Google’s Top 2 Search Rank Factors Have Been Exposed

One of the greatest mysteries of the modern marketing era involve the ever changing rank factors found in Google’s search engine algorithm. Businesses live and die by this search engine and understanding everything needed to compete can be a daunting task.

Not only do the rank factors change regularly, but the importance of each rank factor change as well. Tests are constantly being performed by organizations like Search Metrics to identify which factors are most important and the results can sometimes change drastically each year.

So what are the most important search factors for 2016?

In an online Q&A session in March of 2016, Google’s Search Quality Senior Strategist, Andrey Lipattsev let the top two rank factors slip.

I can tell you what they are. It is CONTENT, and the LINKS POINTING TO YOUR SITE.

He didn’t say which factor was ranked first or second, and we know these are just two of the 200+ ranking factors that are considered, but hearing the two most important factors directly from a Google representative is very eye opening. If you are managing online marketing for your business and not paying attention to both of these ranking signals, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. SEO campaigns that eliminate relevant fresh content creation and link building to save money are not going to be able to compete in 2016. Making on-site adjustments alone and living with old, badly written stale content will leave you spinning your wheels.

For those that are interested, here is the full hour long video of the SEO discussion mentioned above.