1. How Google Ranks Sites…
By Stephen Noton

2. Insight on the Google Algorithm
( ( S * Q ) + M ) * G = RANKING
S =
Q =
M=
G =
Site Calculation
Quality Calculation
Marketing Calculation
Google Calculation

3. S = Site Calculation
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Page Title = 40%
Page URL = 5%
Page Text = 10%
Internal PageRank Distribution = 35%
Text in Internal Linking = 10%

4. Page Title = 40%
• Google checks to see how close the users
search matches the text in the title.
• Location of text and density play a factor into
the scoring of the title.
• Using compound keyword phrases in titles is
great way to increase traffic.

5. Page URL = 5%
• Google uses predictive content understanding
based on text in the URL.
• Use - between words as _ or words connected
prevent the text from being understood.
• Many external links will use just the URL,
which furthers the reason to use dashes.

6. Page Text = 10%
• Google isn’t focused on keyword density or
length of page content to score page text.
• Page text is best leveraged when further
targeting compound keyword phrases.
• Also using common synonyms/related
keywords can help increase relevant traffic

7. Internal PageRank Distribution = 35%
• Google uses the internal links to determine
what content is important within a site.
• Fundamentally linking more to page H vs.
page C can give page H a higher score in
Google.
• Where linked within a page and the page the
link is from also are apart of the scoring.

8. Text in Internal Linking = 10%
• Text in links helps Google’s predictive
understanding and in ranking of content.
• Having varied text in your links gives you
varied results in Google.
• Using generic links like “click here” or “learn
more” can hurt your rankings in Google.

9. Q = Quality Calculation
• Keyword Quality = 40%
• Search Funnel Quality = 10%
• Predictive Site Quality = 50%

10. Keyword Quality = 40%
• Performance based using the pages actual CTR
and the sites predicted CTR.
• Google further judges quality by the use of
Google after a click to your site.

11. Search Funnel Quality = 10%
• Sites that show up in pre & post searches can
have higher weighting.
• It is Google’s goal to give the user the best
experience & information.

12. Predictive Site Quality = 50%
• Based on actual quality data, Google then
projects the potential of a site.
• The better pages perform in Google the better
a site does in Google.

13. M = Marketing Calculation
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External Linking = 70%
Text in External Linking = 15%
User Search Behavior = 10%
Google Plus/Circles = 5%

14. External Linking = 70%
• Link sources, amount of links & life of links all
account into the scoring.
• Link scoring changes is what most people
report as algorithm changes.

15. Text in External Linking = 15%
• Text in links helps Google’s predictive
understanding and in ranking of content.
• Text matching the page goal further validates
the sites objectives.

16. User Search Behavior = 10%
• Google uses the users past visited sites to
adjust rankings/scoring.
• Similar to search funnel but this isn’t limited
to recent searches.

17. Google Plus/Circles = 5%
• Google looks for pages with +1’s from users
within their circles.
• Applies to only Google+ users and only uses
users in their circles

18. G = Google Calculation
• Google Settings = 100%
– Results automatically filtered by users location,
Google URL & interface language.
– Results can be refined by user inputs: type of
search/date of content/source of content.

19. Other Questions?