A Factor ID is a frozen identifier in the form RG-FAMILY-NNN that pins a single factor’s meaning so it stays the same factor across workbooks, Diff, and Trends.
| Term | Factor ID |
|---|---|
| Category | Analysis and Optimization |
| Also known as | Factor Code |
| Where it appears | Workbook Overview and factor reports |
What it means in RankGear
Every factor RankGear measures carries a Factor ID — a short, stable code such as RG-CONTENT-014 — that appears next to the factor in Workbook Overview and throughout the factor reports. The point of the ID is permanence. A factor’s display name can be reworded and its position in a report can move, but its ID does not change, so it always points to the same underlying definition. That stability is what lets RankGear line up the same factor across separate runs: a Diff can say a factor moved, and Trends can chart it over months, because both are keyed on the ID rather than on a label that might read differently from one workbook to the next.
How to interpret it
Read a Factor ID as an address, not a score. It tells you which factor you are looking at and guarantees continuity across workbooks; it says nothing on its own about whether the page is doing well on that factor. Use it to confirm you are comparing like with like — the same RG-FAMILY-NNN on both sides of a Diff means the two rows really are the same measurement, even if the wording shifted between releases. The FAMILY segment also groups related factors, so the ID doubles as a quick way to see which part of the analysis a factor belongs to. To judge the factor itself, read its value beside the target page, the comparison set, and the supporting correlation; the ID just makes sure you are always reading the same thing.
| Segment | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| RG | Namespace prefix marking it as a RankGear factor code |
| FAMILY | The factor family the measurement belongs to, grouping related factors together |
| NNN | The fixed number that identifies this specific factor within its family |
Example
You run an analysis for a keyword in February and again in May. In the May Diff you notice the factor labeled “Body word count” reads slightly differently from the February run — the copy team renamed it “Main content length.” Because both rows share the Factor ID RG-CONTENT-014, RankGear still treats them as the same factor and reports the delta correctly, and Trends plots the two points on one continuous line instead of splitting them into two series.
Important considerations
- A Factor ID is an identifier, not a measurement — it names the factor but carries no score, ranking, or judgment of the page.
- Its whole job is stability: the ID stays fixed even when a factor’s display name or report position changes, which is what makes cross-run comparison in Diff and Trends reliable.
- Matching IDs confirm two rows are the same factor, but a difference in that factor’s value between runs is correlation, not causation — it shows something changed, not that a specific edit caused it.
- The factor values keyed to an ID rest on comparative, provider-scale indicators drawn from the pages RankGear analyzed, not on Google’s internal scores, so read every value as a comparative lead rather than a verdict.
Related terms
Part of the RankGear glossary · how RankGear measures · the 870 factors.