As mentioned, there are reportedly over 200 technical elements considered with the Google Algorithm. Some are suspected but not proven, and some are undeniably true. We will cover some of those here in no particular order.
Site Architecture
Search engines can enter a website from any page at any level. One of the signals they use to understand how each page of content fits together into the overall structure of the site is the URL path or web address. The most successful sites map their content into a logical folder structure or hierarchy. Each main topic should live in the root domain, and each level deeper gets more specific within that same topic. Example: website.com/main-topic/sub-topic/detailed-topic. The least successful site has a URL path that is flat or all over the place with no structure.
Crawlability
How a website is hosted, developed, and programmed has a significantly impacts on a search engine’s ability to crawl and index a website. In short, crawlers need to be able to reach every page of a website through the navigational structures and be able to fully read the content of all essential SEO-related elements. If not, entire pages may be rendered uncrawlable or unreadable.
One of the biggest culprits today is the overuse of Javascript functionality. Google proposes to be able to index JS, but that is only simple scripting. Single Page Applications using platforms such as Angular JS, React, Ember, Vue, and others are great for making client-side functionality much faster and easier but can render a website or page completely unreadable to search engines.
Internal Linking
When search engines crawl a webpage, they gather and store all essential information and store it in their databases. Among those elements are URL string, metadata, content, images, and links within the page.
It is also important where they find these internal links. Search engines expect to find sitewide structures such as header, footer, or side rail navigation throughout a website. They also expect to find sub-nav structures, such as links that run through a specific section of the website.
They also look for links that are placed within the content body itself, as well as the anchor text used in the link. Because these are only found within a specific page content, they are considered more authoritative and relevant to the page subject. For example, when a blog covers a topic that speaks to a specific topic and includes a link to the product page, there is an extra measure of authority given to those pages.
Mobile Usability
There is no more relevant topic today than mobile usability. While Google began moving web owners towards mobile years ago, they just recently provided an official statement that as of July 5, 2024, a site that is not mobile-friendly will not be indexed. Now, Google has been known to make idle threats in the past. But it does speak to its importance. This is because our society has never been more mobile focused. Nearly every adult has a smartphone now, and more computing power in their hands than our personal computers had 20 years ago.
The bottom line is, if your website does not render effectively on a mobile device, you are likely to lose that visit within seconds. Google watches click through engagement, or how many times a searcher bounces back to the search results, and the algorithm is likely to devalue your website for it.
Page load speed
The speed at which a webpage loads significantly impacts performance with the search engines. It’s crucial to review page load speeds at various depths of the website to ensure that pages load quickly in a web browser. If they don’t, we risk having visitors bounce from the website. Many factors contribute to page load speed, including server response times, code efficiency, extremely large images, plugins, or widgets such as slideshows, which can slow load time down. When I check speeds, I go directly to the source Google PageSpeed Insights.
Robots.txt
The Robots Exclusion Protocol was created way back in 1994 by Martijn Koster after his website was overwhelmed by random web crawlers. Robots.txt has been used ever since to control access and manage server resources. Rules can be set that limit access to only appropriate pages and folders or exclude them altogether if they are too aggressive. While this is a very useful tool, it can cause significant damage if used incorrectly. I have seen essential sections of a website, and in some cases, the entire website, blocked from search engine access.
Structured data (Schema)
Back in 2011, the major search engines joined together to create Schema.org as a way to standardize the classification of types of data commonly found across the internet. They agreed on a single syntax that would make it fast and easy for search engines to understand. While they each use that data to render in their results pages differently, webmasters can benefit by leveraging this syntax and partake in the special features that are created. One of these special features is Google’s Knowledge Graph, which acts as a brochure for a person or organization on the right rail of the search results.
Site Security
Search engines, especially Google, have taken a giant step to protect customers from any nefarious activity from sites that may find themselves listed in the search engine results pages (SERPs). It is now a standard to implement a secure socket layer (SSL) to ensure that any personal data that is entered into a webpage is encrypted and as secure as possible. Google now shows a red alert for sites that have forms or take personal info but are not secure.
These are just a few of the technical elements that significantly impact on organic search performance.