How Search Engines Work
Search Engine Optimization
By: Stephen S Alison
Many people
wonder how search engines really work. Although the details are
complex, this article aims to give you some insight into the
process without getting too technical. Read on...
Most search
engines have three parts: a crawler, an index, and a search
interface. Let's look at each part individually, to get a better
understanding of them. Each part has its own role to play in the
process, with all the parts working together to make searches
possible.
The Crawler
- Also known as a 'spider' or 'bot', this part of the search
engine wanders the web, following links and picking up
information for its database. Crawlers do most of their work at
times of the day when search engines are less busy, but they
typically visit frequently updated pages more often. This is
something to keep in mind when you're working on your pages. As
you may want to perform updates locally and update them when
they have been finished rather than updating bits and pieces and
hoping that the search engine runs into the correct version.
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Also, crawlers ignore
some things: your site's code, for example. Your site's title and
text - your 'content' - is the most important thing to a crawler.
The fastest way to raise your site’s search engine ranking for
specific key words is to implement them into your title and your
content.
The Index -
Once the crawler has collected all that text, it is then stored and
indexed. This allows people searching for keywords and phrases to
get results relating to what they were searching for - their search
results. Most sites will incorporate rating systems such as Google
Page Ranks or Alexa rankings in positioning your site. These ratings
are used to attempt to ensure that sites that are important receive
more traffic than unimportant sites. |
To see this in
action, go to a search engine and type in a word. You'll see
some text on the page saying something like "results 1-10 of
345,000". This means that the search engine's index contains
345,000 pages it believes are related to the word you typed. If
you wanted to, you could look through all these pages to find
the information you're looking for.
In order to
understand rating systems more thoroughly consider your own
site. When you place links on your site you generally due so in
order to increase your users understanding of the content of
your site. If every site in a particular field links to a
particular site, this site is probably very important to that
field and should, therefore, be listed highly in the lists of
search engine results. Thus the basic ideology of Google Page
Ranks.
Consider again, a
site that receives a great deal of traffic. If a site is
receiving loads and loads of traffic, it probably has some
information or service that is very important to its users.
Alexa ratings attempt to estimate the amount of traffic that a
particular site gets and compare it to the amount of traffic
that other sites get. The closer that a site is to the most
trafficked site on the internet, the more likely it is to have
important content if it is relevant to the search query.
The Interface
- Search engines provide a public interface for users who want
to find information on the web. They can type the word or phrase
they're searching for, and the interface will run an algorithm
to find the pages relevant to their search and display them.
These algorithms
are an important part of the SEO (search engine optimization)
business, and the search engines are constantly changing them.
You'll notice when the algorithms change, as the rankings of
your website will change with them.
No two search
engines are the same. They all work differently, with their own
unique features, and they will all respond to your website in
their own way. You should familiarize yourself with the most
popular search engines, to better understand how each of them
works.
The most popular
search engines today include Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, AllTheWeb,
MSN, and Ask Jeeves. There are many other search engines
available, though, and you shouldn't ignore them altogether.
When you submit
your website to the search engines, there's no way of knowing
when they might add it to their indexes. Since each search
engine has its own crawling and indexing methods, you can't be
sure how long it might take. In some cases, you might see
results within a week, but don't count on it - it may take
several weeks or even months before you see anything.
It's not easy to
get a high ranking unless you spend some time on it, and learn
the proper methods. When you take the time and do some research,
you'll find that it's not as confusing as you first thought.
Learning the basics will enhance your experience more than you
would have thought possible.
Search Engine
Optimization Techniques -
The Basic SEO Rules for All
Websites. Search engine optimization isn’t rocket science, but
it can feel complicated at times. To have a successful campaign,
just follow these simple rules detailed here – they apply to all
websites.
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