Google is still the most used and most popular search engine around, so having
your site rank on the first page of Google's search results is the holy grail
internet search results. But Google has always been tight lipped about what
it takes to rank well; and they do this with good reason, they don't want
their search engine to be taken over by an endless number of 'spam sites',
sites with lots of ads and no useful content. This secrecy has left webmasters
and site owners to guess and speculate about how best to optimize their sites
for Google. That was until now until now. Google has recently filed patent
application 20050071741, which describes the inner workings of the search
ranking system in more details than they've ever let out before. Here are
some of the key points to be taken from this document:
a) Quality, quantity, and anchor text of links are what matter most. The more
links pointing to your site, and the higher the PageRank of the pages they
come from, the better. The text on the anchor links (the text shown) is very
important. If you want to rank well for a particular search query, make sure
that the keywords in that query are found in the anchor text of many of the
links pointing to your site.
b) Diversity of anchor text is important. If all of the links pointing to
your site use the same anchor text, Google will consider this 'anchor spam'
and rank the site lower. Vary the anchor text around your top five or ten
keywords.
c) The contraversial Google "sandbox" is real after all. A brand new site
is simply not allowed to rank well for very competitive keywords for a period
of time after it first goes online. The popularity of a key word will determin
the amount of time a web site spends in the 'sand box'
d) Acquire new links gradually over time. If a new site suddenly gains many
incoming links all at once, Google sees this as artificial and does not attribute
as much value to these links as it would had they been added more slowly.
e) Google cares about the subject matter of the sites linking to your site.
A link to your site will count for more if it is from a site about the same
topic as yours. This means that it's important to exchange links with other
relevant sites, rather than with just any old site that's willing to put up
a link.
f) Link exchanges are best made gradually over time, with web sites that are
related in topic to your own, and using diverse anchor text in the links to
your site.
g) Google tracks the click through rate (CTR) of each link in its search results,
so it's important to make the text that appears in the results for your site
as attractive as possible. Google also pays attention to how long a visitor
stays on your site before returning to their search results, so give your
site 'sticky' content to keep readers there for a while.
h) Adding fresh content to your pages will often boost their search rankings.
What this amounts to is: build your links organically by exchanging links
gradually, consider each site carefully to only exchange links with relevant,
high quality sites, vary the anchor text of incoming links, and add small
amounts of new quality content to your site on a regular basis.
