Ranking: what we know and what is myth

Module 1: How search engines work · Reading time: 12 minutes

Learning objective: After this lesson you can explain what Google and Bing themselves say about how they rank results, and you can recognise the best-known SEO myths and debunk them with a source.

Key concepts: ranking, meaning, relevance, quality, usability, context, ranking systems, people-first content, E-E-A-T, PageRank, meta keywords, ads, AI answers, Bing's ranking factors

Nobody knows the formula, but a lot is known

Ranking attracts more fantasy than any other topic in this course. Online you'll find lists of "200 ranking factors" and percentages for how much a factor "weighs". None of those lists come from Google. Google doesn't publish the formula, and it changes its systems all the time.

What Google and Bing do publish is enough to make good choices. In this lesson we stick to what they write themselves. Every claim is listed with its source under Further reading.

What Google says: five questions

On its public explainer "How Google Search works", Google names five types of signals that decide which results you see. You can read them as five questions Google asks for every search:

What does the searcher mean? (meaning) Google first tries to understand the intent behind the words: correcting typos, recognising synonyms, understanding that "bloemist open zondag" (florist open Sunday) is about opening hours.
Which pages are about this? (relevance) The simplest signal is that the page contains the words of the search, in the text or in the headings. But Google looks beyond single words: a page about dog breeds that only has the word "dogs" on it isn't relevant enough.
Which pages are the most reliable? (quality) Google looks for signals of expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Google names links from well-known, trustworthy sites as one of those signals.
Which pages are the most pleasant to use? (usability) When other signals are roughly equal, an accessible, fast page that works well on a phone may rank higher.
What suits this person right now? (context) Location, language, search history and settings. That's why you see different results from your colleague in Rotterdam.

Note what isn't there: no number, no weight, no trick. And note the words "when other signals are equal" for usability: a fast site with a poor answer won't beat a slightly slower site with the best answer.

The ranking systems

If you want a slightly more technical look: Google has a public guide to the ranking systems it uses. A few examples from that list:

System	What it does according to Google
Link analysis and PageRank	Looks at how pages link to each other to understand what pages are about and which are useful
Freshness	Shows newer content for searches where that matters
Original news	Gives original reporting priority over pages that only quote it
Reviews system	Rewards thorough reviews with original research and expertise
Spam detection (SpamBrain)	Recognises content and behaviour that breaks the spam policies
Site diversity	Usually shows no more than two results from the same site at the top
Deduplication	Shows only the most relevant of very similar results
Exact match domain	Stops a domain like `bloemist-amersfoort-goedkoop.example` from ranking high just because of its name

The "helpful content system" you read about in older articles no longer exists as a separate system since March 2024: Google has built it into its core ranking. The idea behind it remains.

People-first content

Google sums up its content advice as content made primarily for people, not to manipulate search results (people-first content). Google asks three questions about your page:

Who created it? Is that clear to the reader?
How was it created? For example: are there original photos, original tests, and was AI used?
Why does this page exist? Google calls this perhaps the most important question. The right answer is: to help visitors, not primarily to attract traffic from search engines.

You'll often come across the abbreviation E-E-A-T: experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. Google uses those words, but also says explicitly that E-E-A-T itself is not a specific ranking factor. It's a way of thinking about quality. According to Google, trust is the most important of the four. Module 7 covers this in more detail.

What Bing says

In its Webmaster Guidelines, Bing describes six areas it looks at: relevance, quality and credibility, user engagement (for example whether searchers quickly come back after a click), freshness, location and page load time. That's very similar to what Google says. So good work for one is good work for the other. Bing doesn't give weights either.

Myths

Now the fun part. You still regularly hear each of these claims. Google contradicts them itself in its documentation.

Myth	What Google says
"Put your keywords in the meta keywords."	Google doesn't use the `keywords` meta tag; it has no effect on indexing and ranking.
"A page needs at least 1,000 words."	The length of the content alone doesn't matter for ranking; there's no ideal word count.
"Your headings must be exactly in the order h1, h2, h3, or Google will penalise you."	The order doesn't matter to Google, and there's no ideal number of headings. A logical order is good for readers and screen readers, though (lesson 3.2).
"A keyword in your domain name gets you to the top."	Keywords in the domain name or URL have hardly any effect, other than appearing in the breadcrumb. Choose a name that suits your business.
"Duplicate content gets you a penalty."	Duplicate content on your own site isn't a violation of the spam policies and doesn't lead to a manual action (lesson 1.3). Copying from others is a different matter.
"Advertising with Google helps your organic position."	Organic results aren't influenced by ads (lesson 1.1).
"You need special AI SEO for AI Overviews."	There are no extra requirements and no special optimisations needed.
"Links are the only thing that counts."	PageRank is one of many signals.

A few other claims sound like myths but are actually facts. "Google may take weeks or months to show changes": true, some changes are visible after a few hours, others only after months. "A .nl domain helps with Dutch visitors": according to Google, the country domain only counts if you target a specific country, and even then usually only a little.

In practice: what you do with this

Bloemenatelier Lotte wants to rank higher for "bloemist amersfoort" (florist amersfoort). What follows from this lesson?

Meaning and relevance: a page that's really about flowers in Amersfoort, with the town name, the range, delivery and opening hours. Not "bloemist amersfoort" ten times in one paragraph.
Quality: her own photos of her own work, who Lotte is, genuine reviews, clear contact details. Mentions and links from the local business association or a wedding venue where she often works.
Usability: a site that's fast and works well on a phone.
Context: a Google Business Profile, because for a search with a town name Google often shows a map (module 6).

None of these points is a trick, and each one also helps a visitor who never comes via Google.

Summary

Google doesn't publish a formula; lists of "200 factors" and weights don't come from Google.
Google names five types of signals: meaning, relevance, quality, usability and context. Bing names six similar ones.
E-E-A-T is a way of thinking about quality, not a separate ranking factor; trust carries the most weight.
Meta keywords, a minimum word count, keywords in your domain name and advertising don't help.
The same basic rules apply to Google's AI Overviews as to normal results.

Quiz

Exercise

Exercise A1.4: Fact or myth? Open the sample file feit-of-fabel.md with ten claims about Google. For each claim, choose "fact" or "myth". The program compares your answers with the fixed answer key and shows the explanation and the source for every mistake. Eight or more correct is green.

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