Now we know: Here are Google’s top 3 search ranking factors

Wondering what factors help you rank better on Google? For the first time, we have a top three list: links, content and RankBrain.

We knew last year that RankBrain was said by Google to be the third most important ranking factor, but Google refused to say what the first two were. Yesterday, in a Q&A with Google, Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, said the other two factors were links and content:

I can tell you what they are. It is content. And it’s links pointing to your site.

He wouldn’t say which was more important, so the top three list now looks like this:

1 & 2: Links & Content
3: RankBrain

Of course, Google looks at many other factors, such as those on our Periodic Table Of Ranking Factors. Links, Content and RankBrain themselves each are made up of many subfactors. But these are the overall top three, officially confirmed by Google itself.

Here is the video embed:

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.