Google's ranking factors

Every one thinking that why some sites are ranked so high on Google and why other sites are no where to be found? Over the last 5 or 6 years Google has been tweaking their algorithm to analyze on page (code) and off page (links) factors which affect how websites rank on their popular search engine. Here is a list of the factors that Search Engine analyzes and a viewpoint that Search Engine can take when analyzing a site:

Title Tags

1. Keywords - the keywords within the title tag should represent the content on the page.

2. Length - the title tag should be short and to the point. It length not more than 60 characters.

3. Keywords use in title tag.

4. keywords use in body tex.

5. Link of body text content of keyword.

URL

1. URL structure - the URLs of a website should be static with no extraneous characters.

2. Keywords - URLs should contain keywords as long as they are relevant to the content.

Meta Description Tag

1. Keywords - the keywords in the meta description tag should represent the content of the page.

2. Length - the meta description should be short and to the point.
Unique - each page should have a unique meta description.

Content

1. Keywords - there should already be keywords within the content if content is written for your visitors. There should also be variations in the keywords (apple, apples) as well as additional related keywords (apple, fruit) within the content.

2. Prominence - the earlier the keywords appear in the content the more likely that the content is related to these keywords.

3. User - The content should be written for visitors.

4. Quality of document content.

5. Links - links within the content should be related to the content.

Alt Tags

1. Images - all images should have alt tags.

2. Keywords - words in the alt tags should be relevant to the image.

3. Length - alt tags should be short and to the point.

Internal Links

1. Keywords - links that contain keywords should be related to the webpage they point to.

2. Titles - links should have titles that represent the anchor text of the link (tool tip).

3. Representation - link text should represent the linked page.

Indexing

1. Links - by crawling all the links, all the pages of that website should be discovered and indexed.

2. Sitemap - a sitemap should contain links to important pages within a sitwebe.

External Links

1. Authority - if an authority website links to another website, then that other website will be considered valuable to people.

2. Keywords - if there are keywords within the anchor text of a link then it is normal for Google to consider that the website should be ranked for those keywords.

3. Age - the longer a link stays live on a website, the more valuable the link is.
Relevance - if a website links to you and another website, both websites, or at least web pages, should be related to the same topic.

4. Quantity - the more outbound links on a page, the less weight each link will have.

5. Extension - sites with important extensions such as .edu and .gov are considered to link to more valuable sites.

Website

1. Website Age - older websites are considered more relevant then newer websites.

2. Visit Length - in most cases the longer people stay on a website the great the chance that the website is useful to them.

3. Sandbox - websites in the Google sandbox are usually not as relevant compared to older websites.

4. 301 redirect - websites should do a 301 redirect from "yourdomain.com" to "www.yourdomain.com" or vice versa, depending on the circumstance.

Ranking factor

http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/a-breakdown-of-googles-ranking-factors.html