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Google's search algorithm
Google is a great way to reach your target audience, but how does its search algorithm really work? Learn how Google ranks search results and how you can use strategies to control how, when, and where your customers will find your website. This exhibit recommends the best guides, SEO templates, apps to use, and people to follow.
The essentials
Diving deeper
Wanderlust
Tidbits
Relevant people
Downloadables
Apps and websites
Glossary
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How Google reads your website
The robots.txt file is how Google reads your webpage. It's important to set this up correctly when you're launching a new website. This guide covers all the ways to use robots.txt.
20 min read
Joost de Valk, Yoast
The essentials
3
Joost de Valk, Yoast
How the Google search algorithm works
Get it straight from the source – Google’s starter guide for Search Engine Optimisation. Who better to explain it than the search engine themselves?
3 min read
Google Search Central
The essentials
1
Google Search Central
Top 200 factors that affect your rank on Google
Domain factors, page load speed, brand signals, and backlinks are just a few of the factors Google uses to determine search engine rankings. This article walks you through the top 200 in an easy and to-the-point way.
2 hour read
Brian Dean, Backlinko
The essentials
2
Brian Dean, Backlinko
Find the best keywords for your website's content
Research, identify, and use keywords that drive organic traffic and conversions.
10 min watch
Ahrefs, YouTube
The essentials
4
Ahrefs, YouTube
SEO vs. SEM
SEO focuses on organic (unpaid) traffic, and SEM revolves around paid ads. Compare the two against placement, targeting options, time to results, and long-term value.
7 min watch
LYFE Marketing, YouTube
The essentials
5
LYFE Marketing, YouTube
Python for SEO
Internal link analysis, predictive pre-fetching, and even image captioning – the possibilities for using Python in SEO are endless.
14 min read
Ruth Everett, Search Engine Journal
Diving deeper
8
Ruth Everett, Search Engine Journal
Run a SEO competitor analysis to find content opportunities
Identify gaps in the content market, understand what SEO tasks are worth prioritising, and learn what works and what doesn't in your industry.
20 min read
Joshua Hardwick, AhRefs
Diving deeper
6
Joshua Hardwick, AhRefs
Design a pipeline for quality content marketing
Get clarity around who your customers really are and what they want to be reading. Learn how to build a model that facilitates content ideation, optimisation, promotion, and analytics.
14 min read
Airtable
Diving deeper
4
Airtable
Why page rankings keep changing
Search rankings fluctuate for a number of reasons. Read about why it happens and why it's a good idea to focus on other metrics too.
5 min read
Tony Wright, Search Engine Journal
Diving deeper
1
Tony Wright, Search Engine Journal
SEO tips for pages with videos
Practical tips to make sure your videos are discovered on Google's search engine.
5 min read
Ann Smarty, Newhorizons123
Diving deeper
7
Ann Smarty, Newhorizons123
Remove unwanted links to your website (Google Disavow)
Spammy links can damage your website’s SEO if you don’t remove them – that’s where Google’s Disavow Tool comes in.
10 min read
Neil Patel, Neil Patel
Diving deeper
3
Neil Patel, Neil Patel
Do domain names help your page rank?
Domain names once had a huge impact on your website's ranking. That's no longer the case. Read about how domain names and other domain factors impact your SEO rankings.
5 min read
Ann Smarty, PracticalEcommerce
Diving deeper
0
Ann Smarty, PracticalEcommerce
Audit a website's SEO performance
Chase walks us through his site audit process for an actual client with real data. He shares free tools, downloadable templates, and a step-by-step breakdown of running a site audit.
1 hour watch
Chase Reiner, YouTube
Diving deeper
2
Chase Reiner, YouTube
Google Analytics for measuring SEO performance
Google Analytics helps you get insight into how people reach your website. Analytics and SEO go hand in hand – optimise for keywords, content, and conversions.
1 hour 40 min course
Google Skillshop
Diving deeper
5
Google Skillshop
Loopholes in Google's search algorithm (i.e. Black Hat strategies)
Black hat SEO practitioners use questionable methods to improve their website’s search engine rankings. Learn how.
7 min read
Adam Steele, Loganix
Wanderlust
3
Adam Steele, Loganix
Does Google rig the system to their own advantage?
In 2021, compliance teams found that Google was promoting their own products, mobile apps, and websites over competitors who rightfully earned a top spot on their search engine rankings. Now, the tech giant is being sued in the UK and the Netherlands for more anti-competitive adtech practices.
