How search engines work

First, this guide isn’t intended to be comprehensive, but enough to give you an idea of how search engines work.

Simply put, search engines rank your page according to the phrase the searcher typed in. They follow a set of rules, known as an algorithm, to achieve the ranking order.

Not all search engines are the same

The algorithm of any given search engine is a closely guarded secret, and to complicate things further each search engine uses different rules. Crucially, in order to combat spammers and to progress, the way each engine works is constantly changing.

Spammers

One reason why search engines constantly change the way they rank pages is due to a game of cat and mouse between spammers and the search engines. A spammer is someone who uses tricks such as cramming key words into pages and constantly submitting in an attempt to enhance their site artificially. Spammers have tried many tricks, for example making text the same colour as the background so humans cannot see it but the search engines can. As the spammers develop new tricks, so the search engines adjust their algorithm's to combat them.

Page Elements

Different elements make up your web page: the title tag, key words tag, description tag, body text, images, forms, and invisible code such as java and asp.

The search engines scan your pages for keywords, which they then use to index or catalogue you. The optimization process includes getting the right mixture of keywords into your page and various elements. Too much, and they will penalise you for spamming; too little and your competitor is ranked instead.

Link Popularity

Search engines also consider how many other sites are linking to you, and over a period of time how many people are clicking on these links. The more popular sites rise to the top – separating the wheat from the chaff.

Services offering to submit your Web Site link to FFA sites should not tempt you. While it may quickly generate thousands of links, some search engines can detect this and will penalise or drop your listing.