There are technically thousands of factors that go into Google rankings and they keep changing them all the time. Nobody outside of Google knows the full list, and honestly that’s probably on purpose. If they just came out and published the exact formula, everybody would follow it and then they’d have no real way to tell who actually deserves to be at the top. The whole system would fall apart pretty quickly because people would game it the same way they gamed Yahoo back in the day.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that Google isn’t even just one search result page anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. You’ve got your Q&A sections, the “people also ask” boxes that pop up in the middle of results, video results, image results, local map results, Gemini AI answers, and even a separate AI search mode on top of all that. Each one of those is basically its own ranking game with its own set of rules and signals. Like if you search for a word definition, Google just shows you the answer right there on the page now. It stopped sending you to dictionary.com a long time ago.
For local search you need fresh reviews coming in consistently, citations, and your business info needs to be accurate and consistent across the web. For images it used to be as simple as naming your files the right way and embedding the right metadata, and you could pull in tens of thousands of hits a day just from Google Images alone without much else going on with your site. For regular organic search it’s still heavily about backlinks, page speed, site structure, content quality, and a whole bunch of other stuff that Google has never fully spelled out for anyone.
Google does release notes every time they do a big update but it’s always vague. It’ll say something like “we’ve rolled out a core update, rolling out over the next two weeks” and that’s basically it. No real details, no list of what changed, nothing you can actually act on. It’s kind of like reading an ingredients label and at the very end it just says “spices.” That one word is covering like 30 different things and you’re never going to find out what the secret ingredient actually is no matter how hard you look.
So how does anyone actually figure it out? Mostly through testing, paying attention, reading Reddit forums, following sites like Search Engine Journal, and just comparing notes with other people in the industry over time. People notice patterns, share what’s working for them, test new theories, and slowly a set of best practices forms around what seems to consistently help. It’s not an exact science and there are no guarantees but if you follow the general rules you’re going to rank well more often than not.
Things like having a well designed website that loads fast, a clean heading structure that makes sense, proper schema markup in place, optimized images with alt tags, solid meta descriptions, and good SEO titles on every page. Those are the basics and you’d be surprised how many businesses skip them entirely.
Updating your site regularly makes a difference too. Doesn’t have to be anything crazy, even just publishing a new blog post here and there or adding a new page when you add a service shows Google your site isn’t dead. Fresh stuff gets crawled more often and that’s generally a good thing. Same goes for backlinks, getting other real websites to link to yours still carries alot of weight. And if you’re a local business make sure your name, address and phone number are listed the same exact way everywhere they appear online, Google Maps, Yelp, directories, all of it. Even small inconsistencies there can quietly hurt you more than people realize.
The thing about Google is that they will keep changing things and keep throwing curveballs, but the fundamentals have stayed pretty consistent for years. Good content, fast site, quality backlinks, strong local presence if you’re a local business. Follow those and you’ll be in good shape no matter what the next update brings. People will always figure out the new rules eventually and the news gets around. That’s honestly just how this whole industry keeps existing and why SEO isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
