that
are high in importance and low in contention are those where experts
agree the most that the factor is critical to rankings.

On-Page (Keyword-Specific) Ranking Factors

1. 

Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag

66% very high importance66%8% moderate consensus

2. 

Keyword Use as the First Word(s) of the Title Tag

63% high importance63%11.3% light consensus

3. 

Keyword Use in the Root Domain Name (e.g. keyword.com)

60% high importance60%11.2% light consensus

4. 

Keyword Use Anywhere in the H1 Headline Tag

49% moderate importance49%10.2% light consensus

5. 

Keyword Use in Internal Link Anchor Text on the Page

47% moderate importance47%13% moderate contention

6. 

Keyword Use in External Link Anchor Text on the Page

46% moderate importance46%13.6% moderate contention

7. 

Keyword Use as the First Word(s) in the H1 Tag

45% moderate importance45%11.7% light consensus

8. 

Keyword Use in the First 50-100 Words in HTML on the Page

45% moderate importance45%9.9% light consensus

9. 

Keyword Use in the Subdomain Name (e.g. keyword.seomoz.org)

42% low importance42%9% light consensus

10. 

Keyword Use in the Page Name URL (e.g.
seomoz.org/folder/keyword.html)

38% low importance38%9.1% light consensus

11. 

Keyword Use in the Page Folder URL (e.g.
seomoz.org/keyword/page.html)

37% low importance37%8.6% light consensus

12. 

Keyword Use in other Headline Tags (<h2> – <h6>)

35% low importance35%8% light consensus

13. 

Keyword Use in Image Alt Text

33% minimal importance33%8.7% light consensus

14. 

Keyword Use / Number of Repetitions in the HTML Text on the Page

33% minimal importance33%10.3% light consensus

15. 

Keyword Use in Image Names Included on the Page (e.g. keyword.jpg)

33% minimal importance33%8.6% light consensus

16. 

Keyword Use in <b> or <strong> Tags

26% minimal importance26%7.6% moderate consensus

17. 

Keyword Density Formula (# of Keyword Uses ÷ Total # of Terms on
the Page)

25% minimal importance25%9.8% light consensus

18. 

Keyword Use in List Items <li> on the Page

23% very minimal importance23%9.5% light consensus

19. 

Keyword Use in the Page’s Query Parameters (e.g.
seomoz.org/page.html?keyword)

22% very minimal importance22%7.6% moderate consensus

20. 

Keyword Use in <i> or <em> Tags

21% very minimal importance21%8.4% light consensus

21. 

Keyword Use in the Meta Description Tag

19% very minimal importance19%9.9% light consensus

22. 

Keyword Use in the Page’s File Extension (e.g.
seomoz.org/page.keyword)

12% very minimal importance12%8.3% light consensus

23. 

Keyword Use in Comment Tags in the HTML

6% very minimal importance6%5.7% moderate consensus

24. 

Keyword Use in the Meta Keywords Tag

5% very minimal importance5%5.5% moderate consensus

Comments on On-Page (Keyword-Specific) Ranking Factors:

 

Andy Beal – Keyword use in external link anchor text is one of the
top SEO factors overall. I’ve seen sites rank for competitive
keywords—without even mentioning the keyword on-page—simply
because of external link text.

 

Andy Beard – Keyword Use in the Meta Keywords Tag – ignore them
unless using a blogging platform which can use the same keywords
as tags. Google ignores them.

 

Christine Churchill – Taking the time to create a good title tag
has the biggest payoff of any on-page criteria. Just do it!

 

Duncan Morris – It’s worth pointing out that even though having
keywords in the meta description doesn’t impact rankings they can
play a significant role in the sites click through rate from the
SERPs.

 

Peter Wailes – Domain name keyword usage gains most of its
strength through what anchor text people are then likely to link
to you with, not so much from inherent value, which is lower in my
opinion.

On-Page (Non-Keyword) Ranking Factors

1. 

Existence of Substantive, Unique Content on the Page

65% very high importance65%9.2% moderate consensus

2. 

Recency (freshness) of Page Creation

50% moderate importance50%10.5% moderate consensus

3. 

Use of Links on the Page that Point to Other URLs on this Domain

41% low importance41%12.6% moderate contention

4. 

Historical Content Changes (how often the page content has been
updated)

39% low importance39%10.9% moderate consensus

5. 

Use of External-Pointing Links on the Page

37% low importance37%13.3% moderate contention

6. 

Query Parameters in the URL vs. Static URL Format

33% minimal importance33%11.8% moderate consensus

7. 

Ratio of Code to Text in HTML

25% minimal importance25%11% moderate consensus

8. 

Existence of a Meta Description Tag

22% very minimal importance22%11% moderate consensus

9. 

HTML Validation to W3C Standards

16% very minimal importance16%9.3% moderate consensus

10. 

Use of Flash Elements (or other plug-in content)

13% very minimal importance13%10.1% moderate consensus

11. 

Use of Advertising on the Page

11% very minimal importance11%8.6% moderate consensus

12. 

Use of Google AdSense (specifically) on the Page

8% very minimal importance8%7.3% moderate consensus

Comments on On-Page (Non-Keyword) Ranking Factors:

Russell Jones – If Google only ranked the “tried and true”, their
 results would be old and outdated. Recency is a valuable asset
 when links are hard to come by.

Tom Critchlow – Factors like recency (freshness) and content
 changes are difficult factors to pin down. A fresh page is a real
 asset if trying to rank for fresh queries and when QDF hits in but
 other times having an established page can be more of a benefit so
 sometimes you need one and sometimes you need the other.

Peter Meyers – Anecdotally, it feels like freshness is more
 important than ever. I’m amazed how often a blog post ranks within
 the first day, holding a top-10 position before finally settling a
 few spots (or even pages) lower.

Carlos Del Rio – HTML Validation is not necessary, but running
 validation is an easy way to catch broken code that can trap
 spiders. If you are not linking out at all you are sending a
 signal that you are not part of the Internet as a whole. Creating
 topical association is very important to maintaining a strong
 position.

Ian Lurie – Ratio of code to text and HTML Validation don’t have
 direct impacts, but by focusing on these factors you create
 semantically correct markup and fast-loading, content-rich pages,
 which has a huge impact. The description tag and static/non-static
 URLs won’t impact rankings. But they do impact click-through on
 your listing once you see it. So I’m not suggesting you ignore
 your description tag or use messy URLs. But when you change them,
 expect more clicks for the rankings you have, not better rankings.

