When a user enters a search query into a search engine, all of the pages deemed relevant from the index are identified, and an algorithm is used to hierarchically rank the relevant sites into a set of results. For each search engine, the algorithms are utilized to prioritize the most relevant results. For instance, a site whose content ranking mechanism is not as promising and useful on Bing as is on a Google search query.
The search engine algorithm aims to offer a relevant selection of high-quality search results that answer the user’s question as promptly as possible. The user then picks an option from the list of search results, and this action, along with further activity, feeds into future learning experiences, which might affect future search engine rankings.
On August 7th, Google launched a News Initiative Community News Summit. the virtual event brought together community-focused news organizations with industry leaders across the United States and Canada, to shed the light on the challenges faced by community-based news organizations face when running their businesses. Also, to help them determine their target audience and customize their services accordingly.
During a Q&A session, Danny Sullivan, Google’s search liaison and one of the first people to work in search engine optimization before joining Google, went ahead and answered some of the most important frequently asked questions about how content ranking works. In this article, we will be addressing Sullivan’s questions regarding search queries and content ranking mechanisms.
Table of Contents
Do Search Engines Like Google Consider Brand Status Over Quality Content?
Sullivan stressed the importance of, what he calls E.A.T: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness of content. The brand is not the main focus of search engine algorithms, whether you are a new publication or an industry, if your content meets the criteria, you have automatically achieved what algorithms look for. That kind of signals might not make much sense to human beings but it for sure aligns well with what you as a user is looking for.
How Is It Determined Who Has the Authority Over a Topic?
First, you might be wondering what does authoritative content even means? it is basically the content that provides the reader with the right level of subject expertise while demonstrating depth of content the target audience is meant to receive.
Now, search engines classify the authoritativeness of a topic through understanding the concept and notion behind a site. For example, ESPN, an American multinational sports media conglomerate, ranks #1 in the sports category for offering its audience an expert opinion on the latest events and major updates in the sports world.
Additionally, if your website is known for producing authority of content in a particular topic, then search engines will automatically start recognizing your website in its content ranking mechanism, therefore having the lead over other websites addressing the same topic.
How Does AMP Affect Ranking and Performance?
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is not the main contributor to your content ranking and using it won’t make your site skyrocket in search results. Site speed and positive user experience are the main factors through which sites achieve good rankings.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that using AMP is wrong or it would trash your ranking, if you want to use it to help increase your site speed then you can go ahead and implement it. Most importantly, you must focus on making sure that your website is delivering fast-loading content that it is providing a satisfying user experience.
How Do Articles Make It to the Discover Page?
First and foremost you need to understand the difference between a news page and a Discover page. Discover page is totally different from news, it has different systems that decide which content is displayed. Also, one of the main characteristics is that there is no query involved in trying to understand general interest. So, when a page has high expertise, authority, and trustworthiness that is when a piece of content is considered to appear on the Discover page.
If you think about it, most topics that are timely, focuses on current trending events, and have unique insights, are the stories that usually make it to the Discover page. In addition to having high-quality images and videos.
Read More: How Search Algorithms Work.
Now lets move on to some things you should consider when working on your Content Ranking Mechanisim…
One thing people always wonder about is how to boost their content? how to make rank better and show up on people’s search results? Well, search engines consider a variety of things when it comes to supporting your content to come to the surface. In the following few points, we explain to you what are the things that catch search engines’ eyes when they rank certain websites.
Relevance of Content
It is as simple as it seems. basically, is your content relevant to the topic someone used a few words to search for? especially when people are searching for a very specific topic, what your website has to fulfill the user’s wishes with trustworthy content.
Prominence of Your Story
Algorithms try to understand the importance of the story you are offering, that doesn’t mean that it has to be a big breaking headline. Instead, they try to process if there is a specific that is catching the eyes of the audience and that is being talked about constantly, in order to understand what stream needs to follow to put together the best piece of content.
Authoritativeness of a Content
Looking at how unique the perspective from which the piece of content is portrayed and how solid is that point of view, and will it actually serve the needs of the user.
Freshness of Content
Are you always keeping track of the latest breaking news? this is a question you should always ask yourself when you’re working on increasing your ranking on search engines. Keeping your content up to date with the trends and topics on the internet is major player search engines take into consideration when determining your page ranking over other websites.
Location Relevance
The location of the users plays a huge role in content ranking. For example: when someone searches for top Montessori Schools near me in English, while being in London, UK won’t be getting the same results as when someone in Amman, Jordan searches for Montessori schools.
Language
The same goes here when searching in certain languages. Two different people might be searching for the exact same topic but one used Arabic and the other used Portuguese, as you may already have guessed, they will come out with totally different search results.
Check Out: SEO Arabic Content Writing Services