Sign Up
Each year, somebody announces that backlinks are finished, that only content length counts, or that Core Web Vitals will decide whether your site succeeds or fails. That is why a reality check from people who rank sites for a living is useful.
In September 2026, Zyppy Signal asked 131 SEO practitioners to rate more than 100 possible Google ranking factors. The outcome is one of the biggest independent snapshots of how the industry thinks Google actually operates today. Here is the whole picture — with every chart redrawn — plus a short section at the end about what it means if you buy or build links.
- Relevance wins. "Search intent match" is the highest-rated factor in the entire survey (+2.60). Give people what they came for.
- Backlinks are alive and well. Links from trusted domains (+2.47) and topically relevant pages (+2.22) are among the top scores across all 103 factors. Spam links (−1.26) are one of the biggest negatives.
- Quality beats volume. Original research and first-party data sit at the top of the content list. Scaled AI content (−1.82) is the second-worst factor in the survey.
- Brand is a ranking signal. Reputation (+2.01) and branded search volume (+1.98) rank almost as high as the best links.
- Technical SEO is the bare minimum. It can cost you the race (robots.txt block −2.22), but it won't win it when your content is weak.
How the survey worked
Every expert answered one question for each factor: "How much of a positive or negative effect do you believe this factor has on Google's organic rankings?" Responses used a 7-point scale from +3 (strongly positive) to −3 (strongly negative), where 0 meant no effect. The score shown on each bar is the average across all respondents.
Experts also answered an open question — "What are the three most important Google ranking factors?" — with no list to choose from. That is where the top-10 chart below comes from.
The top 10 ranking factors, as the experts put it
When people can name anything, what do they name? Relevance, backlinks and content quality — the same trio that has topped ranking-factor surveys for years. What is new is how high user behaviour and brand signals now sit.
What experts call the most important ranking factors
Share of the 131 respondents who put each factor in their personal top 3
1. Content relevance
Of all 103 factors, search intent match came out on top. It is defined as "how well the page satisfies the type of result or task the searcher appears to want". Notice the wording: not "contains the keyword", but "satisfies the task".
At the other end, the meta description scored only +0.22. Most experts do not believe it affects rankings at all — it may help clicks, nothing more. Exact-match domains still get a modest nod (+0.94).
Content relevance
Search intent match is the #1 factor in the entire survey
Melissa Popp · RicketyRoo
You can have technically perfect content with pristine headings and a gorgeous URL structure, but if the person searching wanted one thing and you answered another, none of that saves you.
Andy Chadwick · Independent
I'd add information gain. Once ten pages all match the intent and cover the same ground, what decides it is whether a page adds something the others don't.
Shai Aharony · Reboot Online
I'm just as surprised as everyone else by how effective EMDs are still. We are ranking an EMD for a competitive term with a fraction of the effort for our main site that is competing for the same term.
2. Backlinks
This is the part we care about most, and the message is clear: links still count — but not every link. "Links from highly trusted domains" (+2.47) and "links from topically relevant pages" (+2.22) are among the highest scores in the whole survey, ahead of nearly every content and technical factor.
See how the list drops off. Raw quantity — "total number of links to URL" — sits at +1.05, far below relevance and authority. Exact-match anchors are barely positive (+0.86), and nofollow links are only a little better than nothing (+0.50). Meanwhile spammy backlinks score −1.26 — even though Google says it just ignores most of them.
Backlinks
Relevant, trusted links beat sheer volume
Nitin Manchanda · SEO consultant
A hundred links from real audiences beat a thousand links nobody ever clicks.
Andrew Shotland · Local SEO Guide
With AI, links can have an even greater effect. A client recently got mentioned and linked from a Reuters article a few weeks ago. Their visibility in ChatGPT went up 4x over the next week.
Geoff Kenyon · Pomar
Exact match anchors cut both ways. They drive real gains up to a point and suppress performance past it. The variable is what share of the anchor profile they represent, not the raw count.
3. Content quality
This is where 2026 looks different from earlier surveys. At the top is original research and first-party data (+2.19), then sitewide quality, originality and information gain. In a world where anyone can generate a thousand articles overnight, "did you add something new?" has become the filter.
Two details stand out. Content length — the metric everyone used to chase — scored only +0.52. And AI-generated content is only slightly negative on its own (−0.50), but scaled AI content is −1.82, the second-worst score in the whole survey. The problem isn't the tool; it's publishing volume without value.
Content quality
Original research ranked on top, while content length scored low
Gianluca Fiorelli · I Love SEO
Too much consensus, and you're invisible for not being relevant enough. Too much information gain, and you're shadowbanned for being too contrarian.
Ross Simmonds · Foundation
AI has made content cheap. Anyone can spin up a thousand articles overnight. And Google knows it. That's why quality is becoming the filter. When the volume of content explodes, the cost of publishing drops to zero... but the cost of trust goes up.
Abby Gleason · SEO consultant
I have seen positive results from high-quality AI generation at scale. This is on a site that has plenty of unique content and UGC, and AI content undergoes intensive human editor review.
4. Brand and reputation
Brand is one of the main ways Google decides who to trust. Online reputation (+2.01) and branded search volume — how many people look you up by name — (+1.98) scored almost as high as the best backlink factors.
Unlinked brand mentions (+1.30) are now firmly on the positive side — good news for PR-style link building, because a mention with no link still carries weight. Google Ads spend scrapes in at +0.27: no direct effect, but the extra visibility can feed other signals.
