Data leaks from Google: How the algorithm works

New documents from inside Google reveal the most important factors Google uses to rank websites in its search engine.

Google keeps its cards close to its chest about how its algorithm works. But now thousands of documents revealing just that have been leaked.

The document shows what factors Google uses to rank websites against each other in the results list. And that's obviously useful to know when you're competing to come out on top.

The thumb is that the first result in the list (after ads) gets around 30 percent of the traffic.

Much of what emerges is well known to SEO people from before. While other things seem to go against what has been said before. We have marked these with "previously rejected" below.

Some of the things that affect your ranking:

• Good page titles with the right keywords

• Click rate (share of clicks) from the result list (previously rejected)

• How long people spend on the website when they come in from search (previously rejected)

• Loading time on the website

• Good navigation and logical structure

• Relevant links to and from others

• The authority of your domain (previously denied)

• Local domain - use .no in Norway

• Author names on articles provide authority (previously rejected)

• Publication date - the website should be "fresh"

Admittedly, the documents do not provide answers to how the various factors are weighted, but it is still useful for those of us who work with SEO to confirm that much of what we know is correct.

Of course, there are more technical details than we have room for here, but that's for another time.

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