Ranking Factors Overview
Get a high-level map of the signals search engines use to rank pages.
Google uses hundreds of signals to rank pages. You do not need to master every one, but you should understand the big categories.
The major factor groups
- Relevance - does the content match the query and its intent?
- Content quality - is it helpful, accurate and thorough (E-E-A-T)?
- Backlinks - do trusted sites link to the page?
- Page experience - speed, mobile-friendliness, HTTPS, stability.
- Freshness - is the content up to date for the topic?
- Technical health - can the page be crawled and indexed cleanly?
Focus on fundamentals
Chasing rumored signals wastes time. Create genuinely useful content, earn links naturally, and keep the site fast and crawlable. The rest of this tutorial turns each factor into concrete actions.
Example
<!-- A well-optimized page hits several ranking factors at once -->
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>How to Compost at Home | SoundsCode</title>
<meta name="description" content="A beginner guide to home composting in 5 steps.">
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/composting">
</head>When to use it
- An SEO team prioritises fixing Core Web Vitals failures after discovering slow LCP scores are suppressing rankings on competitive product pages.
- A publisher builds a content cluster around 'home loan calculator' to establish topical authority before targeting the high-volume head keyword.
- A service business earns high-quality backlinks through industry partnerships after identifying referring domain count as the weakest signal on their site.
More examples
On-page keyword relevance signals
Placing the primary keyword in the H1, first paragraph and supporting headings reinforces on-page relevance signals for that query.
<article>
<!-- Primary keyword in H1 and first paragraph -->
<h1>Home Loan Calculator: Estimate Your Monthly Payment</h1>
<p>Use our <strong>home loan calculator</strong> to see how
interest rate and term affect your repayment in seconds.</p>
<!-- Semantic sibling headings reinforce topical relevance -->
<h2>How Mortgage Interest Is Calculated</h2>
<h2>Fixed vs Variable Rate Loans Explained</h2>
</article>Fetch Core Web Vitals field data
The CrUX API returns real-user Core Web Vitals field data, which Google uses as a page-experience ranking factor.
# Query the CrUX API for real-user LCP, INP and CLS
curl -s -X POST \
"https://chromeuxreport.googleapis.com/v1/records:queryRecord?key=YOUR_KEY" \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"url":"https://example.com/",
"metrics":["largest_contentful_paint",
"interaction_to_next_paint",
"cumulative_layout_shift"]}' \
| python3 -m json.toolCheck referring domain count
Referring domain count proxies Google's link-based authority signal, making it the key third-party ranking factor to monitor.
# Ahrefs API: fetch domain authority metrics
curl -s \
"https://apiv2.ahrefs.com/?target=example.com&mode=domain&output=json&from=metrics&token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
| python3 -c "
import sys, json
d = json.load(sys.stdin)
print('Referring domains:', d.get('refdomains'))
print('Domain Rating:', d.get('domain_rating'))
"
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