Brand & reputation
Overall brand visibility and trust influence Google rankings
Dan Petrovic · DEJAN
It's a popularity contest. Once Google finds you relevant for a query, it doesn't really reward 10x content... content that is too expert-level is actually harmful to visibility. You need to hit the Goldilocks zone where you appeal broadly to as many people as possible and get talked about, shared, linked, and mentioned.
Jan-Willem Bobbink · GSC Wizard
Brand signals are the strongest factor in my opinion. You can get away with a website technically in a very bad shape, without having optimized content as long as people search and talk about the brand.
Roger Montti · Martinibuster.com
Branded Search is the new link, since 2012, if a Google patent is to be believed.
Will Critchlow · SearchPilot
No direct effect of ad spend — it can affect other signals, though, so it can result in benefit.
5. User signals
After the antitrust case and the API leak, it's clear Google tracks user behaviour. Satisfaction / task completion comes first at +2.14, then long clicks and organic CTR. "Return to SERP" — when the searcher goes back to Google — is clearly negative (−1.04).
User signals
Most experts say user satisfaction is important to Google rankings
AJ Kohn · Infinite Visibility Group
Navboost is still a monster. As such, sites really should create a satisfaction metric (often by page type) to try to emulate satisfaction. Because there is a ranking ceiling when click signals are worse than other SERP competitors.
Gerry White · Dergal
Bounce rate is a bad metric, but sites where users pogo-stick to another result, I believe that is a clear signal that Google is absolutely taking.
Diego Ivo · Conversion
User signals are the final verdict of search engines. My question is: when most browsing becomes agentic, how will they measure them?
6. Technical SEO
Most people surveyed said technical SEO is "table stakes". Nothing here scores as high as the top relevance, link or content factors — correct canonicalization is top at just +1.56 — but the negatives hit hard. Blocked by robots.txt is −2.22, the lowest score in the survey. Duplicate content, client-side JavaScript and redirect chains all cause damage.
The takeaway: fix technical issues because they can drag you down, not because they will boost weak content.
Technical SEO
Required for ranking, but experts say don't expect a big boost
Marshall Simmonds · Define Media Group
Tech SEO is a commodity at this point. It won't necessarily win the race, but it can absolutely lose it.
Dana DiTomaso · Kick Point
We were working with a client who accidentally set their canonicals pointing at pages that weren't at all similar to the original content. Once that was fixed they saw an almost immediate positive change in their impressions and clicks — I think it was around +60%.
Maryanna Franco · SEO consultant
I increasingly evaluate technical SEO as infrastructure for machine understanding as well as retrieval.
7. Internal links and site architecture
Internal links are the one ranking lever you control completely. The strongest factor is the authority of the pages that link internally (+1.92) — that is, a link from your strongest page is worth more than ten from thin ones. Relevant internal anchors (+1.66) come next. An orphaned page with no internal links scores −1.79.
If you want the details, our guide to how link equity flows explains it.
Internal linking
Experts say links from high-authority internal pages matter most
Gaston Riera · SEO consultant
I often discuss with colleagues that a good internal link is as valuable as a very good external backlink.
Fili Wiese · Search Brothers
Internal linking is the ranking lever a site controls end to end... Internal links decide which pages collect equity, which pages Google reads as important, and how topics connect across the site.
8. User experience
Mobile usability is the obvious UX winner (+1.66). Site speed (+1.23) and Core Web Vitals (+0.92) are positive but modest — and they were among the most debated factors in the whole survey. Popups and heavy ad density both score −1.31.
UX
Factors like mobile usability and site speed can influence Google rankings
Ian Lurie · Ian Lurie Consulting
UX factors matter more because they influence behavior. Yes, Google checks 'em, and they directly impact rankings, but behavior matters more as it affects Navboost and other bits and pieces of the algorithm.
Ryan Jones · SERPrecon
Speed and CWV are the most over-rated things in SEO. Those are literally one of the smallest factors ever — if they're still even used. It's either it loads and you're fine, or it doesn't load in time and you're not fine.
Greg Gifford · SearchLab Digital
For a huge ecom site, speed REALLY matters. For a local car dealership, it's pretty common to have a site that takes several seconds to load on certain pages, but it's kind of expected — people want those huge detailed images.
What this means if you build or buy links
Place the backlink chart beside the brand and user-signal charts and a simple playbook emerges. The survey doesn't say "get more links". It says get the right links — and "right" now has a very precise meaning.
- Trust first, metrics second. "Highly trusted domain" (+2.47) beats "domain authority" (+1.89). A DR number is just a proxy; editorial standards, real readers and a clean history are the real thing.
- Stay on topic. Topical relevance (+2.22) is the second-strongest link factor of all. A single link from a site in your niche beats several from random high-DR blogs — so filter by topic first and by price second.
- Favour pages that get real visitors. "Pages with traffic" (+1.72) is a top-five link factor, and the experts repeat this in the quotes. Make sure the linking page ranks for something.
- Keep anchors natural. Anchor diversity (+1.18) beats exact-match anchors (+0.86). A healthy backlink profile looks like brand names, URLs and plain phrases — not one keyword ten times over.
- Never buy spam. Spammy links (−1.26) are among the biggest negatives in the survey. Cheap link farms and PBN blasts are no bargain; they are a liability you may need to disavow later.
The survey also makes one more thing clear: a good link now does two jobs. It lifts Google rankings and, as Andrew Shotland's Reuters example shows, it feeds AI answers as well. We covered that shift in our piece on AI Overviews.
Who is quoted in this article
All 24 people quoted above took part in the Zyppy Signal survey. Here they are, in the order their comments appear, with links if you want to follow their work.
ChatGPT
Perplexity
Claude
Google AI Mode
Grok
