4.4. Organic Ranking Factors

You already know that search engines use complicated secret formulas, called ranking algorithms, to determine the order of their results. You even know from Chapter 3, "Eternal Truths of SEO," that some of the most Eternally Important factors are your web page text and your HTML title tags. Now we're going to wrap what you already know into an organic optimization cheat sheet that you can peek at next time someone asks you, "What do search engines care about, anyway?"

But first, a disclaimer: There are radically differing opinions within the SEO community about what works and what's important. The SEO profession is an upstart one, with no degrees to be earned or widely accepted canon of literature (and if there were, ...

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