Izzi Smith posted a Twitter poll asking "does something being a "confirmed ranking factor" help you get optimisations approved internally?" The responses were fun, where 42% of those who responded said yes.
Here is the poll on Twitter:
QQ - does something being a "confirmed ranking factor" help you get optimisations approved internally?
— Izzi Smith (@izzionfire) August 4, 2020
I love the response "Yes, so I lie sometimes."
A couple of weeks ago, I added to my to-do writing list to write a story named SEO myth-busting: What is not a Google search ranking factor which I published a couple of days ago at Search Engine Land. It was fun and it wasn't hard to put together because I just did a site command on this site for [not a ranking factor]. Here is the brief list but there are more links and sources in the original story:
Not Google ranking factors include search quality raters guidelines ratings, Google Ads, social media mentions or likes, click-through rates from search results, pogosticking back to the search results page, dwell time on a page, bounce rate, user engagement data on your web pages, user behavior, chrome data outside of core web vitals, Google Analytics data, toolbar data, traffic on a web site, shopping cart abandonment, E-A-T, responsive design, AMP, content accuracy, author bios, structured data markup, word count, outbound links, product prices, URL length, accessibility, stars, ratings and reviews, Better Business Bureau, trust organizations and badges, domain age, 3D & AR images, email newsletter sign ups, Google+ 1s, real life user signals, higher page counts, content frequency, Moz domain authority, and more.
Note, this list is based on what Google representatives said were not ranking factors over the years. Some feel Googlers lie.
There is also this thread on Twitter from Jeff Ferguson with cute ideas:
If we could have a scorecard-like list of long-debunked ranking factor theories that reemerge over and over again that we could specifically and regularly have @JohnMu and @methode of @GoogleWMC confirm are not a factor, what should be on the list? #SEO pic.twitter.com/IHQLeS27e6
— Jeff Ferguson (@CountXero) July 30, 2020
So even if you think knowing what signals or factors influence the Google algorithm, if you believe them to be true or not is another thing.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
