The SEO pie!

[inertia]

Here's an interesting idea!

If we break the SEO process down in percentiles, what percentage do you think each SEO aspects occupies, with 100% being a perfectly optimised site? Obviously this is going to change between search engines so lets stick to the big 3.

I would say Google is:

IBL Links: 45%
Content: 30%
Optimisation (title tags, keyword density, internal linking etc, meta): 20%
Trust / Domain Age: 5%
Other aspects / Validation: negligible %

After doing this i realised...its HARD!

As far as Yahoo and MSN goes, I'm not too sure and your thoughts will probably educate me a little.

[fernimac]

I think that when you separete each of the factors apart, they stop making sense. Although you can make assumptions about the different role that each one plays in the positioning of a certain web, I would say that it is the conjunction of all of them which makes the "positioning miracle" happen. I mean, a good position is much more thant the sum of its parts.

[kgun]

I think Rand Fishkin did that guessing fairly well. SEOmoz | A Little Piece of the Google Algorithm - Revealed Scroll down and you find my comment.

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by fernimac

I think that when you separete each of the factors apart, they stop making sense. Although you can make assumptions about the different role that each one plays in the positioning of a certain web, I would say that it is the conjunction of all of them which makes the "positioning miracle" happen. I mean, a good position is much more thant the sum of its parts.

I second the motion and am about to read kgun's comment...

[freelancedesigners.com]

Thos percentages may be a close approximation of value, but IMO it would only be relevant when all of those pieces are present. in other words, using only 1 or 2 of the attributes would not provide the same value as the value created when all of the pieces are applied to a site.

[Big Juice]

80% black hat
20% white hat

and toss in a little social ala mode for flavor of the moment

[mjtaylor]

Well, I like SeoMoz's survey of SEOs and their take on the weight of SEO elements.

I'm not sure age of domain really matters any more ... I have seen a new site (less than 6 months old) come up to the top 10-20 for a highly competitive term recently and it is still climbing. No sandbox. The 3,000 backlinks to its blog probably has something to do with that ...

That said, I am not at all sure that this breaking down into percentages is useful, as you have to focus on all three elements: links (on and off site), content and optimization.

[kkharrison]

I agree with freelance designer, but do you really think such a high proportion to IBLs? Just a thought that great content would gain momentum and could be controlled...?

[haselhurst]

Hi all,
I think you need to include user behavior (which I think will become more significant in the future).
i.e. How long they stay at page, how many page views, did they add page to favorites, how many links they click on, etc.
Given Google analytics it makes sense they will use that data.

Cheers,
Geoff

[incrediblehelp]

You might find this interesting here:

The SEO Success Pyramid » Small Business SEM

[craigmn3]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

I'm not sure age of domain really matters any more ... I have seen a new site (less than 6 months old) come up to the top 10-20 for a highly competitive term recently and it is still climbing. No sandbox. The 3,000 backlinks to its blog probably has something to do with that ...

This was on Google? I was going to say that age might be rated higher. All the pages in my keyword for my top client "Above Ground Pools" all have a pretty solid domain age. But then again that age could also impact IBL's, one would think naturally links come with age.

All of these issues are so interelated i don't think this pie can be cut. Since staying in the top ten of google is a matter of a fraction of a percent difference between you and your competitors algorithm score, failing on one of these is a failure on all.

my two cents
worth every penny

[lukkyjay]

How big do you think domain NAME is? I've seen a lot of websites with keyword rich domain names without as many IBL's as the other sites on the first page of Google along with them.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

I'm not sure age of domain really matters any more

Are you suggesting that Google tossed both the age of the domain and the length of the most recent renewal term into their patent simply either as filler or to mislead?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by inertia

If we break the SEO process down in percentiles, what percentage do you think each SEO aspects occupies, with 100% being a perfectly optimised site?

Since there is no such thing as a "perfectly optimized site, presumably you mean what weight does a Search Engine give each factor.

Originally Posted by inertia

I would say Google is:

IBL Links: 45%
Content: 30%
Optimisation (title tags, keyword density, internal linking etc, meta): 20%
Trust / Domain Age: 5%
Other aspects / Validation: negligible %

As the 1st factor is extrinsic, with the remaining being intrinsic, you are saying that only 55% of the SERP is the result of the site's internal PR. Has Google made any statement(s) that would support this?

[MtraX]

I'm pretty sure that IBL and domain age go together as IBL also have an age aspect to them. There's way too many factors to just break it down into 4 or 5 aspects though. I think the SEOMOZ report is a pretty accurate starting point...

[fernimac]

Originally Posted by craigmn3

All of these issues are so interelated i don't think this pie can be cut. Since staying in the top ten of google is a matter of a fraction of a percent difference between you and your competitors algorithm score, failing on one of these is a failure on all.

I absolutely agree. What we cannot say, for instance, is that if you have a good title you have 10% of the positioning resolved. You need inbound links with an anchor text that is related to that title. And both of them must be related also to the content on the page. So, although the relative weight of each factor is different, you still need most of them to be right to obtaing good results.

