Google ranking factors: what's confirmed and what's folklore

Khalid Mohamed
Founder, CapitalSEO · Last reviewed · 8 min read

First published , rewritten .

The short answer

Nobody outside Google has the real list, and "200 ranking factors" was always a guess. What Google confirms is shorter and plainer: be the most relevant, helpful answer to the search, earn links and a good reputation, and give people a page that works well on a phone. Most of the rest is folklore.

In May 2015 I published "Google Ranking Factors: A Complete List" on this site. It had about 200 items, from "keyword density" to "number of Google+1's." Like most lists of that era, it was built from industry guesses, and I said so at the bottom: many of the signals were "speculation."

Eleven years later, Google has published far more about how ranking works. So instead of updating the list, I graded it. This guide shows which parts of my 2015 list held up, which didn't, and what you should spend your time on instead.

Who this is for: business owners and marketers who keep hearing about "ranking factors" and want to know what's real.
Who it isn't for: people looking for a secret trick. There isn't one, and anyone who promises you page one is selling something. Our view

My 2015 list, graded

My 2015 list had nine sections. Here's how each one holds up against what Google has said publicly since.

Report card · “200 ranking factors” (2015)

Graded October 2026 against Google’s own documentation

  1. Special algorithmsRight
  2. Spam factorsRight, and bigger
  3. User interactionRight in spirit
  4. Page levelPartly right
  5. BacklinksPartly right
  6. Site levelPartly right
  7. Brand signalsUnclear
  8. Domain levelMostly wrong
  9. Social signalsWrong
Three sections held up, three were partly right, and three were wrong or unproven. Social signals, the section with Google+ in it, did worst.
2015 sectionVerdictWhy
Page level (titles, content, keywords)Partly rightRelevance and helpful content are core. Keyword density, meta keywords and word count aren't things Google counts.
BacklinksPartly rightLinks still matter (PageRank is a core system), but buying or trading them is spam.
Site level (architecture, HTTPS, mobile)Partly rightPage experience counts. "Use of Google Analytics" never did, as far as anyone has shown.
Spam factorsRight, and bigger nowGoogle's spam policies have grown, including against manipulating AI answers.
User interaction (clicks, dwell time)Right in spiritGoogle uses interaction data. Bounce rate from your analytics isn't it.
Special algorithms (freshness, diversity, local)RightGoogle now names most of these systems publicly.
Domain level (age, keywords in domain)Mostly wrongKeyword domains get little credit. The extension only matters for country targeting.
Brand signalsUnclearReputation matters; "official LinkedIn page" as a factor was never shown.
Social signals (likes, tweets, Google+)WrongNo evidence they rank pages. Google+ closed in 2019.

The rest of this guide explains each verdict, with sources.

What Google confirms

Google publishes a guide to its ranking systems. These are the ones that matter most for a small business site. Confirmed–Google

  • Relevance and meaning. Systems such as BERT, RankBrain and neural matching work out what a search means and which pages answer it, even when the page doesn't use the exact words. Confirmed–Google
  • Helpful, original content. The "helpful content" system became part of Google's core ranking systems in March 2024. Original content systems favour original reporting over pages that "merely cite it." Confirmed–Google The content guide shows how to write that kind of page.
  • Links. Google says PageRank is "one of our core ranking systems," and that it uses links to understand what pages are about. Confirmed–Google
  • Reliable information. Systems that surface authoritative pages and demote low-quality ones. Confirmed–Google
  • Freshness. Newer content is preferred where people expect it, such as news or recent reviews. Confirmed–Google
  • Page experience. "Core Web Vitals are used by our ranking systems," but there is "no single signal." Relevance comes first: Google will show the most relevant page "even if the page experience is sub-par." Confirmed–Google
  • Site diversity. Google generally won't show more than two results from the same site at the top. Confirmed–Google
  • Spam detection. SpamBrain and other systems catch pages that break Google's spam policies. Confirmed–Google Every confirmed spam and core update is in our update log.

Google also says, in plain words, that it uses "aggregated and anonymized interaction data to assess whether search results are relevant to queries." Confirmed–Google More on that below.

What this means for you: almost everything Google confirms comes down to one question. Is your page the most useful answer for this search, from a source people trust? Our view

What Google says not to worry about

Google's own SEO Starter Guide has a section called "Things we believe you shouldn't focus on." It knocks out a big chunk of my 2015 list. Confirmed–Google

2015 "factor"What Google says
Keywords meta tagGoogle "doesn't use the keywords meta tag."
Keyword density, keyword stuffingStuffing is against Google's spam policies.
Keyword in the domain name or URLLittle ranking effect; choose a name for your marketing.
Domain extension (.com, .ca)Only matters if you're targeting a specific country.
Content length"The length of the content alone doesn't matter for ranking purposes."
Duplicate content "penalty"Inefficient, but "it's fine; don't fret about it."
Number and order of headingsDoesn't matter for Search.
Subdomain vs subfolderDo whatever makes sense for your business.
E-E-A-T as a ranking factor"No, it's not."

