Criteria to evaluate SEO in websites

[cleal]

I have been asked to write a report on several websites from my organisation from the point of view of Search Engine Optimisation. I would like to know hwether you know of any set of specific criteria/guidelines that may be used for such an evaluation or, if not, how would you structure it. Thanks in advance.

[cleal]

Ok, this is what I got so far. I would like to hear some feedback on the criteria I selected (missing things, things that shouldn't be there) and the general structure proposed:

On-page factors
Correct code
Accessibility
Metadata
Text & keywords

On-site factors
URL canonicalization (www vs. non-www, variables)
URL structure (length, use of keywords)
HTTP headers management
Crawling control (robots.txt, metadata)
Navigation structure
IP & domain data
Sitemap

External factors
Number of pages in main index
Number of pages in supplementaty index (Google)
Number of incoming links (homepage/domain)
Text of incoming links

Visibility
Pagerank
Traffic Rank
Position in SERP for certain keywords

[Robert Charlton]

Here's a thread from four years ago that's probably still pretty close.

Brett's quick rank
[webmasterworld.com...]

What's probably changed the most, at least on Google, is the evaluation of link quality... TrustRank, Hilltop, relatedness and relevance of links, etc. All engines have stronger concern for uniqueness of content.

You list a bunch of things that are nice but have nothing to do with SEO... like correct code.

And some issues, like "URL canonicalization," are meaningless unless you get the underlying concern, which in this case is dupe content.

[cleal]

You list a bunch of things that are nice but have nothing to do with SEO... like correct code.

My point was that when code gets too messed up some robots might have problems interpreting the page content correctly. However, on second thoughts I'm grouping that with accessibility.

And some issues, like "URL canonicalization," are meaningless unless you get the underlying concern, which in this case is dupe content.

Good observation. I am placing a new category "Original content" under "On-page factors".

On-page factors
Accessibility & correct code
Metadata
Original content
Document organization & keywords

On-site factors
URL canonicalization (www vs. non-www, variables)
URL structure (length, use of keywords)
HTTP headers management
Crawling control (robots.txt, metadata)
Navigation structure
IP & domain data
Sitemap

External factors
Number of pages in main index
Number of pages in supplementaty index (Google)
Number of incoming links (homepage/domain)
Text of incoming links

Visibility
Pagerank
Traffic Rank
Position in SERP for certain keywords