SEO 101.3 | Off Page Factors

Now that we’ve looked at the on-page factors, it’s time to turn our attention to the off-page ones.

A broad definition of off-page factors might be, “the things that affect your web page’s rankings but you don’t have direct control over”.

Compared with on-page factors, the off-page elements take considerably more effort in terms of time and in some cases, money. That effort does pay off however, particularly as one off-page factor is, arguably, the single largest contributor to your ranking. In fact it’s so huge a factor it gets its own post in this series.

Want to know which one? You’ll have to read on to find out

A Breakdown of Off-Page Factors

Other than the aforementioned “biggie”, there is no real indication of what plays the most important part in determining where your web page gets ranked. Tick as many of the boxes as you can, you won’t be punished for “over doing it”.

• Domain Age: How old is your domain; e.g. YouTube.com is 4 years old, wikipedia.org is 7 years old and Amazon.com is 10 years old. The older your domain the more authority you are said to have. Completely beyond your control.
• DMOZ Listing: Does your site appear in the Open Directory Project’s directory? (DMOZ.org) Since the ODP is a human edited directory of websites, inclusion in their listings gives additional credibility/authority to your web page. Unfortunately getting added is a lengthy process and is in no way guaranteed. Check out their Submission Policy.
• Yahoo! Directory: Does your site appear in the Yahoo! Directory? Much like DMOZ, if you are in the Yahoo! Directory then you are generally considered to be more authoratative. Even though there is no guarantee of being listed, your chances are much better with Yahoo! Directory. Why? You have to pay $299 per year for inclusion. Click the following for their Submission Process.
• Cache Age: (Google only) The amount of time, in days, since Google last checked your site. You may already know that Google loves regularly updated sites. That’s why when determining your rankings, it puts some emphasis on how long ago it last visited yours. The shorter the better. A no brainer for active bloggers.
• Page Rank: (Google only) PR is far too complicated an entity to explain here. In essence, it is Google’s measure of how important your page is.  In some regards it’s calculated from the other factors, both on page and off. It also acts as its own off-page factor in determining the placing of your web page in the rankings. PR operates on a scale of 0 to 10 where the higher the PR the better your ranking will be.
• Back links: When I said that PR is calculated from other factors, by far and away the largest of these are the back links. In fact, for all intents and purposes, you can think of backlinks as the only way to increase your PR. Backlinks are huge, so much so that, as I hinted at in the beginning, they get their own post in this series. For now, all you need to know is that the more links you have pointing at your web page, the better your ranking will be.

Some Notes on the Factors

Before you all groan despondently at me, or worse, run off to find $299 for the Yahoo! Directory listing, there are some things to note.

Unless your site is big and generates enough income to justify the cost, don’t bother with Yahoo! Directory. It just doesn’t provide that much of an influence on the position of your page. The same is also true for DMOZ, however, it may be worth submitting it to the Open Directory Project as there is no monetary cost involved. Just don’t expect to hear back anytime soon (within 6 months if not the entire 12) and don’t hold your breath for an acceptance.

I know, from experience, that other factors, particularly the on-page ones will beat off a page that’s listed in those two directories.

Conclusion

You are now armed with a lot of information regarding what search engines (particularly Google) look at when deciding where your web page should rank. As Bruce Lee once said though;

“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”

So go out there and appply that new found knowledge.

Next week we take a look at what your competition has done. Are they knowledgeabke about these factors? Have they applied it to their web pages? Before concluding the series with a closer look at building those backlinks.

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