SEOmoz has earned a reputation in the SEO world that needs no introduction. SEOmoz every two years conducts a survey wherein they interview the best SEO people and come up with wonderful analysis on the same. The Search Engine Ranking Factors for 2009 are already out by them which include the participation of 72 SEO’s who accumulate relevant information such as, answering surveys, data gathering and so on. The report so published is path breaking in its real sense as it gives accurate foresight to the SEO’s of the world to for their future plan of action.

According to the reports, the top 5 ranking factors for the websites are as follows:

• Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links was the factor that was on the top of the list with 73% of importance. Hence if you are involved in SEO or SEM services and are professional optimizer then it is essential to take care that the anchor text from the external links must be keyword focusing.
• External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links) stood second on the top list of ranking factors with 71%. This shows that is highly important factor for getting better ranking on the search engines.
• Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains) scored 67% of importance from the experts. Diversity of link sources will also enable in gaining top notch positions on the search engines.
• Use of Keyword Anywhere in the Title Tag is 66% important according to the report. Hence, it is proving increasingly that the density of the keywords is no longer much important.
• Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains scored 66% of importance. As the saying goes old is gold holds truth even in this technological era. The older the domain, the greater will be its trustworthiness and therefore, it is paid good respect by the search engines.

The report also takes into considerations the negative factors that affect the ranking on the search engines. According to the report the top 5 negative ranking factors are as follows:

• Cloaking with Malicious/Manipulative Intent with 68%. Concealing malware in the links is very detrimental for high rankings.
• Link Acquisition from Known Link Brokers/Sellers has been ranked second with 56 % importance. That is acquiring link from broker will not fetch any good rankings on the search engine.
• Links from the Page to Web Spam Sites/Pages is given 51 % importance for negative ranking by the search engines.
• Cloaking by User Agent also gets moderate amount of importance from the search engines. Therefore, avoid it if you wish to have higher ranks.
• Frequent Server Downtime & Site Inaccessibility scored 51 % as well and this makes it a moderately important factor for negative ranking by the search engine.

Hence, the report provides the essential points to take care of for carrying out SEO activities efficiently.