| 1 | Keyword in URL | First word is best, second is second best, etc. |
| 2 | Keyword in Domain name | Same as in page-name-with-hyphens |
| 3 | Keyword in Title tag | Keyword in Title tag - close to beginning
Title tag 10 - 60 characters, no special characters. |
| 4 | Keyword in Description meta tag | Shows theme - less than 200 chars.
Google no longer "relies" upon this tag, but will often use it. |
| 5 | Keyword in Keyword metatag | Shows theme - less than 10 words.
Every word in this tag MUST appear somewhere in the body text. If not, it can be penalized for irrelevance.
No single word should appear more than twice.
If not, it may be considered spam. Google purportedly no longer uses this tag, but others do. |
| 6 | Keyword density in body text | 5 - 20% - (all keywords/ total words)
Some report topic sensitivity - the keyword spamming threshold % varies with the topic. |
| 7 | Individual keyword density | 1 - 6% - (each keyword/ total words) |
| 8 | Keyword in H1, H2 and H3 | Use Hx font style tags appropriately |
| 9 | Keyword font size | "Strong is treated the same as bold, italic is treated the same as emphasis" . . . Matt Cutts July 2006 |
| 10 | Keyword proximity (for 2+ keywords) | Directly adjacent is best |
| 11 | Keyword phrase order | Does word order in the page match word order in the query?
Try to anticipate query, and match word order. |
| 12 | Keyword prominence (how early in page/tag) | Can be important at top of page, in bold, in large font |
| 13 | Keyword in alt text | Should describe graphic - Do NOT fill with spam
(Was part of Google Florida OOP - tripped a threshold - may still be in effect to some degree as a red flag, when summed with all other on-page optimization - total page optimization score - TPOS). |
| 14 | Keyword in links to site pages (anchor text) | Links out anchor text use keyword? |
| | | |
| NAVIGATION - INTERNAL LINKS |
| 15 | To internal pages- keywords? | Link should contain keywords.
The filename "linked to" should contain the keywords.
Use hyphenated filenames, but not long ones - two or three hyphens only. |
| 16 | All Internal links valid? | Validate all links to all pages on site.
Use a free link checker. I like this one. |
| 17 | Efficient - tree-like structure | TRY FOR two clicks to any page - no page deeper than 4 clicks |
| 18 | Intra-site linking | Appropriate links between lower-level pages |
| NAVIGATION - OUTGOING LINKS |
| 19 | To external pages- keywords? | Google patent - Link only to good sites. Do not link to link farms. CAREFUL - Links can and do go bad, resulting in site demotion. Unfortunately, you must devote the time necessary to police your outgoing links - they are your responsibility. |
| 20 | Outgoing link Anchor Text | Google patent - Should be on topic, descriptive |
| 21 | Link stability over time | Google patent - Avoid "Link Churn" |
| 22 | All External links valid? | Validate all links periodically. |
| 23 | Less than 100 links out total | Google says limit to 100,
but readily accepts 2-3 times that number. ref 2k |
| OTHER ON-Page Factors |
| 24 | Domain Name Extension
Top Level Domain - TLD | .gov sites seem to be the highest status
.edu sites seem to be given a high status
.org sites seem to be given a high status
.com sites excel in encompassing all the spam/ crud sites, resulting in the need for the highest scrutiny/ action by Google.
Perhaps one would do well with the new .info domain class. Not so much, now - .info sites can rank highly. |
| 25 | File Size | Try not to exceed 100K page size (however, some subject matter, such as this page, requires larger file sizes).
Smaller files are preferred <40k> |
| 26 | Hyphens in URL | Preferred method for indicating a space, where there can be no actual space
One or two= excellent for separating keywords (i.e., pet-smart, pets-mart)
Four or more= BAD, starts to look spammy
Ten = Spammer for sure, demotion probable? |
| 27 | Freshness of Pages | Google patent - Changes over time
Newer the better - if news, retail or auction!
Google likes fresh pages. So do I. |
| 28 | Freshness - Amount of Content Change | New pages - Ratio of old pages to new pages |
| 29 | Freshness of Links | Google patent - May be good or bad
Excellent for high-trust sites
May not be so good for newer, low-trust sites |
| 30 | Frequency of Updates | Frequent updates = frequent spidering = newer cache |
| 31 | Page Theming | Page exhibit theme? General consistency? |
| 32 | Keyword stemming | Stem, stems, stemmed, stemmer,
stemming, stemmist, stemification |
| 33 | Applied Semantics | Synonyms, CIRCA white paper |
| 34 | LSI | Latent Semantic Indexing - Speculation, no proof |
| 35 | URL length | Keep it minimized - use somewhat less than the 2,000 characters allowed by IE - less than 100 is good, less is even better |
| OTHER ON-SITE Factors |
| 36 | Site Size - Google likes big sites | Google has caught on and dumped millions of pages, or made them supplemental. |
| 37 | Site Age | Google patent - Old is best. Old is Golden. |
| 38 | Age of page vs. age of site | Age of page vs. age of other pages on site
Newer pages on an older site will get faster recognition. |
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