Confirmed: Links, Content, & RankBrain Top 3 Ranking Factors
It may be a surprise to some, but Google has never actually confirmed what the top 3 most important things were for ranking on Google’s search engine.
Google’s Andrey Lipattsev confirmed that it’s links, content, and RankBrain.
I can tell you what they are. It is content. And it’s links pointing to your site.
He did not mention which was most important – links or content. So for the now, links and content are 1 and 2, and RankBrain is 3.
These are only the top 3. There are many many other factors that go into determining what ranks higher than others. If you’re curious, here’s a fairly comprehensive list. They’re not ranked in any particular order, but will give you an overall sense of if they’re real factors or not.
It’s also important to note that each of those top 3 also have their own subfactors that can and will impact rankings.