Hi everyone,
Today, I will be looking at the attributes that Google takes into consideration when analysisng a web page independent of keywords for ranking on its SERPs. Rand has consulted the top organic SEO gurus and collated their views on the page attributes that affect the rankings on Google SERPs.

1) Site’s Internal Link Structure:
This is a crucial factor that is well within the site owner’s control and can impact on the rankings of deep pages if the internal linking is done right.

This is a very useful technique on large sites to specify the important pages and flow the link juice to those specific pages. To aid the site’s money pages in ranking well on the SERPs, external links with good anchor text can be a big help.

Care should be taken not to go overboard though. Again Aaron Wall  differs from the rest when he says that if the internal link text is closely aligned with the anchor text, page title and headings, it could suppress the keyword targeted on that page. There is average agreement on this factor.

2) Quality/Relevance of Outbound Links To External Sites/Pages:
This is another important factor that helps even ordinary sites gain good rankings on Google. If your site has decent content in blue widgets and you reference quality content by way of external links to a site that is an industry leader in blue widgets, you are in Google’s good books. You are linking to a good neighbourhood and you do not dilute the topical focus of your site.

Also, you are linking to a domain that has both trust and authority which is only going to help your site’s ascent to the top of the SERPs. It is an interesting analogy to the societal aspect of human nature as the saying goes – You are judged by the company you keep.

A very powerful feature is contextual linking where links to external sites within the page copy strengthens the value of the outbound link as it is in context and links to a site on the same topic and the linking is completely natural. Average agreement.

3) Age of Document:
This is a very crucial aspect that affects the top Google rankings substantially. If the page is a mature page and sits on an old trusted domain with aged inbound links, then it is a surefire recipe to rank high in the Google SERPs. Even new documents on old trusted domains rank very well. Trust is still very important to Google and it is the old sites that have been around for a long time that enjoy this advantage.

On the other hand, new sites that cover, say technological advances, are in a better position to rank well as their content is fresher and the advances made will be vastly different from what happened a couple of years ago in that field. This outdated content can still be lying dormant on an older site which has not bothered to update the content to suit the present day.

Going by the importance attached to Google’s QDF (Query Deserves Freshness) algorithm, the new sites that are up to date on their content should rank well. Sadly, I have observed in some cases, it is the trusted old domains with the stale content that still occupy the top positions on the SERPs. The new sites come up on the top for a day or two and then slide back to oblivion. Average agreement.

4) Size of Indexable Text Content On a Page:
There is debate to this day as to the length of the content on a web page. We are talking about text that can be indexed by Google when its bot visits the site. With Google’s sophisticated algorithms on pattern matching and its evolving semantic analysis, relevance and quality of content seems to be a key factor in determining the value of content.

Google has a certain threshold value the Pagerank of a page should acquire before it gets admitted into Google’s index. With such stringent measures in place, it is only natural to assume that the quality of content would be more important than sheer quantity. Average agreement.

5) Quality of the Page Content (Algorithmically):
As mentioned in the previous point, quality content is the key but measuring it algorithmically is a pie in the sky dream as on date. If Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) plays any part at all in Google’s algorithms, then Google is able to understand synonyms and words related to keyword queries.

Signals like number of inbound links to content on a site’s page should clearly indicate to Google that people are vouching for the quality of content on that page. This would be an important factor in determining quality.  The group remains highly disputed on this page factor.

6) Organisation of Document Flow (Broad to Specific):
The categorisation of content on a site gives Google a good idea of the distinct nature of each category and the subtle differences between different pages under each category. This again comes back to information architecture. It is hard to pin it down for big sites. Most of the time, there is an evolution of content and new categories may be added to accommodate new content.

It is a good strategy to undertake siloing at the outset because each category can be made into a standalone silo with distinct sub-categories for that silo. Unless there is some kind of relationship, the different silos will be distinct groups with a good sub-structure and each will be an authority in its own right.  Average agreement.

7) Frequency of Updates to Page:
It is good to update the pages on a site only if the situation warrants. For example, if the site deals with mobile telephony and technology, then there is every reason to update them on a continuous basis proportional to the amazing strides made in that field.

The Query Deserves Freshness (QDF) algorithm is a way that Google rewards sites that keep their content updated all the time. News sites are a good example. But I am not sure about the persistence of the page in the top of Google SERPs as older trusted domains tend to outrank everything else. Google has to come up with some sort of a compromise where even new sites (domains that are not mature) with fresh quality content manage to achieve top rankings.

This way, the author/owner of the new site feels vindicated that her hard work is paying off while old trusted domains which do not cover latest events in their industry and still retaining top positions by virtue of being around for a long time which is unfair. If Google can find a balance, that would be a boon for hardworking site owners.

From non SEO perspective, good quality updates to pages in an appropriate field will increase reader loyalty and project the writer/owner as an authority in that field. The group has an average agreement on this factor.

8) Number of Trailing Slashes (/) in URL:
The number of trailing slashes clearly determines the position of the page in the site hierarchy. Some of the gurus opine that it is good to keep navigation to a page to 3 levels deep from the home page as it is good for spiderability.

A few feel that this plays no part in the rankings.  Another lot thinks it does not matter how many levels deep a page is positioned provided it is linked well internally and from the home page. Average agreement.

9) Accuracy of Spelling and Grammar:
It is a non SEO issue according to some experts. Others think that the presence of spelling and grammatical errors in a site’s content can put off users and prevent future visits from them. Targeting misspellings as keywords has been a practice that has been around for a long time and this does get long tail traffic for sites. Average agreement.

10) HTML Validation of Document:
Most unanimously feel that validation of code does not have any impact on rankings. But code validation is important when it comes to providing access to spiders to index the site, ease of use, browser compatibility and fast load times. These are more qualitiative measures to improve the user experience.

You can visit the SEOmoz site for a complete rundown on individual comments by the different SEO experts

Netconcepts is an Auckland search engine optimisation consultancy that adopts best practice seo techniques to make our client sites easily indexable by the bots and provide users a great user experience at the same time.