To understand how do search engines determine websites rankings, we need to understand how search engine works, and use SEO and web optimization accordingly.
How do search engines work
First, we need to understand the four steps of a search engine:
- Crawling websites
- Analyzing contents
- Creating indexes
- Assigning rankings
In addition to the first three steps (you can read more about it here: Technical SEO: Understanding Crawling, Analyzing, and Indexing), now we have “assigning rankings”.
Simply put, Google’s crawler, also known as a web spider, primarily fetches website data for Google’s system to index. Then, based on various factors in addition to keywords (yes, keywords are important but not as important in a bigger spectrum now), it assigns rankings to websites.
SEO is about optimizing these three steps
For example, having a “fast loading speed” and “high performance” website makes it easier for crawlers to fetch more complete data.
A “clear website structure” facilitates the indexing robots in capturing accurate data of your contents.
“Website content optimization” is to cater to Google’s ranking algorithms: the notorious “Panda, Penguin, Hummingbird, and RankBrain AI.”
The Panda algorithm is responsible for auditing “website content”, Penguin for “link quality“, Hummingbird for “fast search“, and the latest RankBrain AI is an AI algorithm that “simulates the human brain“.
These algorithms were introduced sequentially, and currently, only the RankBrain AI algorithm remains, while the others have been depreciated, they’re not gone but integrated into Google’s core algorithm.
From my limited understanding, the current new algorithms utilize various factors to determine your website, such as:
- Practical content system
- Link analysis system
- PageRank
- Original content system
- User experience algorithm
- Google disaster information system
- Simplication system
- Exact match domain system
- Timeliness system
- Local news system
- MUM (Multitask Unified Model)
- Neural matching
- Ranking demotion system including removal considerations
- Paragraphs ranking system
- Products review system
- Reliable information system
- Website diversity system
- Spam content detection system
As search engine technology continuously upgrades, we need to know the factors determining the rankings and execute SEO and web optimization in compliance (best practices) to avoid being penalized by Google, resulting in a loss of ranking, or even worse: the removal from Google index.
What are the factors affecting website ranking?
According to Google’s documentation, various algorithm summaries, and my humble observation, ranking factors are generally divided into three major parts:
- Website structure
- External links
- Website contents
Based on my experience, I’d say that website structure accounts for 30%, website contents for 60%, and external links for 10% of the overall evaluation of your website.
Website Structure
A good website structure (such as semantics HTML and code sanitization) and high performance (Core Web Vitals and PageSpeed Insights) can lead to better “treatment” from Google, as you are a Search Engine Friendly website (read more about what is a SEF website here: 3 Scenarios and Key Considerations in Creating a Search Engine-Friendly Website).
Quality External Links
Quality external links have always been a traditional SEO method, namely link building and backlinks, but never attempts to buy external links or use low-quality links, as these methods no longer work due to the growth of algorithm and histories of malpractices (which to be fair, many weren’t malpractices back in the days).
Website Contents
The most important factor is “website contents,” which has always been the most reliable and safest optimization method. I use the word safest because as long as your contents are good, and is constantly being updated, then it will be indexed by Google.
News Websites
An example will be the news websites, almost every notable news websites have these issues: they have thousands of pages and they don’t usually have the best structures or categorization, some even lacks proper organization due to the nature of news articles (outdated relatively fast and became archived), but the news are still frequently updated and shown on search.
Solutions-oriented Websites
Some websites may have poor structures and low scores when tested with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool, but they can still rank well. Such as websites that delivers solutions to users (examples: medical devices, restaurants, and educational websites). Usually, after examining the reasons, it is almost always because they have quality website content supporting their rankings, they may have a fancy website that from a technical POV are not SEO-friendly, but their information or solutions are meaningful to us.
We don’t necessarily need frequent additions or updates on our Websites, the informative, authentic, and solutions-oriented contents that are “quality contents” also help with rankings, which goes back to human behaviors: “can your website address users’ needs?” If not, then they’re most likely not returning ever again. Meaning that as long as a website creates quality content, it usually can have good rankings.
Website Structures and Contents
So, does this mean that “website structure” is not important?
No, a good website structure makes crawling website contents more efficiently and can significantly reduce the time it takes for Google to index and for your keywords to rank (you can read more about it here: Building a Website with SEO Ranking Capabilities).
Mobile devices changed the way of search and SEO
Another important consideration, which echoes the three major factors above, are mobile devices. Mobile experience has been a more important factor in recent years for Google rankings (Google announced desktop experience is also considered last year).
In the early years of search era, search engines were mostly used on PCs (desktop computers), but with the birth of mobile devices, from phones to tablets and now to wearable smart devices, we should always go “mobile first”.
The adaption of “voice search” has been gaining more significant influence on search results, also known as part of “text-to-speech” we are using now, and more importantly the “accessibility” factor of your website.
Yes, voice search, text-to-speech, and accessibility are not the same, but they fall under the same umbrella: “accessibility”.
Accessibility and Speech
Accessibility focus on helping people who cannot see or hear well know about the website’s contents via texts that algorithm understands. Which allows devices/browsers/search engines to read your website contents and incorporate “Text-to-speech” as input and output depending on the use case. We can discuss this in another article.
A lot of search actions on mobile devices are conducted in a “spoken” manner, such as “Where can I buy fresh produce?” or “Hey Siri, Where is the nearest McDonald’s?”, which uses “Speech-to-text” method.
Due to the conversational nature, SEO strategies must be more “humanized” as well, with keyword strategies, content production, and user interface and user experience (UI/UX) all aligning more closely with human behavior, including but not limited to: simpler layouts, more readable content, easier navigation, and the inclusion of simple charts instead of tables.
Optimize for mobile devices
This being said, since mobile devices are such an important factor now, our websites must also be compatible with Google’s mobile experience. If they don’t, it can greatly impact the ranking.
RWD (Responsive Web Design) and AWD (Adaptive Web Design) are web design methods that converts your website automatically to be usable on different sizes of mobile devices. (Read more here: What are the differences between RWD and AWD)
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), the use of CDN (Content Delivery Network) to cache images, and serving next-gen images to reduce sizes and minimize render blocking are web practice methods that reduces loading speed on mobile devices.
Conclusion
Understanding how search engines work is necessary for SEO and web optimization, which will help with your page rankings.
From website structures, contents qualities, external links, to the adaption of mobile devices and new search methods are just a few ways to get your website ready for a good start and longer standing.
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