Page-Specific Link Popularity Ranking Factors

1. 

Keyword-Focused Anchor Text from External Links

73% very high importance73%6.4% moderate consensus

2. 

External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links)

71% very high importance71%9.2% moderate consensus

3. 

Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)

67% very high importance67%8.5% moderate consensus

4. 

Page-Specific TrustRank (whether the individual page has earned
links from trusted sources)

65% very high importance65%8.7% moderate consensus

5. 

Iterative Algorithm-Based, Global Link Popularity (PageRank)

63% high importance63%8.8% moderate consensus

6. 

Topic-Specificity/Focus of External Link Sources (whether external
links to this page come from topically relevant pages/sites)

58% high importance58%10.6% moderate consensus

7. 

Keyword-Focused Anchor Text from Internal Links

55% high importance55%9.9% moderate consensus

8. 

Location in Information Architecture of the Site (where the page
sits in relation to the site’s structural hierarchy)

51% moderate importance51%10.7% moderate consensus

9. 

Internal Link Popularity (counting only links from other pages on
the root domain)

51% moderate importance51%9.1% moderate consensus

10. 

Quantity & Quality of Nofollowed Links to the Page

25% minimal importance25%10.8% moderate consensus

11. 

Percent of Followed vs. Nofollowed Links that Point to the Page

17% very minimal importance17%11.4% moderate consensus

Comments on Page-Specific Link Popularity Ranking Factors:

 

Jon Myers – SEO ranking for me is won in the external factors
today. It is the old 80%/20% rule and time needs to be invested in
the getting your linkage right as this is where you will win. Make
sure you are focusing the keyword anchor text and directing to the
relevant pages. The focus has to be towards a quality and quantity
mix and also don’t get all your links from one type of source,
make sure you have a blend as this I believe counts well for you
as well.

Use PR rank to determine high ranking links but make sure they are
relevant is always a good starting point to refine the links and
clean out the bad ones and refocus the anchor text on the good
ones as I tend to find that more often than not about 85% of
external links will have brand keywords as anchors, so you could
be missing some great opportunities. Never forget though ones the
bots are there make sure the internal linkage is good as it counts
for a lot!

 

Russell Jones – The Link is King. All Hail the Link.

 

Hamlet Batista – Sub-optimized pages with many incoming links
outrank easily their well optimized but poorly linked
counterparts.

 

Todd Malicoat – Links are to SEO's what Snowflakes are to Eskimos.
Off page factors were the most significant change in search
relevancy that lead Google to become the 800 lbs. gorilla that
they are. Focus on this area, and understanding the difference
between different links and their relationship to search result
sets, and you will understand the crux of good SEO. Understand how
to place a value on link equity of a site, and you have a very
powerful skill in evaluating competition in a search result.

 

Jane Copland – I certainly don’t put much merit in the idea that
the number of followed vs. nofollowed links pointing at a page
plays a part in Google’s traditional web search results anymore.
Think of all the really high-quality social links from sites like
Twitter that carry nofollow tags: it would be completely
ridiculous to regard a high number of nofollowed links as a
detrimental trust metric.

Site-Wide Link-Based Ranking Factors

1. 

Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted
Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.)

66% very high importance66%9.5% light consensus

2. 

Global Link Popularity of the Domain Based on an Iterative Link
Algorithm (e.g. PageRank on the domain graph, Domain mozRank,
etc.)

64% high importance64%11% light consensus

3. 

Link Diversity of the Domain (based on number/variety of unique
root domains linking to pages on this domain)

64% high importance64%9.5% light consensus

4. 

Links from Hubs/Authorities in a Given Topic-Specific Neighborhood
(as per the “Hilltop” algorithm)

64% high importance64%10.9% light consensus

5. 

Temporal Growth/Shrinkage of Links to the Domain (the
quantity/quality of links earned over time and the temporal
distribution)

52% moderate importance52%9.5% light consensus

6. 

Links from Domains with Restricted Access TLD Extensions (e.g.
.edu, .gov, .mil, .ac.uk, etc.)

47% moderate importance47%13.8% moderate contention

7. 

Percent of Followed vs. Nofollowed Links that Point to the Domain

21% very minimal importance21%11% light consensus

Comments on Site-Wide Link-Based Ranking Factors:

 

Carlos Del Rio – There’s likely to be a tipping point with
Nofollowed links vs. Followed links to the domain where it’s not a
factor unless the tipping point is reached where there are too
many Nofollowed links. Then it has a Negative impact.

 

Will Critchlow – Temporal growth of links above and beyond the
value of the links themselves tends to only have a positive impact
on QDF-type queries in my experience.

 

Aidan Beanland – Google have stated in the past that .edu, .mil
and .ac TLD extensions do not inherently pass any more value than
others, but that alternative factors may make this seem to be the
case.

 

Ann Smarty – Domain strength is a highly important factor (still).
We keep seeing pages with 0 strength of their own hosted on
reputable domains ranked very high for very competitive words.

 

Lisa D Myers – I do think the distance between trusted domains and
you could have an impact, the bots are becoming more intelligent
with their reading and will take associations of domains with them
as they go to compare to the next site it links to. Using LSI
(Latent Symantic Indexing) was just the start for the search
engines, I belive the algorithm is now so much more sophisticated
and has the power to read not only latent symantic between content
on a page but between sites. My mind boggles when I think about
the process, it’s a bit like when you were little and tried to
imagine the end of the universe! Again it comes down to content,
if you generate highly valuable and relevant content the brilliant
links will come to you. I know, I know, it’s such a cliche, but
unfortunately true. If links are the currency of the web, content
is the bank!

Site-Wide (non-link based) Ranking Factors

1. 

Site Architecture of the Domain (whether intelligent, useful
hierarchies are employed)

52% moderate importance52%13% moderate contention

2. 

Use of External Links to Reputable, Trustworthy Sites/Pages

37% low importance37%10.8% moderate consensus

3. 

Length of Domain Registration

37% low importance37%14.3% moderate contention

4. 

Domain Registration History (how long it’s been registered to the
same party, number of times renewed, etc.)

36% low importance36%12.3% moderate contention

5. 

Server/Hosting Uptime

32% minimal importance32%11.4% moderate consensus

6. 

