A couple of days ago, I was chatting with a buddy, talking about the difference between ranking signals and ranking factors. It got me started on a train of thought, and as I jotted down a list of a few factors and signals, I started thinking about what the criteria might be that define something as one or the other.
I had a fair good idea of what each variable is, but I found it difficult to nail down a clear definition that would readily classify something. So I went to Google and started doing some digging.
Ranking Factor or Ranking Signal
First, I looked for obvious things like ranking factor versus ranking signal. That came up dry. Seems like nobody in the first four pages had ever clearly defined them, let alone Google (big surprise there, right?)