- Keyword Use Factors
- Page Attributes
- Inbound Link Attribute
- Negative Crawling/Ranking Attributes
A) Keyword Use Factors
The following components relate to the use of the user's search query terms in determining the rank of a particular page.
I) Keyword use in Title Tag - It means placing the targeted search term or phrase in the title tag of the web page's HTML header. Of all the tags, Title tag is definitely the most important when used correctly. When calculating your web page's relevance to a search, most search engines consider the content of the title tag as one of the parameters and display that content in search engine results pages (SERP). Including the keywords in the Title tag increases the relevance of your web page, when someone searches the web with that keyword. Title tag therefore needs to be carefully constructed in such a way that it increases your website's position in the SERP, and it is attractive enough to encourage a surfer to click on your link. Similar to writing your site content; write your Title tag for your audience first and the search engines second.
II) Keyword use in Body Text - It means using the targeted search term in the visible, HTML text of the page. It is important to use the keyword phrase throughout the page where it makes sense. As engines get more sophisticated, it's not just the targeted keyword phrase that counts, but the mix of all the words on the page that help to determine what the page is about. Killer search engine optimization copy writing must satisfy two demanding masters - the search engines and your target audience. If your home page text doesn't have enough key phrases - that is, commonly searched-upon words that people would use to find your product or service in the search engines- you won't get the high rankings you want. Yet, if you pack your text full of key phrases without focusing on your marketing flow, you'll lose your prospects and run the risk of spamming the engines.
III) Keyword use in H1, H2, H3. Tag - It means creating H1 & other heading tags with the targeted search term/phrase. H1 or H2 tags also known as Heading Tags should be applied on every page where appropriate to embolden the relevance of the page. In other words, use the page's key-phrase within a Heading 1 tag to further enhance the visibility of the key phrase on the page. It is also important that the Heading Tags match the general content of the page. A page should only have one H1 tag. When you use several H1 tags, you're diluting the value of the keywords in those tags. If it seems like you need another H1 tag you should probably create another "Landing Page" Pages with specialized content rank better than pages with multiple topics.
IV) Keywords in URLs and File Names - It means including target terms in the website URL/webpage URL. The domain name and the whole URL of a site tell a lot about it. The presumption is that if your site is about dogs, you will have “dog”, “dogs”, or “puppy” as part of your domain name. For instance, if your site is mainly about adopting dogs, it is much better to name your dog site “dog-adopt.net” than “animal-care.org”, for example, because in the first case you have two major keywords in the URL, while in the second one you have no more than one potential minor keyword. When hunting for keyword rich domain names, don't get greedy. While from a SEO point of view it is better to have 5 keywords in the URL, just imagine how long and difficult to memorize the URL will be. So you need to strike a balance between the keywords in the URL and site usability, which says that more than 3 words in the URL is a way too much. Probably you will not be able to come on your own with tons of good suggestions. Additionally, even if you manage to think of a couple of good domain names, they might be already taken. In such cases tools like the Tool below can come very handy. File names and directory names are also important. Often search engines will give preference to pages that have a keyword in the file name. For instance http://mydomain.com/dog-adopt.html is not as good as http://dog-adopt.net/dog-adopt.html but is certainly better than http://mydomain.com/animal-care.html. The advantage of keywords in file names over keywords in URLs is that they are easier to change, if you decide to move to another niche, for example.
V) Keyword Use in Alt Tags and Image Titles - It means using target keywords inside alt HTML tags and img title tags. Always provide appropriate ALT text for each image on your website. The ALT text is supposed to accurately describe the image. This means that it is totally appropriate for the total occurrences for a keyword to increase if the images displayed are a good match. The ALT text is also used to improve accessibility for the visually impaired. In the future as more people are searching using images this will also increase your chances of being displayed in the search engine listings.
VI) Keyword use in Bold/Strong Tags - It means positioning keyword in HTML text with strong/bold attributes. While there is no set answer to which carries more weight, assume that both are the same. Emphasize keywords in bold using the BOLD or STRONG tags. Search engines give more weight to keywords if they are emphasized. They have some weight as a ranking factor, but not very much. Effective usage might lie in what type of tag you use, but it’s still undetermined. Bolds are for markup, strong is for emphasis. In general use strong tags and highlight 3-5 key phrases on a page in slight variations.
VII) Keyword use in
VIII) Keyword use in
B) Page Attributes
The following elements comprise how the Google interprets specific data about a webpage independent of keywords.
I) Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure - Refers to the number and importance of internal links pointing to the target page.
II) Quality/Relevance of Links to External Sites/Pages - Refers to do links on the page point to high quality, topically-related pages.
III) Amount of Indexable Text Content - Refers to the literal quantity of visible HTML text on a page.
IV) Quality of the Document Content - As search engines can use text, visual or other analysis methods to determine the validity and value of content, this metric would provide some level of rating.
V) Frequency of Updates to Page - Refers to the number and time frame of changes made to the document over time.
VI) Accuracy of Spelling & Grammar - Refers to the literal correctness of spelling and grammar as related to the language of the document.