Hosting Information (what other domains are hosted on the
server/c-block of IP addresses)

31% minimal importance31%10.4% moderate consensus

7. 

Domain Registration Ownership Change (whether the domain has
changed hands according to registration records)

31% minimal importance31%11.3% moderate consensus

8. 

Inclusion of Feeds from the Domain in Google News

31% minimal importance31%14.9% moderate contention

9. 

Use of XML Sitemap(s)

29% minimal importance29%12.3% moderate contention

10. 

Domain Ownership (who registered the domain and their history)

25% minimal importance25%12.1% moderate contention

11. 

Domain Registration with Google Local

24% very minimal importance24%12.7% moderate contention

12. 

Domain “Mentions” (text citations of the domain name/address even
in the absence of direct links)

24% very minimal importance24%9.8% moderate consensus

13. 

Inclusion of Feeds from the Domain in Google Blog Search

24% very minimal importance24%12.8% moderate contention

14. 

Citations/References of the Domain in the Yahoo! Directory (beyond
the value of the link alone)

24% very minimal importance24%12.2% moderate contention

15. 

Citations/References of the Domain in DMOZ.org (beyond the value
of the link alone)

23% very minimal importance23%11.5% moderate consensus

16. 

Citations/References of the Domain in Wikipedia (beyond the value
of the link alone)

22% very minimal importance22%12.4% moderate contention

17. 

Use of Feeds on the Domain

21% very minimal importance21%10.8% moderate consensus

18. 

Citations/References of the Domain in the Librarian’s Internet
Index - Lii.org (beyond the value of the link alone)

21% very minimal importance21%12.4% moderate contention

19. 

Domain Registration with Google Webmaster Tools

18% very minimal importance18%11.8% moderate consensus

20. 

Activation of Google’s “Enhanced Image Search” (aka image labeler)

17% very minimal importance17%10.3% moderate consensus

21. 

Use of Security Certificate on the Domain (for HTTPS transactions)

14% very minimal importance14%8.5% moderate consensus

22. 

Validity of Mailing Address/Phone Numbers/Records from Domain
Registration

13% very minimal importance13%8.3% moderate consensus

23. 

Citations/References of the Domain in Google Knol Articles (beyond
the value of the link alone)

13% very minimal importance13%9.2% moderate consensus

24. 

Use of a Google Search Appliance on the Domain

6% very minimal importance6%7.4% moderate consensus

25. 

Use of Google AdSense on the Domain

5% very minimal importance5%6.1% moderate consensus

26. 

Use of Google AdWords for Ads Pointing to the Domain

5% very minimal importance5%5.8% moderate consensus

27. 

Alexa Rank of the Domain (independent of actual traffic)

5% very minimal importance5%5.8% moderate consensus

28. 

Compete.com Rank of the Domain (independent of actual traffic)

5% very minimal importance5%6.1% moderate consensus

29. 

Use of Google’s Hosted Web Apps (not App Engine) on the Domain

3% very minimal importance3%4.9% strong consensus

Comments on Site-Wide (non-link based) Ranking Factors:

 

Adam Audette – Many of these factors aren”t directly related to
how Google will score a domain for ranking, BUT these all have a
huge factor on the SEO of the site. For that reason it was
slightly difficult to pull them out one by one. I believe DMOZ is
still very juicy. Hint: Google still uses the directory. Double
hint: search for “clothing” sometime and see what 2 of the top 10
results are. That’s significant, especially because there’s no
ability to get a link on the ranking category page at DMOZ (which
feeds Google’s). Citations/mentions/quality directories are
certainly tracked and factored in, along with Google’s domain
detective work. XML sitemaps can help with crawl fluidity but
aren’t a scoring factor per se.

 

Marshall Simmonds – Search engines either don’t care to, are
unable, or aren’t good at organic comprehensive crawls of large
sites (those in the millions of pages) due to size and depth of
content. This means it’s critical to the success of enterprise
level sites to implement XML sitemaps whereas smaller sites may
not see the benefit as much.

 

Wil Reynolds – Alexa and compete rankings would be of very little
value given the prevalence of Google analytics and the Google
toolbar. They can get much more accurate data from their own
properties.

 

Richard Baxter – Recent changes to Domain Registration Ownership,
especially if the domain has been allowed to expire, impact the
results extremely negatively.

 

Ian Lurie – Use of Adsense/Google Apps/Google Search or other
search engine-owned tools, though, won’t impact results at all. If
your site is so hurting, SEO-wise, that you have to point an
Adwords ad at it to get crawled, you’ve got bigger problems.

Social Media/Social Graph Based Ranking Factors

1. 

Delicious Data About the Domain or Page

21% very minimal importance21%11.9% light consensus

2. 

StumbleUpon Data About the Domain or Page

19% very minimal importance19%12.3% moderate contention

3. 

Twitter Data About the Domain or Page

17% very minimal importance17%10.7% light consensus

4. 

LinkedIn Data About the Domain or Page

15% very minimal importance15%11% light consensus

5. 

Facebook Data About the Domain or Page

12% very minimal importance12%9.1% moderate consensus

6. 

MySpace Data About the Domain or Page

11% very minimal importance11%8.4% moderate consensus

Comments on Social Media/Social Graph Based Ranking Factors:

 

Marty Weintraub – Twitter data isn’t a factor yet, but it’s
probably coming.

 

Hamlet Batista – Matt Cutts explained in a video that Google
doesn’t care how many twitter followers you have. Their algorithms
only care about the links.

 

Dan Thies – Put me down for “no way, never” on all these.

 

Todd Malicoat – Social bookmarking is a quality indicator. Brand
mentions are a quality indicator. If I was a search engine
engineer, I would likely rank brand mentions based on social media
conversations from third parties that were easiest to derive valid
data from.

 

Ian McAnerin – I’m inclined to believe that in this case
"sometimes a link is just a link", to paraphrase Freud.

Usage Data Ranking Factors

1. 

Historical Click-Through Rate from Search Results to the Exact
Page/URL

42% low importance42%11.4% light consensus

2. 

Historical Click-Through Rate from Search Results to Pages on this
Domain

39% low importance39%11.3% light consensus

3. 

Search Queries for the Domain Name or Associated Brand

36% low importance36%12.3% moderate contention

4. 

Use of Query Refinement Post-Click on a Search Result

32% minimal importance32%11.2% light consensus

5. 

Average “Time on Page” Duration

26% minimal importance26%12% light consensus

6. 

