What occurs during the ranking phase of SEO?

During the ranking phase of SEO, the search engine assesses the crawl data it has collected from various websites. This process involves evaluating the content and structure of web pages that have been indexed previously. Search engines use algorithms to determine how relevant and authoritative a page is in relation to specific search queries, based on multiple factors such as the quality of the content, user experience, backlinks, and many other ranking signals.

Understanding this phase is crucial for SEO professionals because it helps them to know how their website's performance is measured and what might impact their ranking results in search engine results pages (SERPs). While content creation, site speed evaluation, and keyword selection are essential components of an overall SEO strategy, they occur earlier in the process: content creation leads to a website being indexed, keyword selection informs what users are searching for, and site speed can impact user experience and, ultimately, rankings, but the specific ranking phase focuses directly on the evaluation of the crawl data by the search engine.