[colincartwright]

Interesting idea, but a client of mine has had a site live now for 2 years, virtually no IBL's (they don't encourage them on purpose!!) and yet they rank in the top 4 on google for 5 out of their six sets of chosen keywords and in what is a real competetive market (If you put in their keyword terms, upwards of 225,000 results come back for almost all of them). So tell me agin how important IBL's are??

[chadhaajay]

I'd give 75% to good content and nice layout. Rest 25% I'll give to domain name, domain age & website traffic because if you have unique and attractive content on your website or blog, you will surely get incoming links from others either in terms of web-based links or email links.

I'm saying it from my own experience.

Sincerely,

Ajay Chadha (Director)
Chadha Software Technologies

[fernimac]

Originally Posted by colincartwright

Interesting idea, but a client of mine has had a site live now for 2 years, virtually no IBL's (they don't encourage them on purpose!!) and yet they rank in the top 4 on google for 5 out of their six sets of chosen keywords and in what is a real competetive market (If you put in their keyword terms, upwards of 225,000 results come back for almost all of them). So tell me agin how important IBL's are??

I don't think 225,000 results is a competitive market. Search for "piso en la Costa Blanca" (flat in Costa Blanca, Spain) with Google and you'll get 2,7M results. Now, that is a competitive market. If you don't get some IBL you're dead.

[thindenim]

Just to jump into the domain age argument for a second. My bands website has been up for about 10 years and I haven't touched it for 5. The optimisation is very spammy by todays standards, and the code is horrendous (remember this was done 5/6 years ago). There's only a few pages, hardly any content and very few in bound links.

Despite all that, it ranks 2nd in the uk for a search on they keyword "surround" (surround - Google Search), which has over 67 million results. I can only assume this is simply due to the length of time it has been there and the trust it has built.

[inertia]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Well, I like SeoMoz's survey of SEOs and their take on the weight of SEO elements.

MJ, i completely agree, this is the best SEO advice ive read and i regularly read through it as a pointer for my work.

Originally Posted by thindenim

Just to jump into the domain age argument for a second. My bands website has been up for about 10 years and I haven't touched it for 5. The optimisation is very spammy by todays standards, and the code is horrendous (remember this was done 5/6 years ago). There's only a few pages, hardly any content and very few in bound links.

Despite all that, it ranks 2nd in the uk for a search on they keyword "surround" (surround - Google Search), which has over 67 million results. I can only assume this is simply due to the length of time it has been there and the trust it has built.

This is my experience time and time again! There are so many sites that look like a front page job from 97 (not saying you band website does denim!), with no content or links but they are still ranking really high year after year. I am 100% positive that domain age is the only reason for this. When people say "my sites only 12 months old and its in the top 5 for everything!" they assume that domain age means nothing, but, this just proves that you can do well with only certain "pieces of the pie".

I completely agree that all the SEO factors are mutually reliant but it would seam that you can succeed just by having certain parts of "the pie" filled. The reason i use the pie analogy is because it is the way i explain SEO to a customer who knows nothing about SEO. Maybe in this situation the pie, being finite, is not right. and it should be...erm...a roast dinner coz all the ingredients separated are pointless (who wants to eat sprouts on their own!) but together it makes a great meal! And the more gravy (links) the better!!!

[colincartwright]

When you consider my client makes corrugated boxes and we get 225,000 plus results in the UK alone, then it is in fact a very competetive market as almost all the competition in his entire industry is there. Competetive is wholly relative and not just based on huge numbers.

There are only 21,500 companies in the UK making or selling what what he makes and they are almost all showing up - most with several pages indexed. He is listed between 1st and 4th on google in almost his entire market in the UK for all most commonly used keywords. Nothing has changed in last year or so despite no work being done on IBL's.

I'm just saying in this case, its obvious that the site and it content/keywords are keeping it at the top, not its IBL strategy. My guess therfore is that careful site design and content is worth more than some people seem to think.

[keywordguy]

One thing is for certain! The pie changes regularly and SEO/SEM by today's standards keeps me in "student" mode.

A point that is relevant to the conversation and often overlooked is "conversions". You can take the whole pie, achieve a #1 position, get lots of traffic, but not convert the visitor to a sale, subscription, etc.

As for domain name age, I have one domain with a #1 ranking on Google in a highly competitive space. I believe one of the key factors is the age of the domain and how long it has been online. I try to regulary get new domains active as quickly as possible to get the clock started.

As stated previously, SEO/SEM today is a sum of all the parts.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by craigmn3

This was on Google? I was going to say that age might be rated higher. All the pages in my keyword for my top client "Above Ground Pools" all have a pretty solid domain age. But then again that age could also impact IBL's, one would think naturally links come with age.

