The Webhouse Group

How does Google rank websites?

The websites that Google ranks on the first page of of its search results for any given search term are the ones that they consider to be the most relevant and useful. Google determines which websites are the most useful and relevant by using a complex algorithm (mathematical process) which takes into account 200+ different factors.

In terms of SEO, the most relevant factors that Google considers are:

Keywords usage
On-page factors such a meta tags
Site structure
Incoming links to your website
Quality of inbound links

The algorithm is designed and set-up by humans, however, the rankings given to websites are wholly determined by the outcome of the algorithm. There’s no manual intervention by humans to adjust the rankings for specific websites, and this is part of the reason why your SEO campaign could perform really well one week and a little less well another week.

The website ranked in first place on Google is the website that the algorithm has given the best score to when taking into account the 200+ factors. Your website is ranked by popularity, therefore the more useful and relevant your website appears to be as per the search request - the higher your website will rank. Website popularity is also knows as "domain authority" - which you will see often in any SEO report.

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