Wiep.net has just come out with the results of a survey that polled top search engine marketers to find out what linking, on page, on domain, and dampening factors have the most weight with the search engines. The report is well worth the time for anyone who does SEO.

The top factors for each category were:

• Link Factors: Anchor text
• On Page Factors: Page authority (in inbound links)
• On Domain Factors: Domain authority (in quality of backlinks)
• Dampening Factors: Robots.txt excluded page

Aside from ranking and variance numbers for the factors, the survey also includes comments from the various search experts that adds a lot of insight to what they think works and doesn’t work. I know I came up with at least one optimization tactic to add to my to-do list from digging through the comments.

One thing I found interesting was that once you got past the main factors listed above, there were a lot of differing opinions about what factors mattered and how. It’s a good reminder that all SEO tactics work better for some sites than others.

One word of warning – if you decide to download the .PDF of the report, please remember that the background is black, and that is how it will print. I’m pretty sure I burned through a toner cartridge printing it out. (Who makes a .PDF with a black background anyway? CRAZY!)

[Thanks to Barry for the heads up on this one.]