Google Ranking Factors

SEO keeps evolving every single day. Sometimes, it can be quite hard to keep up with all the latest trends. But if you want your site to earn traffic, you need to be updated with all the latest Google ranking factors in 2021.

Ranking on Google involves optimizing your website with the right keywords and ensure it appears in the right search query. To learn how to rank higher on Google, you need to keep a huge list of things in mind.
SEO is said to be a tricky game where all the rules are not clearly set. Search engines won’t tell us all the truth about how their algorithms operate and for a good reason. If everyone exactly knew what makes you rank on the top, the search engines would go through a hard time determining which websites are really relevant to the user’s query and which ones are just optimized for getting passed off as such. On the other hand, quite a number of the Google ranking factors in 2021 have been discovered through testing and SEO experiments.

Here, in this below guide, we’ll be having a look at the SEO factors that are known to have influence over your site’s ranking and how you can measure its ranking potential.

Authority of Domain

Myths
Google has been denying the impact of domain age on the ranking factor. There is no difference for Google between domains that are a year old vs 2 years old. Having keywords in the domain name isn’t something that makes it rank well. The more authority your site has, the stronger each page on your site will rank on its own and the stronger your internal link juice will be.
Facts
Domain age takes into account many other factors to give your site an overall score of authority. Domain registration with quite a long period of time seems legitimate to Google. Domains that contain keywords (exact match domains) are easy to rank. Every webpage that you have been trying to rank on your website is going to get affected by the domain which is attached to it.

Content

Myths
It is said that while making the content for a website there should be a keyword in the title tag. The tag is very important for the search engines to optimize the page. The description tag is used for the ranking signal long ago and is not a ranking factor anymore. It is important for SEO and can affect the click-through rate (CTR). The H1 tag is called the second title tag as it contains the short phrases which describe the page is all about.
Facts
When coming to the title tag, it is important for SEO and is used as a ranking factor. They are definitely used for the rankings and are not something that is that important for the ranking. Google has avoided using the description tag in the search algorithm in 2009. Moreover, Google has been using large snippets in the SERPs. There is no clear cut information of using the keywords in H tags which results in the ranking boost. Always make sure to use the best H1 heading is the most significant part of your content. Therefore, place your keyword in the H1 tag which is a good idea.

Site Structure and Code

Myths
The use of internal links helps in indexing and crawling the content of the website. It also helps in searching the engines which differentiates the important pages, and their anchor text which acts as a strong signal. It is important to have a user-friendly layout of the website for more visitors. The page which comes under as specific category gets a good amount of ranking.
Facts
The internal links help in crawling from one page to another easily. It carries the weight from page to another and therefore the web pages look prominent in Google’s eyes. Hence, it is critical to ensure that there is no broken link on your site. Always go through the ‘Page Layout’ algorithm and follow it, since the user-friendly layout if in favor of the website. In addition, a hierarchical architecture includes categories that help Google understand the content of pages and the structure of the site.

Performance and Security

Myths
Google uses the HTTPS website better and strives to protect its users. Therefore, use the SSL-certificate for getting a good ranking boost.
Facts
Security has been a very important part of the ranking factor. Therefore using HTTPS is a good idea so as to protect your website.

External Link Anchor Text

Myths
The anchor texts which we choose are used to signalize the relevant page and therefore impact the ranking of the page as per the target keywords.
Facts
One needs to be very careful about the keyword-based anchors as the Google algorithm takes the anchor texts into account. On the other hand, the excessive use of the keyword-based anchors looks unnatural and can do harm to the content. Therefore, use the keyword-based anchor in a very reasonable amount.

Strength of External Links

Myths
More the external links attached to your site more will be the ranking of your website. It is also said that the PR 6 site linking is beneficial to the page which has been linked to your site.
Facts
The authority and PR of any sites which link to your site have a substantial effect on the strength of those links. The PR 6 site linked to your website is a major boost for not only the page it is linked to but also for your entire site. Also, if the number of links pointing to your site increases, then it can have the worst effect on the ranking of your site.

On-Page SEO/Keyword Usage

Myths
If the number of keywords used on your page is more, then it can be considered to be a ranking factor. The LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords help in finding the meaning of the words and help Google to understand the content of a website.
Facts
The amount of keywords on a page does not matter or affect the ranking of a page. Instead, the keywords should be used very less and that too in a proper manner for getting benefits. LSI is no more considered to have any impact on the rankings of the page which means that it is not a part of the Google algorithm today.

Social Search/Proof

Myths
The positive and negative reviews may or may not affect Google rankings.
Facts
It is very important for you to get positive reviews from the customers as this can help you gain users. The reviews do have an important place in the ranking factors. But still, Google is on the take these positive reviews into account for the ranking algorithm.

Traffic

Myths
It has been confirmed that Google used the data from the chrome to track the visitors’ n the website. Therefore, it is believed that the site’s traffic will help you determine the users visiting your site.
Facts
The data from Google Chrome helps in evaluating the quality of the website. But there has not been any confirmation of Google that the direct traffic can play the role in increasing the ranks.

Registration/Hosting

Myths
The hosting does not play a great role in affecting the ranking of your website.
Facts
Google doesn’t like sites that have difficulty staying online because this creates problems for its users who are trying to reach your site. If this keeps on occurring repetitively then the rankings can drop.

All the above-mentioned ranking factors in 2021 can definitely help your website rank on Google is the best possible way.
Well, the bottom line is that there are a lot of factors that affect the ranking of a particular website. But all you need to do is to stay updated with all the ranking factors in 2021 and work according to the updated Google algorithms.