That last one surprises people. E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trust) is how Google's human raters judge results. The systems try to reward what raters would call trustworthy, but there's no E-E-A-T score you can raise directly. Confirmed–Google

For a local business, "exact match domains" deserve a note. A name like ottawaplumber.ca won't carry you: Google runs a system that "works to ensure we don't give too much credit" to domains built to match a search. Confirmed–Google

Clicks and user behaviour: what we learned

In 2015 my list had "organic click-through rate," "dwell time" and "bounce rate" under user interaction. For years Google played this down. Two things changed that.

  1. The US antitrust trial. Exhibits the US Department of Justice published from its 2023 trial against Google include internal presentations on how Google uses clicks in ranking. Confirmed–Industry
  2. The 2024 documentation leak. Internal Google API documentation was published by mistake in 2024, and Google confirmed it was real. It describes a system called Navboost that uses click data. Google warned against "making inaccurate assumptions" from it, and the documents don't show how anything is weighted. Confirmed–Industry

What this means in practice: how real people respond to your result matters. If searchers pick your page and stay satisfied, that helps. Our view

What it doesn't mean: Google reading your bounce rate from your own analytics. There's no evidence Google uses your Google Analytics data to rank you, and plenty of well-ranked sites don't use it at all. This site doesn't. Our view

When this fails: when people try to fake clicks. Click bots are machine-generated traffic, which is a spam policy violation. Confirmed–Google

Local results in Ottawa–Gatineau work differently

If you serve customers in a place, the map results (the local pack) matter more than any list of 200 factors. Google names exactly three things it uses: relevance, distance and prominence. Confirmed–Google

  • Relevance: how well your Business Profile matches the search. Fill in every field, especially categories and services.
  • Distance: how far you are from the person searching. You can't change this, which is why a plumber in Kanata rarely shows for "plumber Orléans" on a phone in Orléans.
  • Prominence: how well-known you are. Google says this includes links to your business and "how many reviews you have." Confirmed–Google

And one line every business owner should know: "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google." Confirmed–Google Anyone selling you a guaranteed map-pack spot is selling something Google says doesn't exist.

When this fails: when your name, address and phone differ across directories. Old listings from a past address confuse customers and search engines alike. Clean them up. Our view

The local SEO guide walks through all of this step by step.

AI Overviews and AI Mode

There's no separate list of "AI ranking factors" for Google. Google says the same SEO best practices apply, and that a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to appear in its AI features. Your site also has to be included in Search generative AI features in Search Console. Confirmed–Google

Google also added a spam rule that matters here: trying to manipulate its generative AI responses is now spam. Confirmed–Google Pages built only to get quoted by AI, or fake mentions planted to influence AI answers, fall under that.

So the factors are the same, but the reward is different. An AI answer might cite you without sending a click. That's why the analytics guide shows how to measure AI citations, not just visits. For what's changing on the results page itself, see Is Google search going away?, and for how AI answers pick sources, AI search and GEO.

What to work on instead

If you skip the 200-item list and focus on these, in this order, you'll cover what Google actually confirms. Our view

  1. Be the best answer. One page per job your customer is trying to do, written from real experience. Start from what people search: see the keyword research guide.
  2. Make sure Google can find and show the page. Indexed, with a title that says what the page is, and no noindex by accident. Check it in Search Console.
  3. Earn a reputation. Real reviews on your Business Profile, links and mentions from local organisations, suppliers and press. Not bought links.
  4. Fix what frustrates people. Fast enough on a phone, no pop-ups covering the content, HTTPS.
  5. Keep it current. Update pages when prices, rules or your services change. Not just the date.
  6. Stay clear of spam policies. No link schemes, no mass-produced pages, no fake reviews.

When this fails: when you do all six on one page and ignore the rest of your site. Google judges pages, but a site full of weak pages drags down trust in the good ones. Our view

Myths to skip

  • "There are exactly 200 ranking factors." That number was never published as a list, and Google's systems have changed many times since. Our view
  • "Social media likes boost rankings." No evidence they do. Social posts can help people find you, which can lead to links and searches for your name. Our view
  • "Older domains rank better." Age alone isn't a confirmed factor. What an old domain often has is links and history. Our view
  • "Longer content ranks better." Google says length alone doesn't matter. Answer the question fully, then stop. Confirmed–Google
  • "You need an llms.txt file for Google's AI." Google Search doesn't use llms.txt or special AI markup. Confirmed–Google

Next step

Pick your three most important pages and ask one question about each: is this the most useful answer on the web for the search it targets? If not, that's your first job, before any technical fix.

If you'd like a second opinion, start with a free visibility audit. It checks the factors Google actually confirms, plus how AI answers treat your business.

About this page

Who: Written by Khalid Mohamed, founder of CapitalSEO, who published the original 200-item list on this site in 2015.
How: Rewritten with AI assistance. Every claim about Google was checked against Google's own documentation on October 12, 2026, and labelled. Claims from the antitrust trial and the 2024 leak are labelled as industry sources, because Google hasn't published them as guidance. Opinions are labelled "Our view."
Why: The old list was mostly speculation, as it said at the time. This version keeps only what can be checked.
Last substantive update: October 12, 2026: full rewrite. Replaced the 200-item list with a graded version and sourced every confirmed claim. Added clicks and the 2024 leak, local results, AI answers and priorities. Removed Google+, toolbar and other dead items.

Sources

↑