SEO guide · checked November 2026
SEO ranking factors, sorted by what we can prove
Google ranks a page on how well it answers the search, how far it can trust the site, and how people respond once they click. Links, speed and markup still count, mostly as tie-breakers. Here is what Google has confirmed, what the 2024 leak and the US antitrust trial added, and where we would put the effort on a small business site.
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The factor map
How sure can anyone be about a ranking factor?
Not very, if they hand you a score out of ten. Google does not publish weights. It publishes a list of ranking systems and a set of guidelines, and a federal antitrust trial and a 2024 documentation leak filled in some of the gaps.
Columns show where the evidence comes from. Rows are our judgement for a typical local service business, not a number from Google.
The left column is the safe place to spend money. The middle column settles arguments SEOs had for years: Google does record how people behave on its results, and it does hold site-wide signals, even though it spent a long time saying otherwise. The right column is where a lot of SEO budget still disappears.
From Google
What has Google actually confirmed?
Seventeen ranking systems in current use, according to its own guide. Grouped by what they do, most of them are about understanding language, not ticking boxes on a page.
Working out what the search means
- BERT
- Neural matching
- RankBrain
- Passage ranking
- MUM
Judging quality and reliability
- Reliable information
- Reviews
- Original content
- Link analysis and PageRank
Keeping results fresh and varied
- Freshness
- Deduplication
- Site diversity
- Local news
- Crisis information
Removing junk
- Spam detection (SpamBrain)
- Removal-based demotion
- Exact match domain
Source: A guide to Google Search ranking systems, Google Search Central, last updated 10 December 2025, checked November 2026. Dark tile: the system most SEO advice is built around.
PageRank, the link system Google was built on, is still described as a core system, so links have not stopped counting. They just matter less than they did. Gary Illyes of Google told a Pubcon audience in 2023 that links are no longer a top three factor and that people overestimate them. Both things are true at once: links help, and they will not rescue a page that does not answer the search.
What came out in court
What did the leak and the trial add?
Proof that clicks feed rankings. Google vice president Pandu Nayak testified in United States v. Google that a system called NavBoost has used click data since about 2005, and the internal API documents that leaked in 2024 described it in more detail.
goodClicks, badClicks and lastLongestClickssiteAuthoritychrome_trans_clickshostAge attribute and references to sandboxing new contentSources: 2024 Google Search documentation leak (summary of the Content Warehouse API files and Google's 29 May 2024 confirmation) and testimony by Google VP Pandu Nayak in United States v. Google. Checked November 2026.
Google confirmed the documents were genuine on 29 May 2024, and warned against conclusions drawn from “out-of-context, outdated, or incomplete information”. That is a fair warning. The files name what Google stores, not how much each item counts, and some fields may no longer be used.
The practical reading is still clear. A title that earns the click, and a page good enough that the person stops searching, are doing ranking work as well as sales work. The long click, where someone lands, finds what they needed and does not come back to Google, is the one to design for.
Speed and page experience
How much do Core Web Vitals matter?
Some, but less than most audit reports suggest. Google says it highly recommends good Core Web Vitals and that they line up with what its core systems reward. It has never said they outweigh relevance.
Thresholds from Google's Core Web Vitals report help page, measured at the 75th percentile of real visits on mobile and desktop separately. Checked November 2026.
Treat them as a floor, not a lever. A page in the red loses visitors before it loses rankings, and a page that is already green gains little from getting greener. If the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console lists poor URLs, fix those first. Past that point, the hours are better spent on content.
AI Overviews and AI Mode
Do AI Overviews change the factors?
Not the factors, but the payoff. Google says there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode: a page needs to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet, the same as any other result. What has changed is how many people click.
What people did on Google results pages, by visit
Source: Pew Research Center, 22 July 2025. Browsing data from 900 US adults, 68,879 searches.
Drop in clicks to the number one result when an AI Overview appears
Source: Ahrefs, 300,000 keywords, desktop click-through rate in December 2023 compared with December 2025.
For a local business, that shifts where the effort should go. Pages built around searches that end in choosing someone, such as quotes, bookings, prices and specific suburbs, still send people who pick up the phone. Pages that only explain a topic still build trust and get cited, but they send fewer visitors than the same ranking did in 2023.
Algorithm updates
Which updates moved rankings in 2025 and 2026?
