Create, Capture, Convert

SEO For Business Part 1: Understanding How Search Engines Work

Over the next few days, we're going to be breaking down how search engines like Google and Bing actually work and teach you the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  In this 10 part series we're going to show you SEO best practices that will help you outrank 90% of your competitors on the web.  We hope you enjoy!

Everyone who surfs the Internet is familiar with search engines. Google being the biggest and most popular search engine out there, commands both fear and respect among anyone who chooses to put up a website. On the surface, a search engine is the portal to finding specific information about a variety of topics online. However, if you scratch beneath the surface, you’ll find that there is much more to them than meets the eye.

Basically, search engines have four major functions: Crawling the Web, Building an Index, Determining Relevancy and Rankings and Displaying Results. Each one of these steps is essential for sorting out information among an enormous number of website pages, and assigning each page a specific ranking based on an accumulation of many factors.

Crawling the Web

As of February 2012 the number of indexed websites online is around 8.52 billion. Imagine having the job of searching all of those to figure out what people really want to know. When a website is brand new, it does not automatically get found online. First, the website must be “crawled” by what is commonly called search engine “spiders” or “robots.” Each day, these automated spiders are roaming the web looking for fresh information. Once the spider discovers the new site, it will then crawl it and index all of the information. This can take days or weeks, depending on the type of SEO activity being done for the site.

As for existing website pages. They are also crawled on a regular basis. However, those sites that continue to update their pages with fresh information will be crawled more often than stagnant sites. This is why it’s possible to move a site up the rankings even if it is far back in the pack. A website is not stuck with a low ranking, unless no effort is made to improve results.

Building an Index

One of the main jobs of a search engine is to place each website into its index. This makes it easy for surfers to find information that they need quickly. It is similar to filing a book onto a library shelf. If all of the books were scattered about, you’d never find anything of value. However, once each book has been placed on the appropriate shelf space, you can then quickly locate it under the right category.

Determining Relevancy and Rankings

Okay. Now that your website is indexed, that’s not the end of the story. The search engine then must determine where your site fits in with all of the other competing sites with very similar information. This is where the real battle for search engine dominance is waged. Relevancy means that the content on your site pages provides lots of specific information on a niche topic that is highly valuable to people searching on this topic. For instance, if you are searching for “ergonomic office chair” you don’t want to see a bunch of sites that talk about home furniture.

The search engine will make a determination as to how much relevancy your site content offers surfers and assign it a specific page ranking. By the way, each page of your site can have its own ranking.

Displaying Results

Once your website has been indexed and pages have rankings, they will show up as results when someone types in specific keywords. If you have done a good job of SEO on your site, you may be among the fortunate ones that have a site ranking in the top 10 results. These are the most coveted spots on the Internet.