What Signals Are Used In Ranking Other Than PageRank?

Guillaume is bothered by the constant chatter about PageRank. From what he knows, it is just one of the many different signals currently being used to determine ranking. Getting obsessed with it is therefore counterproductive. Although Google has stated this fact many times, he thinks that it would be good for Matt Cutts to issue a public reminder one more time.

 

Matt affirms that PageRank is indeed one of over 200 ranking signals. It should be treated as a small fraction of the whole. Fixating on PageRank alone is not advisable when there are plenty of other signals that require as much attention. He mentions the anchor text, page content, page title, header elements, and keyword proximity as examples. Matt asks webmasters to study these things and make an effort to optimize them as well.

 

While he cannot enumerate all of the signals, he says that most of them are products of common sense. Webmasters should focus on creating a good website and high ranking will follow. For Google, the challenge is to weigh each in such a way as to produce relevant results for every query.