With countless studies and theories of what search engines are doing and how their algorithm works, I was thinking it's time we should talk about how they should work. Search Engine Relevancy methodology follows the idea of user first and so should the search engines.
When a search engine first sees your page they should look at the most relevant aspect of the page first. I will break down the best approach an engine should take for on page factors.
1: Font size with headers: It is hard to manipulate a search engine while leading your visitors in some other direction. If the biggest part of the page is your H1 tag or strong heading then the visitor should know this is a valid page for their search.
2: H1 and Title Relevance: The next aspect of a page that that can trick a visitor is the title tag. If this tag says one thing and the page has nothing to do with it then you have again lead your visitor down a spamming wrong path. The H1 and title should have similar keywords and meaning. Just like any term paper should have a title and table of contents with headers for each section.
3: Body Text Beyond the Navigation: After the search engines have identified that the title and H1/header tags as having relevant similarities, then the next place to look should be the body text beyond the top and left side navigation. Does the body text have random uses of the keyword with some synonyms? We know SE's can identify natural writing. It should also determine if the body text word count is greater then link, header and navigation/alt tag word use. Any real page of information will have a greater emphasis on body/meat of the page wording.
4: Body Text Linking: As the body text is analyzed search engines should come across relevant keyword anchor text links. These links should link to related pages that follow the same above guidelines. Plus there should be relevant outbound links to authority sites. If you are willing to link out to more resources that shows greater authority status for your page. A site that gives more avenues for information should be seen as more powerful and more of a relevant search.
5: Alt Text on Image links: If you have buttons or images that link out to related pages you should use alt tags to describe the image or destination. The alt tag was made for the blind, but it is also good to use for link identification. People like to also know what the image is and how it relates to the page and information. It makes logical sense to use the alt attribute to clear that up.
There are many other factors that can increase the relevancy of a page, but if the search engines follow this initial approach they will get a clear idea of what the page is about and be able to tell if it is a valid source for information or just a junk page created for the search engines.
Next: Google Second Indexing Cycle and Off Page Factors
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