{"id":2260,"date":"2016-03-24T10:55:25","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T10:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/03\/24\/google-reveals-its-three-most-important-ranking-signals\/"},"modified":"2020-02-25T18:04:34","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T18:04:34","slug":"google-reveals-its-three-most-important-ranking-signals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/03\/24\/google-reveals-its-three-most-important-ranking-signals\/","title":{"rendered":"Google reveals its three most important ranking signals"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve already heard that RankBrain<\/a>, Google\u2019s artificial intelligence system, is the “third most important signal contributing to the result of a search query”\u00a0and it seems like we may have confirmation on the top two factors as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n

During a live Q&A from WebPromo<\/a> with Andrey Lipattsev, the Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google<\/a> Ireland, SEO expert Ammon Johns suggested to Lipattsev that, knowing what we know about RankBrain, it would surely be beneficial to everyone if we also knew what the other two signals were.<\/p>\n

And surprisingly, Andrey Lipattsev, obliges…<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s content and links pointing to your site.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There you go.<\/p>\n

I think what\u2019s most surprising about this reply is Lipattsev\u2019s candour. It\u2019s a straight answer with little hesitation, that has an air of \u201clook, you know this already\u201d about it. And to be honest, we did. It\u2019s just nice to have the confirmation.<\/p>\n

Ammon Johns follows up with, \u201cIn that order?\u201d To which Liplattsev replies, \u201cThere is no order.\u201d<\/p>\n

And although we believed RankBrain to be the third most important signal, Liplattsev reveals that this position is in fact \u201chotly contested.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Liplattsev warns himself, you should take the following with a pinch of salt\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at a slew of search results and open up the debugger to see what has come into play to bring about these results, certain things pop-up more or less often. Certain elements of the algorithm come into play for fewer or more cases\u2026 If you do that, you may see elements of RankBrain having been involved.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

HOWEVER!!!<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like having three links is \u2018X important\u2019 and having five keywords is \u2018Y important\u2019, and RankBrain is some \u2018Z factor\u2019 that is also somehow important, and if you multiply it all together [you\u2019ll understand how your page is ranked] it\u2019s not how it works.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Google<\/a> is trying to get better at understanding natural language and the meanings behind search queries<\/a>, it\u2019s still very early days for its machine learning algorithms.<\/p>\n

Lipattsev also states that although it\u2019s difficult for Google to claim that \u2019typed queries\u2019 on mobile and desktop are subsiding voice search<\/a> is certainly becoming more and more important. Google<\/a> is also expecting this to bring about more stop words and mechanical language from users<\/a>, because we still overthink our queries.<\/p>\n

Before typing a query we often ask ourselves, \u201cWhat is a query that is completely non-human in nature that sounds like what the machine will understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably time we stopped doing this and let the machine learning algorithms get used to the way we actually use language.<\/p>\n

Ultimately Google wants to support the people who have just started using the internet, those whose first experience is probably on a mobile, who haven\u2019t developed this unnatural approach to search in the way that we have.<\/p>\n

For Google, that\u2019s the future of search.<\/p>\n

So at the moment, yes it\u2019s links and content that are keeping your webpages at the top of the SERPs, but with machine learning quickly developing and figuring out the best way to serve results as relevantly and naturally as possible, surely it won\u2019t be long before intent is everything.<\/p>\n

Check out the full one-hour long video below. It\u2019s a fascinating watch and also features Rand Fishkin from Moz<\/a>, Eric Enge from Stone Temple Consulting and Bill Slawski from Go Fish. The key information regarding ranking signals<\/a> is at the 30 minute mark…<\/p>\n