Because of the fact that Aaron Wall's SEO book is now available for sale on ebook-scene we provide three articles in which Aaron Wall gives his comment on the different ranking factors search engines use. Together with 37 other SEO experts Aaron Wall voted on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google's ranking algorithm (the method by which the search engine orders results). Each factor regarding the search engine optimization is listed, briefly described and added with Aaron Wall's comment.



Page Attributes

In this second article the eight following elements comprise how Google interprets specific data about a webpage independent of keywords.

1) Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure

Refers to the number and importance of internal links pointing to the target page.

Aaron Wall: "Internal links can really drive a page, but if the internal anchor text is too well aligned with the anchor text, page title, and headings that might suppress rankings for the target keyword".

2) Quality/Relevance of Links to External Sites/Pages

Do links on the page point to high quality, topically-related pages?

Aaron Wall about this: "Your outbound links help define what community your site belongs in".

3) Age of Document

older pages may be perceived as more authoritative while newer pages may be more temporally relevant.

Aaron Wall says: Older documents may be trusted more, especially if they are well cited and do not have many broken links in them. For blogs and news sites new documents may tend to have high Page Rank values due to internal site structure. New documents may also be given a freshness boost".

4) Amount of Index able Text Content

Refers to the literal quantity of visible HTML text on a page.

Aaron Wall the amount of index able text content: "If too many pages are near the exact size or similar in size to many spam documents it may seem like the document has a higher probability of being spam. Google has also been growing more stringent with what they are willing to let in their index by requiring a minimum Page Rank threshold to allow documents in their primary index. Longer and more authoritative documents are better than breaking articles into many shorter pages".

5) Organization/Hierarchy of Document Flow (i.e. broad > narrow)

The construction of document text flow - i.e. journalistic style generally dictates a detail-oriented introduction, a broad level overview of the issue and increasing specificity and detail as the article continues.

Aaron Wall: "Clear organization not only helps search engines understand how documents relate to each other, but also effectively distributes your link authority".

6) Frequency of Updates to Page

the number and time frame of changes made to the document over time.

Aaron Wall about this element: "Some types of documents are frequently updated while others are rarely updated. Make sure your page matches your site's profile".

7) Accuracy of Spelling & Grammar

The literal correctness of spelling and grammar as related to the language of the document

Aaron Wall: "I actually think having a few misspellings in a page makes it easier to rank because there are so many less legitimate pages using those misspellings. But if misspellings might cost credibility points with end users it might make sense to have a person make a misspelling in a page comment or in one of your inbound links".

8) HTML Validation of Document (to W3C Standards)

Validation of HTML page code as per the W3C consortium, an authoritative body on the standards of web-compatible code.

Aaron Wall the HTML Validation: "If you can get designers to think that your stuff is better because it validates more of them will pay attention to you, subscribe to your feed, and link at your site. Otherwise, I believe validation is somewhat over hyped".

(Next week Aaron Wall's comment on Google's rankings based on Site/Domain Attributes and Negative Crawling/Ranking Attributes)