Five core updates and five spam updates on Google’s Search Status Dashboard between March 2025 and October 2026. Each core update took between about 12 and 18 days to roll out.
of top three URLs changed position in the March 2026 core update, compared with December 2025
of top ten pages fell out of the top 100 altogether
Dates and rollout times: Google Search Status Dashboard, US Pacific time. Volatility figures: SE Ranking data reported by Search Engine Land. Checked November 2026.
In the March 2026 core update, official and institutional sites, specialist sites and established brands gained ground, while aggregators, directories and comparison sites lost it. That matches what Google tells site owners: pages that mostly summarise other pages, or exist to catch a search rather than help the person making it, are what the core systems keep pushing down.
Local search
What decides the local map results?
Relevance, distance and prominence. Google names those three for local results. For a business that serves an area, the map is often the result that gets the call, so this is where most local SEO work should go.
Relevance You control this
How well your Business Profile matches the search. Your primary category, the services you list and the website pages behind them.
Distance You cannot change it
How far you are from the person searching. Be wary of anyone selling a fix for it.
Prominence You can build it
How well known the business is. Google says the number of reviews and positive ratings feed into this, along with links and mentions.
Source: Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, Google Business Profile Help. Checked November 2026.
Our order of work
Where would we put the effort first?
For a local service business, roughly in this order. The first three cost time rather than money.
One page per job, written to answer it
A page for each service, and for each area you genuinely work in, that opens with the answer people want: what is involved, roughly what it costs, how long it takes. This is the relevance work, and it is most of the result.
Make the business easy to check
Real address and phone, ABN, licence numbers where your trade has them, an About page with actual people on it, and reviews you have earned. Google says trust is the part of E-E-A-T that counts most.
Win the click, then end the search
Titles and descriptions that match what the person typed, and pages good enough that they do not go back to Google for another option. This is the behaviour NavBoost records.
Fill in Google Business Profile properly
The right primary category, every service you offer, real photos and hours, and a steady habit of asking for reviews and replying to them.
Clear the technical floor
Every page that matters indexed, no broken internal links, and Core Web Vitals out of the red on mobile. Fix this once, then check it after every redesign.
Earn a few real links
Suppliers, trade associations, local press, sponsorships. A handful from businesses people have heard of is worth more than hundreds from sites nobody visits.
Wasted effort
Which ranking factors are myths?
These still turn up in audits and sales pitches. Google has said, in writing, that none of them helps.
Hitting a word count
Google says outright that it has no preferred word count. Long pages rank when the length is doing a job.
An E-E-A-T score
Google says E-E-A-T itself is not a specific ranking factor. It uses a mix of signals that line up with experience, expertise, authority and trust, and trust counts most.
Updating the date
Changing the date on a page that has not substantially changed is on Google’s list of warning signs for content made for search engines.
The meta keywords tag
Google has ignored it for web ranking since at least 2009. Leaving it in does no harm; filling it in does no good.
Your keyword in the domain
Google runs an exact match domain system specifically to limit the credit a domain like best-plumber-brisbane gets.
Hundreds of AI pages
Mass-producing pages mainly to rank, with or without AI, is scaled content abuse under Google’s spam policies. It is a penalty risk, not a shortcut.
Google spam policies, updated 28 August 2026
More of these, with the reasoning behind each, in on page SEO ranking myths.
Common questions
Ranking factor questions
Sources
Where these facts come from
- A guide to Google Search ranking systems, Google Search Central, updated 10 December 2025.
- Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content, Google Search Central, updated 5 October 2026.
- Spam policies for Google web search, Google Search Central, updated 28 August 2026.
- AI features and your website, Google Search Central, updated 10 December 2025.
- Understanding Core Web Vitals and Google search results, Google Search Central, updated 10 December 2025.
- Google Search core updates and your website, Google Search Central, updated 10 December 2025.
- Core Web Vitals report, Search Console Help.
- Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, Google Business Profile Help.
- Google Search Status Dashboard: ranking, Google.
- 2024 Google Search documentation leak, Wikipedia summary with primary references.
- Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears, Pew Research Center, 22 July 2025.
- AI Overviews reduce clicks by 58%, Ahrefs, 4 February 2026.
- March 2026 Google core update more volatile than December, Search Engine Land.
- Links are not a top 3 Google Search ranking factor, says Gary Illyes, Search Engine Land, 2023.
All sources checked November 2026.
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