Search Engine Algorithms, Patents and Information Retrieval

Rand has a nice slideshow up at SEOmoz about search engine algorithms, patents and information retrieval and cataloging. It’s a nice refresher for those in the know, but one slide is of particular importance (though highly non-scientific, obviously). It’s a survey of 13 gurus in the industry and their take on common SEO elements and their importance on a scale of 0-5:

1. Title Tag - 4.57
2. Anchor Text of Links - 4.46
3. Keyword Use in Document Text - 4.38
4. Accessibility of Document - 4.3
5. Links to Document from Site-Internal Pages - 4.15
6. Primary Subject Matter of Site - 4.00
7. External Links to Linking Pages - 3.92
8. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community - 3.77
9. Global Link Popularity of Site - 3.69
10. Keyword Spamming - 3.69

I’d agree with most, but certainly not accessibility (of the 508 kind). Numbers 10 and 3 also seem to be centered around the same topic.

Note: Rand’s SEO Cheatsheet is also a nice refresher.