Data from Google’s SearchWiki Voting, Ratings, Comments

19% very minimal importance19%9.1% moderate consensus

7. 

References/Links to the Domain in Gmail Emails

9% very minimal importance9%7.7% moderate consensus

Comments on Usage Data Ranking Factors:

 

Jessica Bowman – While usability are factors likely in the
formula, I haven’t seen much to indicate this is impacting
rankings - especially for larger authoritative websites. Companies
do need to focus on these because they will likely become a bigger
impact in the next year.

 

Andy Beal – While Google may well be experimenting with including
these factors in their algorithm, I’ve seen no evidence to support
wide-spread usage.

 

Adam Audette – CTR on a search result is a large cumulative
factor, and brings in page load time as well, which is something
we're very focused on at present.

 

Carlos Del Rio – Brand and domain additives to search terms have
become especially important since the Vince change.

 

Ian Lurie – None of these factors have a significant impact YET.
But they're coming on. If you think Google’s ignoring all that
toolbar data and Searchwiki info, you're mental.

Negative Ranking Factors

1. 

Cloaking with Malicious/Manipulative Intent

68% very high importance68%10.7% light consensus

2. 

Link Acquisition from Known Link Brokers/Sellers

56% high importance56%13.1% moderate contention

3. 

Links from the Page to Web Spam Sites/Pages

51% moderate importance51%12.1% moderate contention

4. 

Cloaking by User Agent

51% moderate importance51%15.2% moderate contention

5. 

Frequent Server Downtime & Site Inaccessibility

51% moderate importance51%12.3% moderate contention

6. 

Hiding Text with same/similar colored text/background

49% moderate importance49%15.3% moderate contention

7. 

Links from the Domain to Web Spam Sites/Pages

48% moderate importance48%13.1% moderate contention

8. 

Excessive Repetition of the Same Anchor Text in a High
Percentage/Quantity of External Links to the Site/Page

46% moderate importance46%11% light consensus

9. 

Cloaking by IP Address

46% moderate importance46%15.3% moderate contention

10. 

Hiding Text with CSS by Offsetting the Pixel display outside the
visible page area

44% low importance44%14.8% moderate contention

11. 

Excessive Number of Dynamic Parameters in the URL

43% low importance43%13.5% moderate contention

12. 

Excessive Links from Sites Hosted on the Same IP Address C-Block

41% low importance41%10.5% light consensus

13. 

Link Acquisition from Manipulative Bait-and-Switch Campaigns
(301’ing microsites, etc.)

41% low importance41%12.9% moderate contention

14. 

Keyword Stuffing in the On-Page Text

41% low importance41%11.3% light consensus

15. 

Hiding Text with CSS display:none; Styling

40% low importance40%14.2% moderate contention

16. 

Keyword Stuffing in the <title> Tag

39% low importance39%11.2% light consensus

17. 

Keyword Stuffing in the URL

37% low importance37%9.9% light consensus

18. 

Link Acquisition from Manipulative Widget/Badge Campaigns

37% low importance37%12.8% moderate contention

19. 

Cloaking by JavaScript/Rich Media Support Detection

37% low importance37%15.4% moderate contention

20. 

Cloaking by Cookie Detection

36% low importance36%16.3% moderate contention

21. 

Link Acquisition from Low Quality Paid Directories

36% low importance36%12.2% moderate contention

22. 

Excessive Links from Sites Owned by the Same Registrant

36% low importance36%12.4% moderate contention

23. 

Links to the Page from Web Spam Sites/Pages

36% low importance36%13.1% moderate contention

24. 

Links to the Domain from Web Spam Sites/Pages

34% minimal importance34%14% moderate contention

25. 

Link Acquisition from Manipulative Viral Campaigns

33% minimal importance33%12.9% moderate contention

26. 

Cloaking with Positive User Experience Intent

33% minimal importance33%12.8% moderate contention

27. 

Over-Optimization of Internal Link Anchor Text

32% minimal importance32%11.2% light consensus

28. 

Use of “Poison” Keywords in Anchor Text of External Links (e.g.
student credit cards, buy viagra, porn terms, etc.)

32% minimal importance32%11.9% light consensus

29. 

Link Acquisition from Buying Old Domains & Redirecting

32% minimal importance32%13.2% moderate contention

30. 

Excessively Long URL

30% minimal importance30%13% moderate contention

31. 

Use of Keyword-Rich Anchor Text Internal Links in Footers

27% minimal importance27%10.2% moderate consensus

32. 

Keyword Stuffing in the Meta Description Tag

26% minimal importance26%11.2% light consensus

33. 

Link Acquisition from Buying Old Domains and Adding Links

24% very minimal importance24%10.2% light consensus

34. 

Overuse of Nofollow on Internal Links for “PageRank Sculpting”

24% very minimal importance24%10.9% light consensus

35. 

Forum Link Building (Signatures, Link Drops, etc.)

22% very minimal importance22%12.8% moderate contention

36. 

Excessively Long Title Tag

21% very minimal importance21%9.1% light consensus

37. 

Keyword Stuffing in the Meta Keywords Tag

15% very minimal importance15%10.9% light consensus

Comments on Negative Ranking Factors:

 

Andy Beard –

Excessive Repetition of the Same Anchor Text in a High
Percentage/Quantity of External Links to the Site/Page:

It would depend on how they are acquired for long-term benefit

If you create a WP theme with Buy Viagra in the footer, don’t
 expect to be flavor of the month with human reviewers

Hiding Text with CSS display:none; Styling:

Is it part of a navigation system that allows the user to
 eventually display the content?

If you hide a whole bunch of keywords, or keyword stuffed
 links, it could be a significant factor

Over-Optimization of Internal Link Anchor Text:

A perfectly optimized link points to content that is a perfect
landing page for the keyword, and Google isn’t going to give you a
penalty for something they expect you to do, tell the truth with
your links.

Use of Keyword-Rich Anchor Text Internal Links in Footers:

With CSS you could have the header in the footer or the footer
 in the header

does 100+ links in that part of the visible page make sense
 for users?

Link Acquisition from Buying Old Domains & Redirecting:

If redirecting and hosting the old content on the new domain, this
can be achieved successfully.

 

Debra Mastaler – A lot of the comments you hear about
widgets/301’ing microsites/buying old domains etc affecting you
negatively is a result of overblown scare tactics perpetuated by a
handful of people. There are a lot of legitimate uses for these
tactics and when done well and as part of an overall marketing
plan, they are successful.

