Better Search Engine Ranking - 93 Factors

Rand from SEOmoz has done it again with his list of 93 search engine ranking factors that altogether can make or break your SEO campaign.

On-Page Factors (Ranked by Importance):

• Title Tag
• Keyword Use in Document Text
• Related Term Use in Document Text
• External Links in Document
• Links to Document from Site-Internal Pages
• Uniqueness of Document Text
• Age of Document
• High Level Authorship Marks
• Document Language
• Stemming & Plurality Evaluation
• Paragraph Headings
• Citation Links or Sources
• Depth of Document in Site
• Rate of Updates to Document
• Variety & % of Content Changes
• Organization of Document Text
• Internal Links in Document
• Meta Keywords Tag
• Keyword Use in URL
• Meta Description Tag
• Use of H1, Bold & Other Visual Tags
• Grammar Use in Document Text
• Spelling Accuracy in Document Text
• Stopword Frequency
• Reading Level of Document Text
• Quality of Document Text
• Text in Alt/Img Title Tags
• Document Length
• Use of In-Document Links & Anchors
• Document Type
• W3C Validation

Site Factors (Ranked by Importance):

• Global Link Popularity of Domain
• Link Popularity of Domain in Topical Community
• Primary Subject Matter of Domain
• Anchor Text of Incoming Links to Domain
• Topical Relevance of Incoming Links to Domain
• Age of Domain
• Domain Language
• Rate of Document Additions/Change
• Rate of New Incoming Links to Domain
• Rate of Expiring/ Removed Links to Domain
• Historical Rankings of Domain in SERPs
• Historical User-Action Metrics Related to Domain
• Keyword Use in Domain Name
• Hyphens in Domain Name
• Top Level Domain (.com .org .net)
• Internal Link Structure
• Membership in Sitemaps/Paid Inclusion Programs
• Semantic Connections of Hosted Documents
• # of Hosted Documents
• Size of Hosted Documents
• Shifts in Rate of Change to Hosted Documents
• Existence of Sitemap Page on Domain
• Use of re-direction directives

Link Factors (Ranked by Importance):

• Anchor Text of Link
• Global Popularity of Domain
• Popularity of Domain in Topical Community
• External Links to Linking Page
• Location of Linking Page in Domain Structure
• Text on Linking Page
• Text Directly Surrounding the Link
• Semantic Relationship of Linking Page
• Age of Link
• Affiliations of Linking Domain with Target Domain
• Existence of Rel=Nofollow tag
• Implicit Trust of Domain
• Shared IP Address or C-Block Address
• Link Relationships Between Domains
• Additional External/Internal Links on Page
• Existence of Link on Other Pages of Domain
• Related Term Use in Linking Page
• Rate of All External Links to Domain/Document
• Anchor Text of All Links to Domain/Document
• Top Level Domain (.com .org .net)
• Rate of Content Changes to Linking Page
• Updates/Changes to Link
• Link Title
• Visual Tags Affecting Link Text
• Location of Link on Page

Technical and Hosting Factors (Ranked by Importance):

• Accessibility of Document
• Use of Web Page Frames
• Dynamic Parameters in URL
• Session ID Variables
• Hosting Uptime
• Use of Noarchive/NoIndex in Robots.txt
• Domain Registration Information
• Domain Registration Length
• Geographic Hosting Location
• URL Length
• IP-Based Content Delivery
• Domain Registration Date
• Robots.txt Presence

Harmful Ranking Factors (Ranked by Importance):

• Cloaking
• Duplicate Content
• Canonical Issues
• Link Spamming
• Keyword Spamming
• Invalid Code
• Linking to "Bad Neighborhoods"
• Unethical Practices
• Illegal Content
• Un-"safe" Content
• URL Hijacking
• Broken Links

There’s a ton more information such as explanations for each item, but you’ll just have to check out the SEOmoz for that. As with any list of this sort, there are quite a few items that are up to debate. Compare your own empirical research with this list and decide for yourself.