It might seem elementary, but there isn’t much study around the value of the various HTML page elements in search engine results pages (SERPs). For SEO professionals there are always discussions about what is and isn’t indexed and used as a value for search engine rankings. In fact, it has been discussed at length as to if Yahoo indexes the Meta keywords element and uses it as a ranking factor, then it was confirmed that Yahoo does index the Meta keywords, but that it has the lowest value for ranking purposes with this statement from Yahoo:
What changed with Yahoo’s ranking algorithms is that while we still index the meta keyword tag, the ranking importance given to meta keyword tags receives the lowest ranking signal in our system.
Words that appear in any other part of documents, including the body, title, description, anchor text etc., will take priority in ranking the document – the re-occurrence of these words in the meta keyword tag will not help in boosting the signal for these words. Therefore, keyword stuffing in the keyword tag will not help a page’s recall or ranking, it will actually have less effect than introducing those same words in the body of the document, or any other section.
However, when no other ranking signal is present, unique words that only appear in the meta keyword tag section of documents can still be used to recall these documents.
So, with this in mind, I started thinking through what elements are important on a page and what of these have the most value or may have none at all. I spoke to other SEOs and took an informal survey of what is thought of being the most valuable elements and which one’s are considered more important as the others. Here are the eleven elements that keywords should be used to rank well, in the order of importance based upon my own assumptions and links to each of these pages:
- Page Title
- Heading 1
- Heading 2
- Heading 3
- Body Copy (tied with all other versions of the body copy)
- Body Copy – Bold
- Body Copy – Italic
- Body Copy – Bold & Italic
- URL
- HTML Sitemap (no ranking value for anchor text)
- Meta Description (no ranking value but still important)
- Meta Keywords (no ranking value)
- XML Sitemap (no ranking value)
So, to find out what is real and what is assumed, I tested it. Here are the details of the test (here are all of the specific details):
- Choose a three word keyword phrase (methodical verbal induction) – none of the words could be contained in any other page on the domain
- Create a unique page with the keyword chosen and insert said keyword in the particular element to be tested (published on 12/09/09)
- Link the pages from only one source (my HTML sitemap)
- Wait for Google, Bing and Yahoo to index each of the pages
- Test the rank of these pages by using the site command with the keyword and variations of the keyword to find the most important element
Notes about the test
Google was the first engine to index each of the pages with Yahoo following right behind. Bing did index four of the pages pretty quickly, then four more of the twelve, but after monitoring it, Bing dropped the eight pages from their index, so now, I cannot test Bing for the ranking factors. I have lost my patience and executed the test across Google and Yahoo only.
So, before you loose total interest in this test, here are the results of the test (sans Bing):
Google
1. Title
2. HTML Sitemap (keywords are only in anchor text to another page)
3. Heading 2
4. Heading 3
5. Heading 1
6. Body Copy
7. Bold Body Copy
8. Italic Body Copy
9. Bold/Italic Body Copy
10. URL*
– Meta Description – Did not rank
– Meta Keywords – Did not rank
– XML Sitemap – Did not rank
notes
* Keywords in the URL has more value when only one word query is used
Meta details are not considered as a ranking factor
Does not index or rank XML Sitemap
Yahoo
1. Page Title
2. Heading 2
3. Heading 3
4. Meta Description
5. Meta Keywords
6. Body Copy
7. Bold Body Copy
8. Bold/Italic Body Copy
9. XML Sitemap
10. HTML Sitemap (keywords are only in anchor text to another page)
11. URL
– Heading 1
– Italic Body Copy
notes
Heading 1 is not indexed for ranking
Italic body copy is not indexed for ranking
Body copy variations are indexed and does not appear to have any priority (except italic only)
Meta details are indexed and valued for rankings
XML content is indexed and ranked in SERPs
Wow, what results. Here are the values of page elements in order of value based upon the average across Google and Yahoo:
Page Title
Heading 2
Heading 3
Meta Description
Meta Keywords
Heading 1
Body Copy
Body Copy – Bold
Body Copy – Italic
Body Copy – Bold & Italic
URL
XML Sitemap and HTML Sitemap are not elements that are controlled in the on page elements, so they shouldn’t be considered for this test, so they are not pulled into the list.
Here are some high level details:
The page title has the most value on the page
Meta elements are still important
The H1 tag is overused and has been lowered in value
Keywords in the URLs is not that valuable
With these results, it shows what everyone assumes is right (even myself) isn’t always the case, neither is what others say including what a Yahoo engineer claims. The most important thing that I found with these results is that you can never assume that everything stays the same and don’t assume get the results first and then make an informed decision.
Feel free to share your questions, cheers!
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I always though h1 took precedence :/
thanks for great article, it helped me .. thanks ..
In real terms does it matter what Yahoo does if Google has the market pretty much sewn up?
Very interesting post. H2 higher than H1, sort of goes against everything I’ve learnt.
H1 after H2 in google ? hmm… Even H3 ? Im not sure about this, I must reed mor in the net in this topic..maybe youre have right…
Thank you! If it were not for your post, it would be rewriting the headers h2 to h1.
I would of never thought that h2 would rank higher than h1. that is very surprising to me. Thank you for the great post. but at the same time I hate you. Now I am forced to go back through all my sites and see what I can improve on. But I guess it will all pay off in the end, so thanks.
Why then does google tell us that we should use H1? Also I thought the URL counted more
thanks for great article, it helped me, In real terms does it matter what Yahoo does if Google has the market pretty much sewn up
I came across this post and it really made sense and pointed out a few mistakes. Thanks for sharing and doing the leg work.
I was under the impression that if you did well by applying a few H1, sitemap etc to ones site. I could reach top of the search engine. Thank you for proving me wrong on certain areas.
There are a lot of web developers still belive that meta tags are the magical wond which will put their site on top of yahoo or google. This article will help them alot.
Very organised article
Thank you
Wow! — I love the genius of your simple and effective experiment. It makes much sense in the light of the big guys wanting to deliver the best search results based on content, and not on manipulated elements. I’m off to do my own experiments and also permanently implement an item or two that you’ve shared. Thanks! John
Wow thats really mind blowing (at least for the seo world). I like many other site owners thought that Meta was in the past. thanks for clearing that up.
Thanks for this post. It took me a while to understand your experiment, though. Once, I got that you were only placing the words into the exact position (e.g., H1, title) and everything else was meaningless text, it all came together for me.
As a scientist, I can really appreciate this type of web experiment.
My question is have you applied this knowledge to a contract and seen similar results in Organic Search results WITHOUT using the site command?
For example, have you refocused key phrases into Title>H2>H3>meta description and seen clients move up in the results? Or more important get more relevant clicks?
Thanks for your answer
Thanks for clarifying the weight that each of these aspects have on the rankings!
I always new that the title took the number one spot but with regards to the following subheadings, it was a bit of a mystery.
It is almost a waste of time including the meta keywords these days by the looks of your tests.
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