Investigating the Unofficial Factors in Google Ranking
Amir Hosein Mardani, Babak Akhgar, Simon Andrews, Simeon J. Yates, Mohammad Hassanzadeh · SHURA (Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive) (Sheffield Hallam University) · 2012
This paper evaluates the effectiveness of some “unofficial” factors in Search Engine Optimisation. A summary of official Google guidelines is given followed by a review of “unofficial” ranking factors as reported by a number of experts in the field of Search Engine Optimisation”. These opinions vary and do not always agree. Experiments on keyword density, web page titles and the use of outbound links were conducted to investigate the expert’s hypotheses by analysing Google result pages. The results demonstrate that webmasters should avoid having unnecessary outbound links, while attempting to repeat the important keywords of each page one time in their titles, to increase the pages ranking in the results page.