As an SEO, you need to be aware of how and why Google is changing. Lately, they’ve been unveiling their new search result screen to some viewers. And as usual, they have been changing the way content on your site is scored.
A lot of what you’ve been told is wrong. You probably heard that h1 tags bring a whole ton of weight…wrong. Try an h5 tag instead. From some empirical evidence I’ve gathered, you can see below just how some of the changes are taking place and what they mean…
* Link to relevant websites is WAY more valuable than it used to be.
* blockquote finally demoted from top 5 to 27. ouch!
* h1 makes a comeback! … but is still more than half way down the list.
* p makes a comeback! Span, Div, A, H1-6 are on the decline!
* 40+ tags fall from the test SERPs! Which probably means there may be a new factor or limitation in play for sites.
* I am surprised to see HTML comments made the cut when so many other tags did not. Still not worth much priority though.
* SERP Quirking is back! Use caption to get multiple links for same page.
Key
——————————–
parent tag > child tag
tag.attribute
(tag incarnation).attribute
Rank Placement
—- —————————–
01 title
02 samp
03 acronym
04 linking to relevant pages
05 a.href
06 p
07 pre
08 inside a textarea
09 kbd
10 caption
11 small
12 code
13 strong
14 sub
15 u
16 center
17 cite
18 big
19 font
20 bdo
21 em
22 legend
23 button
24 table > thead > tr > td
25 abbr
26 address
27 blockquote
28 caption
29 div
30 span
31 del
32 ul > li
33 strike
34 ins
35 sup
36 dfn
37 body
38 tt
39 table > tr > td
40 dt
41 h1
42 i
43 s
44 h3
45 a
46 img.alt
47 select > option
48 object > param.name
49 object > param.value
50 input.value
51 (meta:keywords).content
52 (meta:description).content
53 (meta:author).content
54 URL
55 b
56 HTML comments