VII) HTML Validation of Document (to W3C Standards) - Refers to the validation of HTML page code as per the W3C consortium, an authoritative body on the standards of web-compatible code.
VII) Site/Domain Attributes: The factors below contribute to Google's rankings based on the site/domain on which a page resides.
VIII) Global Link Popularity of Site - Refers to the overall link weight/authority as measured by links from any and all sites across the web (both link quality and quantity).
IX) Age of Site - Not the date of original registration of the domain, but rather the launch of indexable content seen by the search engines.
X) Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site - Refers to the subject-specific relationship between the sites/pages linking to the target page and the target keyword.
XI) Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community - Refers to the link weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers in the online world.
XII) Historical Performance of Site as Measured by Time Spent on Page, Click throughs from SERPs, Direct Visits, Bookmarks, etc. - Metric of click-through-rate, time spent on a page/site, direct navigation via bookmarks, etc. that Google may be measuring through use of their toolbar, free wifi, Google analytics, etc. (note that this is purely speculation as Google has never publicly admitted to monitoring or recording this data)
XIII) Manual Authority/Weight Given to Site by Google - Google is occasionally suspected or accused of applying manual manipulation to a domain or page (note that this factor refers specifically to positive ranking manipulation)
XIV) TLD Extension of Site (edu, gov, us, ca, com etc) - The top-level domain extension of the site. Note that some domains, such as .edu, .gov, .mil and others have restrictions on who may purchase them. Their is at best a small difference within the TLDs for .com, .edu, .gov, .org and .mil. The common belief that the TLD matters is actually an artifact of the linking profile common for an .edu, .org or .mil site that is different than a commercial site. Other TLDs like .tv and .go are much less desirable.
XV) Rate of New Pages Added to Site - The amount & frequency of new, spiderable documents added to the domain over time.
XVI) Verification of Site with Google, Yahoo & MSN - Provides you with detailed reports about your pages' visibility. Get view of your site and diagnose problems, discover your link and query traffic.
c) Inbound Link Attribute
These pieces affect Google's weighting of links from external websites pointing to a page.
II) Global Link Popularity of Linking Site – Refers to the link popularity of the linking page and site is probably the most important factor when deciding on a link.
III) Topical Relationship of Linking Page - Adding top-of-the-line back links from relevant, reputable, and trustworthy sources will have significant impact on your site’s search visibility. Nowadays, one high quality link is worth more than fifty spammy links. If you are promoting a product or service, your site’s link building strategy comes to play as an important component of an overall marketing plan.
IV) Age of Link - The age of a link is supposed to hold a lot of weight with the search engines (especially Google) because it is something that is very hard to manipulate and control. A link that has been pointing to the same website for a long time is thought to be of high value and organic.
V) Text Surrounding the Link - Based on recent studies, this is becoming more and more important. Looking at Google Image results testing showed us that they weight the image's content based on surrounding text as much as any image feature.
VI) Page Rank (as measured by the GG Toolbar) of Linking Page - Lots of people will say "no" but it is still a good measure of connectivity and says something about the site. The toolbar is perpetually outdated, but Google uses Page Rank values to help set crawling priorities and to determine if a document should go in the regular or supplemental index.
D) Negative Crawling/Ranking Attributes
These components may negatively affect a spider's ability to crawl a page or its rankings at Google.
I) Server is Often Inaccessible to Bots - If crawlers can't crawl your new content then others are at an advantage by being crawled first. Plus if a server is down often search engines may not want to send visitors to that site as much.
II) Content Very Similar or Duplicate of Existing Content in the Index - Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar. Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results.
III) External Links to Low Quality/Spam Sites - A bad neighborhood is one thing as a low quality MFA site is another, linking to a MFA (Made for Adsence) site will not harm your ranking but linking to a bad/rough neighborhood definitely could.
IV) Duplicate Title/Meta Tags on Many Pages - Duplicate titles and descriptions can discourage the spider from continuing through the site as all the pages at first glance "look" the same to it. Having duplicate titles on many pages severely limits the ranking ability of your pages, especially those in the long tail that will not have many inbound links. Those pages compete on internal links and title tag relevance, so it’s important to have a unique title on each page.
V) Overuse of Targeted Keywords (Stuffing/Spamming) - Whatever method the SE’s user to target stuffing, once a certain threshold is breached, the page in question gets flagged and some bad things could happen to your SE presence.
VI) Participation in Link Schemes or Actively Selling Links - Your site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site's ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:
· Links intended to manipulate Page Rank
· Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
· Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")
· Buying or selling links that pass Page Rank
VII) Very Slow Server Response Times - Crawlers operate within milliseconds, just be sure your site is able to be crawled as often as needed.
VIII) Inbound Links from Spam Sites - If you have a new site and most or all of your links are from spam sites it might be hard ever earn trust in Google. Older sites with many trusted links can get away with having many more spam links. It is more about the ratio of good links to bad links than the exact number of bad links.
Source - http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors
Comments
Yes, Meta keywords tag are totally useless now a days. It's doesn't matter if you embed them or not.
So Meta Description tag have still some value in search engine eyes. They ignore this tag if you have great content over your website pages.