Most Important SEO Factors for 2009
August 26, 2009 by Pablo Palatnik
SEOmoz released a great report on the most important search engine optimization factors for 2009. “Every two years, SEOmoz surveys top SEO experts in the field worldwide on their opinions of the algorithmic elements that comprise search engine rankings. This year features contributors from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, the Ukraine, the Dominican Republic and many more.
Each participant was asked to rate more than 100 search ranking factors along with specific questions about hot issues in the SEO field. This document, representing the collective wisdom of expert practitioners, is, in opinion, one of the most useful resources for SEO practitioners of all varieties, helping to provide transparency into what matters (and doesn’t) for best practices in search engine optimization.”
Top 5 Ranking Factors
1. Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links
73% very high importance
2. External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links)
71% very high importance
3. Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)
67% very high importance
4. Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag
66% very high importance
5. Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.)
66% very high importance
Top 5 Negative Ranking Factors
1. Cloaking with Malicious/Manipulative Intent
68% very high importance
2. Link Acquisition from Known Link Brokers/Sellers
56% high importance
3. Links from the Page to Web Spam Sites/Pages
51% moderate importance
4. Cloaking by User Agent
51% moderate importance
5. Frequent Server Downtime & Site Inaccessibility
51% moderate importance
Top 5 Most Contentious Factors
1. Cloaking by Cookie Detection: 16.3% strong contention
2. Cloaking by JavaScript/Rich Media Support Detection: 15.4% moderate contention
3. Hiding Text with same/similar colored text/background: 15.3% moderate contention
4. Cloaking by IP Address: 15.3% moderate contention
5. Cloaking by User Agent: 15.2% moderate contention
Overall Ranking Algorithm
24% Trust/Authority of the Host Domain
22% Link Popularity of the Specific Page
20% Anchor Text of External Links
15% On-Page Keyword Usage
7% Traffic and Click-Through Data
6% Social Graph Metrics
5% Registration and Hosting Data
Comments (11)
awesome post here on keyword seo tools for meta structure
Nice round up and solid information.
Nice work
Nice post
Hope its a fake one dude i am gonna try it Lets hope for good. Is it really the most imp factors????
Nice and very interesting post. Really fantastic.
As always, informative and helpful. Good work!
First-class list. You defo know your stuff Pablo.
awesome list mate, nice post keep it up…
The list of ranking factors are very good and interesting.this is help full post because 2010 also not change some of these factors. Cloacking is always not good thing for any web site.any way great article. Thanks
Pablo, thanks for posting valuable info. I get lots of questions asked about major factors. This is helpful!