All of these issues are so interelated i don't think this pie can be cut. Since staying in the top ten of google is a matter of a fraction of a percent difference between you and your competitors algorithm score, failing on one of these is a failure on all.

my two cents
worth every penny

Cute sign off ... Craig, you really said what I was trying to express. It's not a pie, it's a souffle, and without the right ingredients (content?) and the right methods (optimization?) it won't be a success.

yes, this was on Google ... and I do think age counts ... but a huge surge of natural links to a site's blog that *is* providing unique content will make an impact even when the site is new.

Originally Posted by thindenim

Just to jump into the domain age argument for a second. My bands website has been up for about 10 years and I haven't touched it for 5. The optimisation is very spammy by todays standards, and the code is horrendous (remember this was done 5/6 years ago). There's only a few pages, hardly any content and very few in bound links.

Despite all that, it ranks 2nd in the uk for a search on they keyword "surround" (surround - Google Search), which has over 67 million results. I can only assume this is simply due to the length of time it has been there and the trust it has built.

Yes, and I just had a "similar" site redesigned with clean code and sparkling CSS and it has slipped from the top 5 to #7 or 8 ... very frustrating!

[datetopia]

If you make any of the SEO parts 0 (null) the overall SEO process is 0. Imagine you have no back links, or no content, or no internal links between pages, or your domain just expired . All SEO factors must be multiplied to reach a result.

Some factors might be more important than others, so probably when computing the overall SEO result you should use powers for each of the factors.

Anyway, the most important mathematic conclusion is that you have to invest in all areas. Given a limited number of resources (sum of work hours), to achieve the highest result by multiplication of parts, the factors must be well balanced (equal).

[Philomena Ojikutu]

Don't 'manufacture' a perfect machine out of Google. Google ain't perfect too. That is why our best SEO efforts at times are high probabilities which hit the bull's eye, and we cart home the prizes for our clients. (Of course, those repeated probables have over the years, become almost a certainty).

That is also why some SERP seem so incredulous you would wonder what came over the GOOGLE 'perfect' machine or her human spys.

[mtuba4u]

Originally Posted by inertia

Here's an interesting idea!

If we break the SEO process down in percentiles, what percentage do you think each SEO aspects occupies, with 100% being a perfectly optimised site? Obviously this is going to change between search engines so lets stick to the big 3.

I would say Google is:

IBL Links: 45%
Content: 30%
Optimisation (title tags, keyword density, internal linking etc, meta): 20%
Trust / Domain Age: 5%
Other aspects / Validation: negligible %

After doing this i realised...its HARD!

As far as Yahoo and MSN goes, I'm not too sure and your thoughts will probably educate me a little.

What about out bound links and the relationship between the 2 sites in Question?

For a good well optimised site I would say that links form a big part, especialy the relationship between in bound and out bound links, with internal links also making waves and ripples within the search engines algorythm.

The content of a page is vital, but sites with ZERO CONTENT do often feature well, an example is http://isimangalsio.com for the word isimangaliso at number one in google for a zero content home page, and very few inbound links, if any.

Having key words in your domain name is also a very big plus, and what percentage would you give to that ?

[joncase]

Originally Posted by inertia

The reason i use the pie analogy is because it is the way i explain SEO to a customer who knows nothing about SEO. Maybe in this situation the pie, being finite, is not right. and it should be...erm...a roast dinner coz all the ingredients separated are pointless

I understand your original premise and your approach to trying to explain SEO to clients. I use a less reasoned explanation. I tell them that there are about a 100 individual factors in SEO to get good rankings, each one being about 1%. I do this because I have found if I emphasis one factor, they zero in on that and wonder why someone who, for example, has fewer IBLs has a higher rank. I can also encourage them to do the less "fun" things to get their site better rankings even if they are less crucial. If we have optimized their site very well and someone is ahead of them in rankings, I tell the client, "They nailed 98 of them and you 96---let's go after those 4 things we need to improve on and get a hundred."

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by joncase

I understand your original premise and your approach to trying to explain SEO to clients. I use a less reasoned explanation. I tell them that there are about a 100 individual factors in SEO to get good rankings, each one being about 1%. I do this because I have found if I emphasis one factor, they zero in on that and wonder why someone who, for example, has fewer IBLs has a higher rank. I can also encourage them to do the less "fun" things to get their site better rankings even if they are less crucial. If we have optimized their site very well and someone is ahead of them in rankings, I tell the client, "They nailed 98 of them and you 96---let's go after those 4 things we need to improve on and get a hundred."

Thanks for sharing that, Jon. That is a very effective way to illustrate SEO to clients, and so beautifully addresses the tendency you mention to focus on one element. (Rep points added!)

BTW, folks, the site with 3,000 backlinks I refer to above is one of Jon's client sites.

[ddwebguru]

Oh! it's a wonderful post, special thanks to - incrediblehelp the moderator and MJ for the links.

Deb

[thindenim]

I think we are all missing the important question here...

What flavour is this SEO pie.... Cherry? Apple? Perhaps it's savoury, chicken perhaps?

Sorry... I'm having one of *those* days.

[Webnauts]

I would not take this list SEOmoz | Google Search Engine Ranking Factors for accurate or up-to-date.

[inertia]

Which parts of this list do you disagree with?