Sites’ rankings in Google search results page are determined based on a number of factors. These factors are focused to provide end-users with helpful, accurate search results. Here is a detailed explanation of Google search results positioning factors.

Firstly, the life span of a Google query normally lasts less than half a second which involves completion of a number of different steps before results can be delivered to a user seeking information.

A perfect search engine understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want – Larry Page

Google has developed a breakthrough technology named PageRank™, and this PageRank™ technology really changed the way searches are conducted. The algorithm behind Google’s search technology conducts a series of simultaneous calculations consisting of more than 200 signals, including PageRank™ algorithm. With these series of simultaneous calculations, Google examines the entire link structure of the web and determines which pages are most important. After that, hypertext-matching analysis is performed to to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. Combining the overall importance and query-specific relevance, Google shows the most relevant and reliable results first.

What exactly is this PageRank™ Technology?

PageRank™ reflects Google’s view of the webpages importance by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that Google believes to be more important receive a higher PageRank and these webpages are more likely to appear at the top of the search results. Votes from some other pages are considered to have greater value in determining the importance of page. If a web page casts a vote, i.e. if a web page put a link back to some other web page the linked page achieves a greater value in PageRank™ Technology. PageRank™ technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page’s importance.

How does Hypertext-Matching Analysis determine which page is important ?

Hypertext-Matching Analysis means analyzing a page content. Google’s Hypertext-Matching Analysis technology analyzes the full content of a page and factors in fonts, subdivisions and the precise location of each word, instead of simply scanning for page-based text (which can be manipulated through meta-tags and other black hat techniques). To ensure the results returned are the most relevant to a user’s query, Google also analyze the content of neighboring web pages.

In general, search engine rankings of a website can be improved by increasing the number of high-quality site that provides back links or cast a vote to that website, i.e. through proper link building activities.