subject: The Skinny On How Search Engines Work [print this page] For the uninitiated, the way search engines work seems like magic. You type in a keyword or phrase, then in a blink of an eye, websites that match what you are looking for turn up. If you didn't know better, you'd swear it was an act of God. But since acts of God manifest as natural disasters rather than technological wonders, the question remains, how do search engines work?
For SEO people, to understand how search engines work is part of their jobs. After all, how can you manipulate something you don't understand right? So for the SEO newbies out there looking to understand the science behind them, here a little primer.
When doing a search, you are basically searching for web sites correct? So how does a website become identified with whatever keyword you type? The simple answer is on page and off page optimization. What does this mean? Well, for example you have a website and you want it to turn up in Google or Yahoo. The first thing you should do is make sure that they identify your site with whatever keyword you wish it to be identified with. In on page optimization, this means using your keywords to make up the site's content. Also, you make sure you have title tags and meta descriptions for it. Why? Because search engines have their own bots or spiders that visit each and every site. The way they work is, they poke around your website looking for keywords. This helps the spiders determine what your site is about. And the result? Your site gets identified if one or more of your keywords or phrases are typed in.
What about off page optimization? This is more of getting the spiders to see your relevance and importance to a keyword or phrase. The simple explanation is, if spiders see other web sites link back to your site, using keywords that match yours, then the greater reputation level you get, resulting in a higher placement in search engine results. This is very important, because we all know that usually we click on the sites on the first page of results.
All this is not easy of course, and it requires time and dedication to have your site be ranked higher. But as long as you do things right and everything works as they should, in no time at all will you be able to see your site among the top ranking pages. Be careful using black hat techniques, though they get quicker results, once the spiders find out its black hat, your site may be banned or blacklisted.
