Does Text Formatting Affect Your Google Ranking?

There are several HTML elements that you can use to format your text. This will make your content easier for your website visitors and search engine crawlers to identify the important parts of your content. But does this kind of text formatting have any impact on your search ranking on Google?

A google expert has come up with an affirmation for the matter: Is the answer yes or no?

Read on to find out if text formatting is a Google ranking factor.

Is text formatting a factor for SERPs?

You can use HTML elements to format text in various ways:

• Bold text using the <b> element.

• Indicate strong importance, seriousness, or urgency using the <strong> element.

• Italicize text using the <i> element.

• Indicate emphasis and meaning using the <em> element.

• Underline text using the <u> element.

Note that these elements, as the former indicate semantic importance while the latter are styles that indicate how the words appear on the screen – an important distinction to keep in mind. 

Some believe that using HTML elements, such as italics, underlining, and bold words,… to highlight specific keywords for Google can directly impact how the webpage ranks for those keywords. This is a good reason to use them – or not? 

Let’s see how Google talks about this issue.

What does Google talk about HTML elements in Search Ranking?

According to a patent registered in 2014, Google stated that the company takes into consideration the use of larger fonts, and bolded, or italicized words when determining how relevant the page is to what the user has searched for.

“One existing document quality measurement technique calculates an information retrieval (IR) score that is a measure of how relevant a document is to a search query. The IR score can be weighted in various ways. For example, matches in a document’s title might be weighted more than matches in a footer. Similarly, matches in the text that are in a larger font or bolded or italicized may be weighted more than matches in the normal text. “

However, it’s important to keep in mind that not everything that Google patents gets used in their algorithms.

In 2021, John Mueller confirmed that text formatting could help both users and bots see what’s most important on a page.

But, in the following Tweet on the same day, he unconfirmed it.

Does his third Tweet on the same day remind you of Google’s Helpful Content Update on 9/9/2022?

While there is no definitive answer: Yes or No, it is generally believed that Google does not give preferential treatment to any one creator’s formatting style over another. However, that doesn’t mean formatting isn’t essential. 

Does Text Formatting Affect Your Google Ranking? 

It’s been debated for years whether or not text formatting is a ranking factor for search engines. Some people believe that it is, while others think that it doesn’t matter. However, there is no clear evidence to support either claim. And Google has never confirmed or denied HTML formatting as a search ranking factor.

According to A Helpful Content Update, Google announced: 

“Google Search is always working to better connect people to helpful information. To this end, we’re launching what we’re calling the “helpful content update” that’s part of a broader effort to ensure people see more original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.”

This update is all about connecting people to helpful information. The content may not have been what you were looking for, or it may have seemed like it was written by a machine rather than a person which will go down your ranking on Google.

That’s what we are talking about – No text formatting can make your content look like it was written by a machine. Meanwhile, those things like <b>, <i>, <strong>, <em> and <u> elements can be really helpful for users trying to remember important information from an article. 

With that said, customers are more likely to come back and read more of your content if it is well-formatted and easy to read. 

Overall, proper formatting can make your content more readable and easier to scan, both of which are important factors in determining your search ranking. 

So while the answer is ambiguous, it is still worth taking the time to format your content in a way that makes it easy to read and digest. Doing so can help improve your website’s overall user experience, which could indirectly lead to better search engine rankings.

As a result, the more relevant your content is to the search query, the more likely you are to rank for that term in the search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s 2022 now, content should be written for people first and search engines second.

Final Thoughts

The common question about text formatting and search ranking optimization has been available for a while. 

As you can see, the way you format your text can have an impact on how search engines determine the most important content information. However, it’s doubtful that simply bolding some content on your page will be enough to make you outrank your competitors in search results.

Even so, adding proper markup to your content will help users and search engines more easily find the most important points of your content.

We hope that you have found the information useful, and you can take the advice we have given and use it in your own content to improve your SERPs. 

We would love it if you could leave us a comment below to let us know if this information has helped you, or if you have any other questions about content writing and search engine optimization.

Let’s keep an eye on EverRanks for any surprises in Google’s new algorithm in the near future. Don’t forget to follow our SEO company for more SEO/SEM services.

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