 

Tom Critchlow – A lot of these factors depend on intent. For
example, cloaking by user agent can be fine so long as the intent
is pure and many large sites get away with it and have done for
years. Also, a fair number of the link factors (such as
manipulative bait and switch campaigns) are more likely to have 0
value than negative value. We’ve seen Google preferring to
de-value spammy techniques/links rather than apply penalties for
them where possible.

 

Carlo Del Rio – I have yet to see a net negative from buying old
domains, but it often doesn’t make any positive ranking either.
Currently manipulative link acquisition is the biggest threat in
causing negative results. Crossing repetitive anchor text and high
velocity acquisition is like playing with matches—eventually you
get burned.

 

Peter Meyers – It seems like the negative impact of link farms is
very niche-specific. In some cases, Google really cracks down
(real estate, for example), but in smaller niches I still see
people running blatant link farms and getting away with it. I’m
not sure the penalty has really made its way into the core
algorithm.

Factors Negatively Affecting the Value of an External Link

1. 

Domain Banned from Google’s Index for Web Spam

70% very high importance70%10.8% moderate consensus

2. 

Domain’s Rankings Penalized in Google for Web Spam

65% very high importance65%10.9% light consensus

3. 

Link is Determined to be “Paid” Rather than Editorially Given

63% high importance63%12.5% moderate contention

4. 

Domain Contains Links to a Significant Amount of Web Spam

52% moderate importance52%11.3% light consensus

5. 

Domain Has Not Earned Trusted Links

41% low importance41%11.8% light consensus

Comments on Factors Negatively Affecting the Value of an External
Link:

 

Adam Audette – All killers. The last one is a grey area...but a
major factor. If a link is determined to be paid, it will normally
be filtered out from the site's link graph. But there are
occasions when a serious penalty will occur from too many paid
links.

 

Chris Bennet – I don’t know what measures Google has taken to
algorithmically spot low quality paid/rented links but it would be
very easy to build a tool that could spot 80-90% of the crap
without breaking a sweat.

 

Hamlet Batista – Links from banned sites are pretty much
worthless.

 

Todd Malicoat – Most links won’t hurt you, but if you put
significant effort into obtaining a link that won’t help you,
you’ve negatively impacted your bottom line. Make sure you are
hunting for links that matter.

 

Ian McAnerin – Links are not a rankings factor – trust and topic
are. Links just represent this. If you can show that the link has
little/no trust or is unfocused, then it will not be worth much.
If you can show it has neither trust nor accurately indicates the
topic, then there is no reason to count it.

Geo-Targeting Factors:

1. 

Country Code TLD of the Root Domain (e.g. .co.uk, .de, .fr,
.com.au, etc.)

69% very high importance69%7.9% moderate consensus

2. 

Language of the Content Used on the Site

63% high importance63%9.3% light consensus

3. 

Links from Other Domains Targeted to the Country/Region

60% high importance60%10.3% light consensus

4. 

Geographic Location of the Host IP Address of the Domain

57% high importance57%12%.0 moderate contention

5. 

Manual Review/Targeting by Google Engineers and/or Quality Raters

53% moderate importance53%14.6% strong contention

6. 

Geo-Targeting Preference Set Inside Google Webmaster Tools

52% moderate importance52%11.4% light consensus

7. 

Registration of the Site with Google Local in the Country/Region

45% moderate importance45%10.3% light consensus

8. 

Address in On-Page Text Content

41% low importance41%11.8% light consensus

9. 

Address Associated with the Registration of the Domain

35% low importance35%12.3% moderate contention

10. 

Geographic Location of Visitors to the Site (the country/region
from which many/most visitors arrive)

30% minimal importance30%10.2% light consensus

11. 

Geo-Tagging of Pages via Meta Data (e.g. Dublin Core Meta Data
Initiative)

24% very minimal importance24%10.8% light consensus

Comments on Geo-Targeting Factors

 

Joost de Valk – Ranking in different countries has different
requirements. For some countries, f.i., Google cannot reliably
determine server location based on IP, and some languages are so
alike to Google’s algorithm that weird stuff sometimes happens
(Dutch pages ranking in German results, f.i.)

 

Russell Jones – Any opportunity you have to tell Google explicitly
what region for which your site is designed — do it. Make their
job as easy as possible.

 

Wil Reynolds – The address associated with the registration of a
domain wouldn’t make sense to have too large of an impact as this
would severely hurt sites that are registered in one country yet
have content for multiple countries on their site

 

Aidan Beanland – In my experience Google still relies mainly on
the ccTLD, IP location of host and Webmaster Tools regional
target. Secondary cues are given less importance than in other
search engines.

Language of the site can act as an automatic geo-filter, as only
queries in that language would match content from that country.
However, this can (and does) cause confusion when the same
language is spoken in multiple countries, or the same words are
used across multiple languages.

 

Kristjan Mar Haukson – Address Associated with the registration of
the domain we have worked with large companies with their address
given in one country but targeting another and this has not played
any role that we have seen.

Table of Contents

On-Page (keyword-specific) Ranking Factors

On-Page (non-keyword) Ranking Factors

Page-Specific Link Popularity Ranking Factors

Site-Wide Link-Based Ranking Factors

Site-wide (non-link based) Ranking Factors

Social Media/Social Graph Based Ranking Factors

Usage Data Ranking Factors

Negative Ranking Factors

Factors Negatively Affecting the Value of External Links

Geo-Targeting Factors

Importance Scale

65% – 100% = very high importance

55% – 64% = high importance

45% – 54% = moderate importance

35% – 44% = low importance

25% – 34% = minimal importance

0% – 24% = very minimal importance

Consensus Scale

0% – 3.9% = strong consensus

4% – 7.9% = moderate consensus

8% – 11.9% = light consensus

12% – 15.9% = moderate contention

16% – 20% = strong contention

 

Note: Consensus and contention percentages are calculated based on
the standard deviations of contributor answers.

Link Building Survey
--------------------

In addition to surveying the experts on ranking factors, we also asked
about the effectiveness of a variety of link building tactics. Since
link acquisition is such an important part of SEO, and links are so
difficult to attain, we felt that discovering the value SEO experts
found in their own campaigns (and those of their clients) would
provide substantive return for this document. Below the tactics, we’ve
included the ranking factors that affect the value derived from an
external link to help you judge the efficacy of a specific pursuit (or
the ROI from a link campaign).

