Google Search relevancy is determined by hundreds of factors, including the user's location, language, and device type.
Source: Google, How Google Search Works — Search Central (2023)
Official Ranking signal Older data
How the Google Search Algorithm Works in 2026
Google Search ranks pages using hundreds of factors including relevance to the query, user location, language, device, and content quality signals such as E-E-A-T. Payment never influences ranking. Automated ranking systems are designed to prioritise helpful, people-first content over content made primarily to attract search engine visits.
Google does not use a single ranking signal — it applies hundreds of factors every time a page is served. The claims below come directly from Google Search Central (developers.google.com), which is Google's official documentation for how Search works.
Key signals
Official
Google Search relevancy is determined by hundreds of factors, including the user's location, language, and device type.
Google, 2023 Official
Google does not accept payment to rank pages higher in organic search — ranking is done programmatically.
Google, 2023 Official
Of the four E-E-A-T signals — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — trust is the most important.
Google, 2023 Official
Google rewards content that demonstrates first-hand expertise and depth of knowledge — for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service.
Google, 2023 Official
Using automation, including AI-generation, to produce content primarily for manipulating search rankings is a violation of Google's spam policies.
Google, 2023Key takeaways
- Google uses hundreds of ranking factors — no payment ever influences organic ranking.
- Trust is the most important E-E-A-T signal; content must demonstrate it above all others.
- Automated or AI content made primarily to manipulate rankings violates Google's spam policies.
- Indexing is not guaranteed — low quality, robots rules, or poor site design can prevent it.
- Google's ranking systems are designed to prioritise helpful, reliable, people-first information.
On this page
How Google ranks pages
Google does not accept payment to rank pages higher in organic search — ranking is done programmatically.
Source: Google, How Google Search Works — Search Central (2023)
Official Platform policy Older data
Indexing is not guaranteed — not every page Google crawls will be added to its index.
Source: Google, How Google Search Works — Search Central (2023)
Official Platform policy Older data
E-E-A-T and helpful content signals
Google's automated ranking systems are designed to prioritise helpful, reliable information that is created to benefit people.
Source: Google, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content — Search Central (2023)
Official Ranking signal Older data
Of the four E-E-A-T signals — Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — trust is the most important.
Source: Google, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content — Search Central (2023)
Official Ranking signal Older data
Google assigns even more weight to strong E-E-A-T for topics that could significantly impact the health, financial stability, or safety of people — known as YMYL topics.
Source: Google, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content — Search Central (2023)
Official Ranking signal Older data
Google rewards content that demonstrates first-hand expertise and depth of knowledge — for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product or service.
Source: Google, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content — Search Central (2023)
Official Ranking signal Older data
What gets penalised or filtered
Using automation, including AI-generation, to produce content primarily for manipulating search rankings is a violation of Google's spam policies.
Source: Google, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content — Search Central (2023)
Official suppression Older data
Changing a page's date to make it appear fresh when the content has not substantially changed is a red flag Google's systems look for.
Source: Google, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content — Search Central (2023)
Official suppression Older data
Where these signals come from
Google Search algorithm: FAQs
Can you pay Google to rank higher in organic search results?
No. Google's official documentation states: "Google doesn't accept payment to rank pages higher, and ranking is done programmatically."
What is E-E-A-T and which element matters most?
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google's documentation states that trust is the most important of the four — the others contribute to trust, but content doesn't necessarily have to demonstrate all of them.
Is AI-generated content automatically penalised by Google?
Not automatically — but automation used primarily to manipulate rankings is. Google's documentation states: "If you use automation, including AI-generation, to produce content for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings, that's a violation of our spam policies."
Is a page guaranteed to be indexed if Google crawls it?
No. Google's documentation explicitly states: "Indexing isn't guaranteed; not every page that Google processes will be indexed." Low content quality, robots meta rules, or difficult website design can prevent indexing.
How many ranking factors does Google use?
Google states relevancy is determined by "hundreds of factors, which could include information such as the user's location, language, and device." No exact number is published.