The 8 SEO Ranking Factors 131 Experts Say Matter Most

The top 8 SEO ranking factors selected by experts

The percentages below show the share of respondents who named each factor as one of their top three.

Rank	Factor	Share of respondents	What to check
1	Relevance	57.1%	Does the page and its format match the searcher's goal?
2	Backlinks	54.8%	Do relevant sites with real audiences have a reason to link to it?
3	Content quality	47.6%	Is the content original, accurate, current, and supported by evidence?
4	Authority and trust	36.5%	Can readers verify the publisher, author, experience, and reputation?
5	Behavior and click signals	29.4%	Can visitors complete the task they came to do?
6	Brand signals	27.0%	Are brand information, external mentions, and branded searches consistent?
7	User satisfaction	19.8%	Does the page give readers the information they need?
8	Technical SEO health	17.5%	Are crawling, indexing, and canonical signals working correctly?

These figures come from the original Zyppy survey. Technical SEO ranking eighth does not mean it can wait. If a page cannot be crawled or indexed, improvements to relevance and content quality cannot be assessed. Technical SEO is the foundation that allows other work to have an effect.

Publish pages that match search intent

Relevance was the most frequently named factor. A relevant page gives searchers the information they need in the format that suits their intent.

Someone looking for an SEO service may want pricing, a comparison of service scope, or help diagnosing poor performance. Those are different jobs, and they need different pages. Review the result format, the decision the searcher is trying to make, and whether the answer and its conditions appear near the beginning of the page.

Links and internal links cannot compensate for a page that does not meet the underlying intent. Before planning a new article, define what a reader should be able to decide after reading it.

Earn links by giving people a reason to cite you

Backlinks were named by 54.8% of respondents. Buying links or building unrelated reciprocal links is not a recommended way to increase the count. The survey emphasizes links from trusted sites and topically relevant pages.

Information that gives another publisher a reason to link can include:

• First-party research with its methodology and date
• Anonymized comparisons or lessons from real work
• Decision criteria based on primary documentation
• Pricing, specifications, or local information that is kept current

Do not report only the number of links earned. Check whether the linking page had a clear reason to refer readers to the information.

Add original research and expert evidence to content

Content quality ranked third at 47.6%. In the survey, original research and first-party data were among the leading content-quality signals. When AI makes it easy to publish large volumes of similar articles, simply restating existing information does not distinguish a page.

When publishing expert comments, do more than list credentials. State who was asked, what they were asked, their area of expertise, when they responded, and the conditions behind their answer. If experts disagree, explain the conditions that lead to different conclusions.

When publishing a survey or first-party data, include the following information.

Include	Details
Audience	Number of respondents, attributes, regions, and industries
Timing	Fieldwork and reporting period
Method	Questions, response format, and collection method
Calculation	Denominator, exclusions, and treatment of multiple responses
Limitations	Sample bias, self-reported data, and the limits of application

Google's people-first content guidance asks publishers to consider whether a page offers original information, reporting, research, or analysis, and whether it makes the expertise behind the content clear.

Keep AI search work grounded in SEO basics

Google says that appearing in its generative search features does not require special markup or special optimization. Prioritize the basics of SEO for AI search, too. See Google's guide to AI features in Search for the current guidance.

Check that pages can be crawled and indexed, that the answer and its evidence are available in the page content, and that experience, first-party data, and author information can be verified. Adding llms.txt or structured data alone does not guarantee visibility or citation.

Use five areas in SEO reporting

Rankings and sessions alone do not show whether a problem comes from relevance, content value, external trust, or business outcomes.

Reporting area	What to record
Intent match	Target page, result format, CTR, and on-page path
Content quality	New first-party information, changes made, and source review date
External validation	Relevant links, mentions, and the context of coverage
Technical health	Indexing status, canonical signals, robots directives, and errors
Business outcomes	Leads, sales opportunities, revenue, and the pages involved

AI search visibility also needs its own context. Google's Search Console generative AI performance report records when links to a site appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode. It does not report clicks or conversions. Review it alongside GA4 and business records. See how to check AI Overview and AI Mode visibility in Search Console for details.

For the separate metrics used to track mentions, citations, competitive share, and AI referral traffic, see our guide to measuring AI search visibility.

Summary

Among 131 SEO professionals, relevance, backlinks, and content quality were the three most frequently named ranking factors. The survey reports practitioner views, while Google's ranking systems require separate page-level analysis. Use it to decide where to investigate first.

Build pages that answer a real question, contribute original research or expert evidence, and give relevant third parties a reason to cite them. Then verify that search engines can access the page. Please Cite Me! audits a public URL for technical access, the questions its content answers, and the evidence and specificity it provides.