Effectiveness of Link Building Tactics for SEO

1. 

Linkbait + Viral Content Creation

67% very high value67%8.8% light consensus

2. 

Blogging and Engagement with the Blogosphere

66% high value66%8.6% light consensus

3. 

Classic “Create Valuable Content” Strategies w/o Promotional
Marketing

58% high value58%12.4% moderate contention

4. 

Public Relations (beyond just press release publication)

56% high value56%11.7% light consensus

5. 

Direct Link Purchases from Individual Sites/Webmasters

54% moderate value54%14.2% moderate contention

6. 

Widgets and Embeddable Content

54% moderate value54%11.1% light consensus

7. 

Conferences, Events and In-Person Networking

54% moderate value54%11.9% light consensus

8. 

User Generated Content (which then incentivizes links to
profiles/content/etc.)

53% moderate value53%9.9% light consensus

9. 

High Trust/Authority Directories (DMOZ, Yahoo!, Lii, etc.)

52% moderate value52%10.7% light consensus

10. 

Niche Social Media Communities

51% moderate value51%11.3% light consensus

11. 

Local Link Building (via geographic lists, organizations, portals)

51% moderate value51%10.1% light consensus

12. 

Social Voting Portals (Digg, Reddit, Mixx, etc.)

50% moderate value50%10.4% light consensus

13. 

Quizzes + Results Badges

50% moderate value50%11.1% light consensus

14. 

Social Bookmarking Services (StumbleUpon, Delicious, etc.)

49% moderate value49%11.2% light consensus

15. 

Contributing to Charities, Non-profits, Events, etc. to Earn Links

45% moderate value45%11.6% light consensus

16. 

Leveraging Twitter for Link Building

43% low value43%11.8% light consensus

17. 

Generic Directory Links (BOTW, JoeAnt, Business.com, etc.)

42% low value42%9.6% light consensus

18. 

Contacting Webmasters or Sites with (Non-Paid) Direct Link
Requests

41% low value41%14.9% moderate contention

19. 

Offline Advertising Branding and Media

39% low value39%11.5% light consensus

20. 

Press Releases

39% low value39%11% light consensus

21. 

Long Tail Directory Links (niche directories, small generic
directories, etc.)

39% low value39%11.5% light consensus

22. 

Social Networking Services (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn)

37% low value37%8.5% light consensus

23. 

Purchasing Links from Link Brokers

37% low value37%12.9% moderate contention

24. 

Launching & Later, Redirecting Microsites via 301s

36% low value36%11.9% light consensus

25. 

Buying Old Domains & Placing Links on Them

36% low value36%14.5% moderate contention

26. 

Buying Old Domains & 301’ing Them

32% minimal value32%12.8% moderate contention

27. 

Reciprocal Linking (trading links with other sites)

29% minimal value29%8.2% light consensus

28. 

DoFollow Blog Comments

29% minimal value29%9.6% light consensus

29. 

Web Advertising (Banners, PPC, etc.)

25% minimal value25%10.5% light consensus

30. 

Forum Link Building (Signatures, Link Drops, etc.)

23% very minimal value23%8.8% light consensus

31. 

Automated Blog, Guestbook and Open Form Comment Spam

10% very minimal value10% 8% light consensus

Comments on Effectiveness of Various Link Building Tactics for SEO:

 

Jessica Bowman – One of the reasons that public relations (beyond
press release publication) isn’t as effective as it could be is
because public relations departments and agencies aren't up to
speed, bought into and committed to doing things differently to
maximize opportunities for search engine rankings.

 

Adam Audette –

Some strategies we like:

Creating really high-quality content and promoting it to niche
 twitter profiles we’ve set up, thereby reaching bloggers in
 the niche.

Putting a paid ad program on Stumble and Reddit to gain
 momentum on a piece of content; then reaching out to the
 voters/savers directly and requesting a guest blog gig or
 feature post.

Contacting site owners, bloggers, etc and requesting a link to
 our valuable resource.

 

Wil Reynolds – I think niche directories and small generic
directories are two different types of links. Niche directories
give you topical authority, based on the link graph its telling
Google its about a topic which inherently should make those links
somewhat more valuable than a small generic directory about all
kinds of topics.

 

Marcus Tandler – With regard to “Buying Old Domains and 301’ing
Them” It’s limited to a number of domains. So one domain = good.
10 domains 301’d = not so good anymore. It’s also rather
important, that the domain has been in the same niche. But most
importantly, there’s gotta be an instance of the keyword on the
target domain, that’s used in the anchortexts pointing to the
domain (So if there’s 100 links with the anchor “seomoz” pointing
to the old domain, you should also have an instance of the keyword
“seomoz” on the domain you redirecting the domain too!).

 

Todd Malicoat – Lots of great techniques for link development.
Understand how to place a value on a link, and evaluate a backlink
profile, and you will understand which acquisition strategy for
links will make the most sense for your individual site rankings
and bottom line.

Factors Affecting the Value of an External Link

1. 

Trust of the Source Domain (based on iterative link calculations
from trusted seed sets, aka TrustRank)

70% very high value70%8% moderate consensus

2. 

Global Authority/Importance of the Source Domain (based on
iterative calculations of the site-wide link graph)

68% very high value68%9% light consensus

3. 

Keyword Anchor Text of the Link (matched against the query term)

67% very high value67%8.4% light consensus

4. 

Quantity of PageRank Passed by the Link (i.e. Passable PageRank
assigned to the page ÷ number of links on the page)

59% high value59%10.4% light consensus

5. 

Position of the Link on the Page in Content (rather than sidebars,
footers, etc.)

53% moderate value53%10.5% light consensus

6. 

Source Page’s Topical Relevance to the Link Target

53% moderate value53%10.3% light consensus

7. 

Position of the Link on the Page in Relation to Other Links
(surrounded by many other links vs. alone inside non-linked
content)

46% moderate value46%10.0% light consensus

8. 

Source Domain’s Topical Relevance to the Link Target

46% moderate value46%10.6% light consensus

9. 

Quality of Other External Links on the Page

42% low value42%11.6% light consensus

Comments on Factors Affecting the Value of an External Link:

 

Jon Myers – Trust and Quality is what links is all about. Make
sure the sites you get links from are high PR and well trusted by
Google and you will get great success. Key after sourcing is to
get the anchor text focused and relevant and landing on the
correct pages.

