How Google Really Ranks Your Website (And How I Think About It Day to Day)
If I had a quid for every time someone asked, “So how does Google rank websites?” I’d be typing this from a sun-lounger. The honest answer? It’s a moving target. The comforting answer? There’s a method to the madness—and once you get it, SEO stops feeling like witchcraft and starts feeling like good, sensible marketing.
The algorithm isn’t a rulebook; it’s a living thing
At Google HQ, very clever people tinker with the algorithm all the time. Some days it’s a tiny tweak you’ll never notice. Other days it’s a Core Update and your LinkedIn feed turns into a soap opera. Either way, nothing stays still for long. That’s why, as an SEO, I’m permanently on my toes (and weirdly, I like it).
First hurdle: can Google find and keep your page?
Before anything ranks, Googlebot has to crawl your page and decide whether it’s worthy of the index—Google’s giant library. If a page looks thin, spammy, or a bit “meh,” it may never get shelved. Show real E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), and you’ve got a much better chance of being included.
Little checklist I run in my head:
Is the page crawlable (no accidental blocks, messy redirects, or infinite loops)?
Is there a clear purpose and a real person behind the words?
Would I feel comfortable sharing this with a client or a friend?
If the answer’s “yes” across the board, we’re likely index-worthy.
Then comes the beauty contest: 200+ signals (don’t panic)
Once you’re in the index, your page is judged against others. Google weighs hundreds of signals (nobody outside Google knows the exact recipe), but I think about it in two buckets:
On-page signals: originality, depth, clarity, headings that make sense, internal links that help a human navigate, and content that reads like it was written for people—not robots.
Off-page signals: who’s vouching for you. That’s backlinks from reputable, relevant sites, brand mentions, and general reputation.
There are also behaviour clues like dwell time and bounce rate. They aren’t magic levers on their own, but they’re useful hints about whether visitors found what they wanted.
Backlinks: still powerful, but quality over quantity
Imagine Ford launches a new model and publishes a genuinely useful page about it. If Top Gear, What Car?, dealers, and motoring journalists link to that page, that’s a big, relevant vote of confidence. Two takeaways:
Relevance matters. Links from within your niche beat random links every time.
Authority compounds. A handful of strong links can outperform dozens of weak ones.
And yes—white-hat only. Earn links because your content is worth linking to.
Google can tell when you’re writing for humans
This is where Natural Language Processing (NLP) comes in. Google’s pretty good at spotting content that flows naturally versus a paragraph that’s been stuffed like a Christmas turkey with keywords. If you’ve ever been tempted to write “best plumber Cardiff best plumber Cardiff best plumber Cardiff”… please don’t. That’s how you wander into penalty territory—see the spirit of the 2011 Panda update, which clobbered thin and spammy content and changed the industry overnight.
The boring secret that actually works
Here’s something I tell clients that sounds annoyingly simple: focus less on “doing SEO” and more on being ridiculously useful.
When you do that:
Bounce rate drops because people find what they came for.
Dwell time rises because they keep reading (or watching, or clicking).
Backlinks happen because your content gets referenced naturally.
It’s the digital version of walking into John Lewis: tidy layout, helpful staff, good products. You leave thinking, “That was easy.” Aim for that feeling on your website.
“User experience” without the buzzwords
People throw “UX” around like confetti. Here’s what it means in practice:
Make it dead easy to find things. Clear menus, sensible categories, descriptive headings, and an internal search that actually works.
Answer real questions. Grab your sales team’s top FAQs and turn them into articles, guides, and comparison pages.
Be fast. Good hosting costs more but slow sites cost sales. Speed is a user issue first and a ranking issue second.
Be brilliant on mobile. Most of your audience is on a phone. If your page pinches and zooms like it’s 2012, you’re losing people.
Link internally like a helpful shop assistant. “If you liked this, you’ll probably need that” works for humans and Googlebot.
Earn credibility over time. Awards, press mentions, reputable directories, industry bodies—anything that signals you’re legit.
Some folks talk about Domain Authority (a third-party metric) as a handy yardstick. It’s not from Google, but it can be a useful indicator of how your site’s reputation is trending.
Spam filters exist for a reason
If you hire a bargain-bin agency that spins content, buys dodgy links, or jam-packs paragraphs with keywords, don’t be surprised if rankings tank. Google’s spam systems are designed to spot shortcuts. And recovery always takes longer (and costs more) than doing it right the first time.
What I actually do on a new project
A quick peek behind the curtain:
Fix crawl/index snags first: sitemaps, robots.txt, canonical tags, the technical hygiene.
Map intent to pages: which queries deserve a product page, which need a guide, which need a comparison?
Craft people-first content: bring real experience—photos, examples, data, quotes from your team.
Design the journey: obvious CTAs, helpful links, no dead ends.
Speed & mobile polish: lazy-load where sensible, compress images, trim bloat.
Legit link earning: digital PR, partnerships, industry resources, citations—things worth linking to.
Measure and iterate: watch how users behave and improve relentlessly.
Core updates will come—don’t flinch
Big updates like Panda taught us a simple lesson: shortcuts don’t age well. If you’re building for humans, you might wobble during an update, but you won’t fall over. If you’re gaming the system, well… enjoy the rollercoaster.
Bringing it all together
Google ranks pages by first deciding if they deserve a place in the library, then comparing mountains of signals to figure out who best answers the searcher’s question. Your job isn’t to chase every ranking factor—it’s to be the best answer.
Do the unglamorous things brilliantly: make it easy, make it fast, make it useful, and earn the right kind of attention. Do that consistently and page one stops feeling like luck—and starts feeling inevitable.
If you want, tell me your industry and your top three pages—I’ll suggest a few quick wins you can ship this week.