Google ranking systems
Google's documented list of the systems that generate rankings, distinguished from one-off 'updates' to those systems, and including…
AlgorithmsEMD
Exact-match domain system
Google's system preventing low-quality sites from ranking merely because their domain name matches a query, introduced as an update in 2012.
In full
Before 2012 a domain such as cheap-car-insurance-quotes.com could rank on its name alone. The system removed that advantage for weak sites while leaving genuine brands unaffected, and it remains listed among Google's ranking systems. Keyword domains still carry minor anchor-text and click-through effects but are generally a weaker branding choice than a distinctive name.
Example
A thin site on a keyword-rich domain loses its rankings while an established brand on a made-up name retains them.
Related terms
Thin content
Pages with little or no substantive value of their own — scraped, auto-generated, doorway-like, or near-empty templated pages.
Brand search
Searches containing a company or product name, which behave differently from non-brand queries and should always be reported separately.
Third-party authority metrics
Vendor-calculated 0-100 scores estimating a domain's link strength — Ahrefs DR, Moz DA, Semrush Authority Score, Majestic Trust Flow —…
URL structure
The design of a site's URL paths: readable, stable, lowercase, hyphen-separated and free of unnecessary parameters or session identifiers.