 

Russell Jones – The success of blog reviews as a link building
technique indicates that in-context links are valuable. However,
it would be incorrect to assume this is due to topical
measurements. If this were the case, article syndication would
still be viable. It is more likely that a link found within unique
content is considered truly editorial.

 

Adam Audette – Contextual links, within content matched to the
target page, is incredibly powerful. Anchor text is less important
than the terms surrounding the link and keyword density of the
page (or said differently, the topic of the page – what the page
is about). Sidebar links and footer links are easy for Google to
spot and often in the form of shingles that get filtered out
anyway. However, they can be powerful advertising opportunities if
done correctly and even a nofollowed link can send big traffic,
which can in turn lead to links.

 

Roger Monti – High trust sites tend to have a stronger ranking
effect than lesser domains. Position of the link is very
important. A dream link is one near the top of the page wrapped in
a headline tag or big fonts originating on a topically relevant
high trust web page.

 

Lisa D Myers – A link within content of a page is far juicier than
a link from a footer or sidebar, the relevancy of the content
around the link, latent semantic indexing, is extensively used to
determine the relevancy and power the link should be given. A link
from a trusted site with highly relevant content to your site will
always have more power.

Table of Contents

Effectiveness of Link Building Tactics for SEO

Factors Affecting the Value of an External Link

Importance Scale

65% – 100% = very high value

55% – 64% = high value

45% – 54% = moderate value

35% – 44% = low value

25% – 34% = minimal value

0% – 24% = very minimal value

Consensus Scale

0% – 3.9% = strong consensus

4% – 7.9% = moderate consensus

8% – 11.9% = light consensus

12% – 15.9% = moderate contention

16% – 20% = strong contention

 

Note: Consensus and contention percentages are calculated based on
the standard deviations of contributor answers.

Additional SEO Data
-------------------

The following individual questions were posed to our panel of experts
and help provide insight into critical (and sometimes contentious)
debates in the SEO field. The pie charts represent the percentages of
respondents who gave that particular answer.

Broad algorithmic elements to Google’s rankings

 

24%

Trust/Authority of the Host Domain

 

22%

Link Popularity of the Specific Page

 

20%

Anchor Text of External Links to the Page

 

15%

On-Page Keyword Usage

 

7%

Visitor/Traffic & Click-Through Data

 

6%

Social Graph Metrics

 

5%

Registration & Hosting Data

Algorithm Elements

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Which of the following statements best describes your
opinion/experience with Google’s “Brand/Vince” update from February of
2009?

 

51%

The algorithmic changes/update affected algorithmic factors that
unintentionally (and non-universally) appeared to preference some
SERPs towards well-known, public brands.

 

36%

Google is now showing a slightly stronger preference towards
websites associated with well-known, public brands.

 

9%

Google is now showing a much stronger preference towards websites
associated with well-known, public brands.

 

4%

No major shift occurred that preferences Google’s results towards
well-known, public brands.

Opinion with Brand/Vince update

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Which of the following best represents your opinion of how Google
handles algorithmic evaluation of content on subdomains (excluding
potential special cases such as Blogspot, Wordpress, etc.)?

 

83%

Content on Subdomains inherits some, but not all, of the
query-independent ranking metrics of the root domain (or other
subdomains) and is judged partially as a separate entity.

 

10%

Content on Subdomains never inherits all of the query-independent
ranking metrics of the root domain (or other subdomains) and is
judged largely as a separate entity.

 

7%

Content on subdomains inherits all or nearly all of the
query-independent ranking metrics of the root domain (or other
subdomains) and is judged much the same as other content on the
shared root domain.

 

Note: Subdomains in this context refer to the 3rd-level domain
name only, e.g. “sub.domain.com” while root domains refer to the
2nd-level domain name,
e.g. “.domain.com” including all subdomains.

Algorithmic evaluation of content on subdomains

---------------------------------------------------------------------

To what extent do you believe Google Web Search employs data gathered
from Google Analytics to influence their search rankings?

 

74%

Google Analytics data is used only in aggregate form to help with
pattern identification and broad user behavior analysis.

 

16%

Google Analytics data is not used in any way.

 

6%

Google Analytics data is employed on a website by website basis
and can positively or negatively affect a site's rankings.

 

4%

Google Analytics data is employed on a website by website basis,
but can only impact search rankings consideration positively (no
web spam or penalty analysis is conducted).

Data gathered from Google Analytics

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Which of the following statements most accurately represents your
belief/experience about how 301 redirects are handled by Google?

 

70%

301’s pass a high percentage (but not 100%) of query dependent and
independent ranking factors from one URL to another only when
certain content & spam analysis algorithms are satisfactorily met.

 

23%

301’s universally pass a high percentage (but not 100%) of the
query dependent and independent ranking factors from one URL to
another.

 

7%

301’s universally pass 100% of the query dependent and independent
ranking factors from one URL to another.

How 301 redirects are handled

---------------------------------------------------------------------

In your opinion/experience, do links from Wikipedia directly
contribute positively to Google’s search engine rankings, despite the
use of nofollow?

 

68%

Yes, but these citations are not treated directly as links, merely
as indications of potential quality/authority/trustworthiness.

 

26%

No. Wikipedia links only appear to pass value because many other
sites/pages scrape and re-publish the links without nofollows.

 

6%

Yes, the links are treated as though the nofollow didn’t exist

Links from Wikipedia contribute to search engine rankings

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Which of the following statements best represents your opinion of how
Google will treat links as part of their ranking algorithm over the
next 5 years?

 

48%

Links will decline in importance, but remain powerful, as newer
signals rise from usage data, social graph data & other sources to
replace them.

 

37%

Links will continue to be a major part of Google’s ranking
algorithm, but dramatic fluctuations will occur in how links are
counted and which links matter.

 

15%

Links will continue to be a major part of Google’s ranking
algorithm, much as they have been over the past 5 years.

 

0%

Links will become largely obsolete, much the way keyword stuffing
fell by the wayside in the late 1990’s.

How Google will treat links as part of their ranking algorithm in the future

Contributors (A special thank you to all who contributed to the
Ranking Factors Survey)
---------------------------------------------------------------

Aaron Wall Author, SEO Book

@aaronwall

Abhilash Patel Owner, RankLab Interactive

@mistabhilash Connect with Abhilash

Adam Audette President & Chief Strategist, AudetteMedia, Inc.