3 min read
Natasha Lomas, TechCrunch
Wanderlust
1
Natasha Lomas, TechCrunch
How AI will change SEO
AI is likely to significantly impact every aspect of SEO. From content creation to link building to analysis and even ranking predictions – AI will create new SEO strategies and job roles.
7 min read
Search Engine Land
Wanderlust
2
Search Engine Land
YouTube's search engine algorithm
YouTube is refreshingly transparent about the key indicators that the algorithm uses. The algorithm has two primary goals: to suggest videos that suit viewers and to keep viewers watching more videos. Explore the elements you can optimise to get more of the right viewers.
8 min read
Aristide, K6
Wanderlust
4
Aristide, K6
Title tags between 40 to 60 characters have the highest CTR.
Brian Dean, Backlinko
Tidbits
2
Brian Dean, Backlinko
The top 3 Google search results get 54.4% of all clicks.
Brian Dean, Backlinko
Tidbits
0
Brian Dean, Backlinko
At a minimum, you should spend 5% to 10% of your revenue on SEO.
Bruce Clay, Search Engine Journal
Tidbits
5
Bruce Clay, Search Engine Journal
106,132 Google searches take place every second.
Internet Live Stats
Tidbits
3
Internet Live Stats
Google made 4500 updates and ran 600,000 experiments on Google Search in 2020.
Search Engine Land
Tidbits
1
Search Engine Land
Neil Patel
Neil Patel shares regular tips on content, SEO, and digital marketing. He is the co-founder of Crazy Egg and Hello Bar. He helps companies like GM, HP, and Viacom grow their revenue. 
Follow on Twitter
@NeilPatel, Twitter
Relevant people
5
@NeilPatel, Twitter
Barry Schwartz
Barry runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced Search Engine Marketing (SEM) topics. He's also a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and owner of RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm.
Follow on Twitter
@RustyBrick, Twitter
Relevant people
4
@RustyBrick, Twitter
John Mueller
As Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller shares so many product updates and SEO insights it would be a full-time job to keep up. Mueller also assists SEO professionals each week, answering their questions in a live Q&A.
Follow on Twitter
@JohnMu, Twitter
Relevant people
1
@JohnMu, Twitter
Danny Sullivan
Danny is Google's public Search Liaison. His Tweets help people better understand search & helps Google better hear public feedback. 
Follow on Twitter
@DannySullivan, Twitter
Relevant people
6
@DannySullivan, Twitter
Larry Page & Sergey Brin
Co-founders of Google. Bloomberg Game Changers follows Sergey Brin and Larry Page from their first meeting at Stanford to the tech giant they've become. Along the way to Google's astounding success, the co-founders redefined advertising, mapping, news, and email.
30 min watch
Bloomberg Game Changers, IMDb
Relevant people
2
Bloomberg Game Changers, IMDb
Ann Smarty
Former editor-in-chief of Search Engine Journal and contributor to prominent search and social blogs including Small Biz Trends and Mashable. 
Follow on Twitter
@SEOsmarty, Twitter
Relevant people
3
@SEOsmarty, Twitter
Moz
Keyword research, link building, and rank tracking tools that sets the industry standards.
30 day free trial
Moz
Apps and websites
1
Moz
SEMRush
Technical SEO recommendations that you can apply immediately to your site.
7-day free trial
SEMRush
Apps and websites
2
SEMRush
AhRefs
Research your competitors' backlinks and keyword rankings with AhRefs' Site Explorer.
Starts at $99 annually
AhRefs
Apps and websites
3
AhRefs
Yoast SEO
An SEO WordPress plugin for beginners.
Free
Yoast
Apps and websites
4
Yoast
RankSense
Monitor and fix SEO issues and auto-generate snippets using AI.
7-day free trial
RankSense
Apps and websites
5
RankSense
Screaming Frog
Recommendations to optimise thousands of pages or multiple sites at once.
Free for 500 URLs
Screaming Frog
Apps and websites
6
Screaming Frog
STAT
Track performance of large scale SEO operations – whether you're juggling multiple sites, millions of pages, or just a ton of keywords.
Starts at $720 monthly
STAT
Apps and websites
7
STAT
Keyword and content performance dashboard
Plan content based on keyword research and track performance of your SEO efforts.
