Google's Favorite Sites to Encounter
OK. The title explains it all. I want to understand this. What does Google want sites to be like? What makes the Googlebot happy to come upon a site?
I guess be organized? What about the version of HTML? Will that affect SEO? Should we all be using HTML 5 for SEO reasons?
Should a site just have divs? Should I load the key content <div> BEFORE a side-menu or other information <div> on a page? Does loading the content before other stuff make a difference, in terms of SEO? (Is this why CSS is best, in terms of SEO, over tables, if in fact you have found this to be so?)
I'm looking for other aspects of what Google might want, just because I'm not sure at all at this point, and I want to cover all the basics. (These are some of the things I haven't really paid much attention to.)
Are older iterations of HTML considered a negative ranking factor?
What about speed? How fast is "fast?" How important is ping time versus total page load time? What is objectively a GOOD goal, in terms of speed?
Do older versions of CMSes hurt rank, as they are less trusted? I realize a fully updated WP site is probably considered the most trusted it can be, in terms of patches, etc. So do you get extra "points" for keeping updated with your WP site?
After all, a lower version of WP suggests you are using an earlier version of PHP, and so a less secure site.
What about custom-written sites without a recognized CMS?
How does Google feel about those?