@audette Connect with Adam

Aidan Beanland Regional SEO Manager, Yahoo!7

@gridkid Connect with Aidan

Andrew Girdwood Head of Search, bigmouthmedia

@bigmouthmedia

Andrew Goodman Founder & President, Page Zero Media

@andrewgoodman Connect with Andrew

Andy Beal Reputation Management Consultant, Andy Beal

@andybeal

Andy Beard CEO, Andy Beard

@andybeard Connect with Andy

Ann Smarty Owner, SEO Smarty

@seosmarty Connect with Ann

Barry P. Smyth Managing Director, Search Strategies

@barryssyd Connect with Barry

Barry Schwartz President, RustyBrick/Search Engine Roundtable

@rustybrick Connect with Barry

Carlos del Rio Founder/Chief Consultant, Agillian

@Inflatemouse Connect with Carlos

Chris Bennett President, 97th Floor

@chrisbennett Connect with Chris

Chris Boggs SEO Director, Rosetta

@boggles Connect with Chris

Chris Winfield President, 10e20

@chriswinfield Connect with Chris

Christine Churchill President & CEO, KeyRelevance

@keyrelevance Connect with Christine

Ciarán Norris Director, Innovation, Mindshare

@ciaranj Connect with Ciarán

CK Chung Internet Entrepreneur, WEBOSIS

@kiddisco Connect with CK

Dan Thies Author, SEO Fast Start

@danthies

David Mihm Local SEO Consultant, David Mihm, Inc.

@davidmihm Connect with David

Debra Mastaler President, Alliance-Link

@debramastaler Connect with Debra

Derrick Wheeler Sr SEO Architect, Microsoft

@derrickwheeler Connect with Derrick

Dixon Jones Managing Director, Receptional Internet Marketing

@receptional Connect with Dixon

Dr. Peter J. Meyers President, User Effect

@drpete Connect with Peter

Duncan Morris CEO, Duncan Morris, Distilled Ltd.

@duncanmorris Connect with Duncan

Eric Enge CEO/President, Ramblings About SEO

@stonetemple Connect with Eric

Eric Ward President, EricWard.com

@ericward

Guillaume Bouchard CEO, NVI

@nvi

Hamlet Batista President & CEO, RankSense

@hamletbatista Connect with Hamlet

Ian Lurie President, Portent Interactive

@portentint Connect with Ian

Ian McAnerin CEO, McAnerin International, Inc.

@mcanerin Connect with Ian

Jane Copland Search Marketing Consultant, Ayima Search Marketing

@coplandmj Connect with Jane

Jessica Bowman In-house SEO Consultant, SEO In House

@jessicabowman Connect with Jessica

Jill Whalen CEO, High Rankings

@jillwhalen Connect with Jill

Jim Hedger Host, Producer, SEO, WebmasterRadio Blog

@jimhedger

Jon Myers Head of Search / Associate Director, MediaVest

@JonDMyers Connect with Jon

Joost de Valk Internet Strategist, Yoast

@yoast Connect with Joost

Kalena Jordan Director of Studies, Search Engine College

@kalena Connect with Kalena

Kristjan Mar Hauksson Director Search / Managing Partner, Nordice
Marketing

@optimizeyourweb

Laura Lippay Director of Technical Marketing, Yahoo / Laura Lippay

@lauralippay Connect with Laura

Lindsay Wassell SEO Consulting Manager, SEOmoz

@Lindzie Connect with Lindsay

Lisa D Myers Director & Founder, Verve Search

@lisadmyers Connect with Lisa

Lucas Ng Director of Search & Analytics, Fairfax Digital

@lucasng Connect with Lucas

Marcus Tandler CEO, Media Donis

@mediadonis Connect with Marcus

Marie-Claire Jenkins SEO/Computer Scientist, Science for SEO

@Missmcj

Marshall Simmonds CEO/Co-Founder, Define Search Strategies

@mdsimmonds

Marty Weintraub President, aimClear

@aimclear Connect with Marty

Matt McGee Owner, Small Business Search Marketing

@mattmcgee Connect with Matt

Matthew Brown COO/Co-Founder, Define Search Strategies

@MatthewJBrown

Michael Gray President, Atlas Web Service

@graywolf Connect with Michael

Natasha Robinson Online Marketing Strategist, That Girl From Marketing

Connect with Natasha

Neil Patel Entrepreneur, Quick Sprout

@neilpatel Connect with Neil

Patrick Altoft Director of Search, Blogstorm

@patrickaltoft

Pete Wailes MD, Searchlight Digital

@petewailes

Peter Da Vanzo Owner, Gofish

@peterdavanzo

Rand Fishkin CEO, SEOmoz

@randfish Connect with Rand

Rebecca Kelley Director of Social Media, 10e20

@rebeccakelley Connect with Rebecca

Richard Baxter SEO Consultant, SEOgadget

@richardbaxter Connect with Richard

Rishi Lakhani Search Marketing Strategist, Rishi Lakhani Profile

@Rishil Connect with Rishi

Rob Kerry Head of Search, Ayima

@evilgreenmonkey Connect with Rob

Robert (Bob) Rains Vice President, Affiliate Media Inc.

@bobrains Connect with Robert

Roger Montti Owner, Martini Buster

@martinibuster

Russ Jones Chief Technology Officer, Virante, Inc.

@rjonesx

Sarah Benmaza Emarketing Director, Go-Referencement

@artzoom Connect with Sarah

Scott Smith (a.k.a. “caveman”) Owner, The Caveman

@thecaveman Connect with Scott

Thomas Bindl CEO, Refined Labs

@refinedads Connect with Thomas

Todd D Malicoat SEO Consultant, Stuntdubl

@stuntdubl Connect with Todd

Tom Critchlow Head of Search, Distilled

@tomcritchlow

Tony Wright CEO/Founder, Wright IMC/Shaving Occam

@tonynwright Connect with Tony

Vanessa Fox Founder, Nine By Blue

@vanessafox

Wil Reynolds Associate, SEER Interactive

@wilreynolds Connect with Wil

Will Critchlow Co-Founder, Distilled

@willcritchlow Connect with Will

A million thanks to our contributors – if you’d like to show your
support, feel free to post the badge below.

Ranking Factors Badge

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