Download the spreadsheet
Hubspot
Downloadables
1
Hubspot
Page-by-page search engine optimisation
Manage SEO elements (e.g. keywords, HTML tags, page titles) for each page of your website based on industry best practices.
Download the spreadsheet
Hubspot
Downloadables
2
Hubspot
SEO checklist for local businesses
If your business depends on local traffic (e.g. retailer stores, restaurants, boutique agencies), this comprehensive local SEO cheat sheet will help you get more visibility on Google.
Download the PDF
Moz
Downloadables
3
Moz
SEO competitor analysis
Use this template to guide your own SEO competitor analysis. Includes tabs for domain analysis, keyword gap analysis, top content, and tracking rankings.
Download the spreadsheet
Moz
Downloadables
4
Moz
EMD - Exact Match Domain
A website name that precisely matches a search query (wholly or partly). For example, an EMD for the search query ‘buy cheap jeans’ can be "BuyCheapJeansOnline.com".
Search Engine Watch
Glossary
7
Search Engine Watch
CTR – Clickthrough Rate
CTR = number of clicks ÷ number of impressions CTR is the number of clicks that your ad or link receives divided by the number of times your ad or link is shown.
Google
Glossary
5
Google
Crawling
The discovery process in which Google sends out robots (known as crawlers or spiders) to find new and updated content.
Moz
Glossary
4
Moz
Indexing
The process by which Google's crawlers (Googlebot) store and categorise information and content they find on websites.
Growth Hack Scale
Glossary
10
Growth Hack Scale
Link building
The process of acquiring links from other websites to your own.
Moz
Glossary
13
Moz
Predictive pre-fetching
The loading of resources or links before a website visitor requests it. It helps optimise user experience and how fast a page loads.
Seobility
Glossary
16
Seobility
SEO - Search Engine Optimisation
The process of taking steps to help a website or piece of content rank higher on Google's search results, without paying for ads.
Neil Patel
Glossary
18
Neil Patel
Image captioning
The text that accompanies an image on a webpage.
Yoast
Glossary
9
Yoast
Content marketing
The process of planning, creating, distributing, sharing, and publishing written and visual materials via channels such as social media, blogs, websites, podcasts, apps, press releases, print publications, and more. The goal is to reach your target audience and increase brand awareness, sales, engagement, and loyalty.
Hubspot
Glossary
3
Hubspot
Anti-competition
Actions conducted by one or more businesses to make it difficult or impossible for other companies to enter or succeed in their market.
TechTarget
Glossary
1
TechTarget
HTML Tags
Bits of code that can be used to describe our content to search engines. We can use HTML tags to highlight the important parts of our content, to describe images, and even to give instructions to search engine bots.
SEO PowerSuite
Glossary
8
SEO PowerSuite
Internal links
Hyperlinks that point to pages on the same website. Internal links help Google find, index, and understand all of the pages on your site.
Backlinko
Glossary
11
Backlinko
Backlinks
Links from a page on one website to another website. If someone links to your site, then you have a backlink from them. If you link to another website, then they have a backlink from you.
AhRefs
Glossary
2
AhRefs
Keywords
Ideas and topics that define what your content is about. They're the words and phrases that searchers enter into search engines.
Moz
Glossary
12
Moz
On-page SEO (also called "on-site SEO")
The practice of optimising webpages to improve a website’s search engine rankings. In addition to publishing relevant, quality content, on-page SEO includes optimising your headlines, HTML tags (title, meta, and header), and images.
Search Engine Journal
Glossary
15
Search Engine Journal
Off-page SEO (also called "off-site SEO")
Actions taken outside of your own website to positively impact your search rankings on Google. This includes activities like social media marketing, guest blogging, and brand mentions.
Moz
Glossary
14
Moz
Disavow
The process of instructing Google to ignore spammy or unwanted links pointing to your site
Growth Hack Scale
Glossary
6
Growth Hack Scale
SEM - Search Engine Marketing
Using paid advertising to ensure that your brand is visible on search engine results pages (SERPs). When a user types in a certain keyword, SEM enables your business to appear as a result for that search query.
Hubspot
Glossary
17
Hubspot
SERPs – Search Engine Results Pages
Google’s response to someone's search query. SERPs tend to include organic search results, paid Google Ads results, Featured Snippets, and video results. When you type (or say) something to Google, the SERP is what you get back.
Backlinko
Glossary
19
Backlinko

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OKRs and KPIs
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