Every search engine has its own ranking systems, and SEO is difficult without understanding how they work. SEO specialists use audits and checklists based on their knowledge and experience. We try to understand as many ranking factors as possible and account for them in our work. Above all, it is important to understand the principles behind those factors and the user needs a search engine is designed to serve.
For example, Passage Ranking shows why you should not focus only on promoting an individual webpage. The site's overall structure, breadth and quality matter too, so users can quickly find other information that matches their search. This is another reason to develop a silo structure: group pages by the subject of their content.
Google's Reliable Information system is another reminder of the importance of E-A-T factors in content quality: a website should provide evidence that its content is trustworthy.
They say ignorance is bliss. Perhaps that is why our SEO team works day and night to keep learning and improving its skills.
That is no exaggeration: any information can help improve search optimisation. Even a seemingly ordinary technical document published by Google can be a valuable source of insight. Google recently made its guide to Search ranking systems available, and our specialists studied it right away. Here, they explain how information like this can help your business.
Automated ranking systems sort through countless webpages to find the most relevant results for a search. Algorithms are constantly changing and improving, but their purpose remains the same. Here are some of the key systems involved in ranking results.
BERT — an AI system that helps interpret what users want and intend by matching different combinations of words with their context.
Crisis Informatio — a system that provides up-to-date information during natural disasters, personal crises and other large-scale emergencies. This may include emergency contact phone numbers and website addresses.
Deduplication — a system that filters duplicate webpages from search results. A similar principle applies to featured snippets.
Exact match domain — a system that filters domains whose names use SEO keywords.
Freshness system — helps find newer, more up-to-date content for a search.
Helpful content system — prioritises genuinely useful content created to help people, rather than simply to increase traffic.
PageRank — a set of systems that track and analyse links between pages. They help identify what pages are about and select useful results.
Local news — surfaces local news based on the user's location.
MUM (Multitask Unified Model) — an AI system that can understand and generate language to interpret complex searches. It does not rank results; it is more of an auxiliary tool for specialised queries.
Neural matching — another AI system that recognises the concepts and meaning of a page and matches them with search queries.
Original content system — finds original content and ranks the original source above material that quotes it.
Removal-based demotion — removes content from search when it violates Google's policies, for example by infringing copyright or exposing someone's personal information.
Page experience — evaluates pages against several criteria, including load speed, mobile optimisation, intrusive advertising and updated security measures. Pages that are easier to use rank higher.
Passage ranking system — analyses individual sections of a site to assess how relevant the whole page is.
Product Reviews — evaluates product reviews, prioritising expert-written reviews and detailed information.
RankBrain — uses AI to find relevant content even when it does not contain the exact words in a search.
Reliable information — selects reliable content with credible information and may display a warning when reliability is uncertain.
Site diversity — keeps search results diverse, so results from a single site do not dominate the top positions.
Spam detection — detects and removes spam pages.
Google also mentioned retired systems: Hummingbird, Mobile-friendly, Page Speed, Panda, Penguin and Secure Sites. Some of them have since become part of other systems.
We explain how you can apply this information and what understanding these systems can offer.
