A Factor Family is the three-letter group inside a Factor ID that marks which broad measurement area a factor belongs to. It sorts each of RankGear’s factors into a family so related measures sit together.
| Term | Factor Family |
|---|---|
| Category | Analysis and Optimization |
| Also known as | Factor Category Code |
| Where it appears | Workbook Start Here |
What it means in RankGear
Every factor RankGear measures carries a Factor ID, and the leading three-letter segment of that ID is its Factor Family. The family is a grouping label rather than a score: it tells you the broad kind of thing a factor measures, so measures that belong to the same area share the same three-letter code. You first meet the idea on the Workbook Start Here sheet, where it gives the long list of factors a structure you can navigate instead of a flat wall of individual IDs.
How to interpret it
Read a Factor Family as a filing category, not as a value to move up or down. Because it is fixed to the factor rather than measured on your page, it never changes with a page or a SERP; two factors with the same family code are simply cousins measuring adjacent things. Use it to group and scan, for example to pull every factor in one family together when you are reviewing a page, or to understand at a glance what part of the picture a given factor speaks to. The number that matters for a page is the factor’s measured value, not the family it sits in.
Example
Say you are working through a page in the Workbook and want to check everything related to how the page is structured. Rather than reading Factor IDs one by one, you can lean on the Factor Family segment shared by those factors to gather them into one set, review that group together, then move on to the next family. The family code is what lets you say “these belong together” without memorising each individual ID.
Important considerations
- A Factor Family is a classification code attached to the factor, not a metric measured on your page, so it carries no value to optimise and does not change between pages or queries.
- Grouping by family helps you organise a review; it does not imply that any family, or any factor within it, causes a page to rank. RankGear’s factor measurements are correlational readings of the SERP, not Google’s scoring.
- The family only tells you the broad area a factor sits in; to act on anything you still read the factor’s own measured value beside the target page and its comparison set.
Related terms
Part of the RankGear glossary · how RankGear measures · the 870 factors.