subject: Search Engines Basic Criteria For Top-listing A Website [print this page] How Google indexes and ranks website through its search engine is the most sought after information by SEO services in India and all over the world. Google and Bing uses complex statistical data and algorithms to ascertain which website has the best content and deserves to be ranked in the top of the index. Many SEO people will abuse Google and Bing, if they had the chance for coming out with regular updates of search engine algorithms like Panda in 2011 and Penguin in 2012 for making their life difficult.
The major benefactors of these updates has been the news and social media website in which content gets updated hour on hour. Internet marketeers and spammers are said to be the biggest losers. Though Google has provided an excerpts of their new policy on search engine rules and guidelines on their website, very few SEO professional and especially their less than honest counterparts from the Spamming world, would like to believe in its honesty, as they believe the algorithms don't work the way Google say it does. It is the undisclosed information which bothers them.
But the fact is that, if Google and Bing discloses the process of selecting the refined results, like what is the requisite criteria for getting selected from a varied list hyper competitive queries, the secret will be out and the results displayed will be a unholy amalgamation of optimized text, pictures and links or whatever irrelevant garbage the search engine evaluates. So far none of the attempts to decipher the search engine algorithms by the general public , the scientist and software engineers through various scientific and unscientific methods have been fruitful. Which is a blessing in disguise.
But, what does Google and Bing, looks for while ranking a site:
Basic Website Performance is given priority
SEO service providers in India should design their page in such a way, so that a search engine can efficiently crawl through the site and gather information. Google and Bing also test how a performance of a site performs. Like if a website provides one thing to search engine and something else to a real individual. Does the website provides a unending self reference links, publishes duplicate content or implements improper missing document logic.
Content Objects is thoroughly browsed
Both search engines look for object like things like images, documents, files, scripts, etc. They browse through stuffs like size of a file, its format (ASCII, Binary, open, or a proprietary format). Do they serve a function or is of no use.
There is also a small set of standard object-documents that the well-behaved search engines all look for, like robots.txt, XML sitemps, TXT sitemaps, CSS and Javascript files, and maybe a few other things that provide meta data about Websites. These files are not critical but are important, especially for large Websites.
Relationship between different content is probed
Google and Bing gets the document and begins analyzing. Images taken with a smartphone and uploaded on the web are immediately analyzed, these images have vital information like, place, time, and devise details. Google can also go through Flash and .MOV files which have lots of small information.
Every web page is real HTML document and is served by a dynamic Content Management System. A search engine crawl through those document and guess what other object like things the document is trying to work with.
For a SEO services this means a search engine won't accept a misspelled URL or any deceptive reference. It also deems necessary to provide embedded meta information about the documents, such which language it uses, the character set needed, to which country it's most relevant or whether it's a copy, or not etc.
Original, up-to-date and relevant content is more important
Content can be anything but now a search engine Artificial intelligence makes sure the content is fresh and up-to-date. Earlier online marketing people knew how to embed whole paragraphs in an HTML comments, Google and Bing ignores such comments.
A SEO engineer should know how to look under the hood of a website if their clients site drops out of the to index. The search engine strips out the text, linearized it, scans for any patterns, and shreds it into indexable segments. But in the process the search engines note things like changes in font size, use of emphasis. All that can be recorded is measured, weighed, and stored away somewhere.
Hypertext Links are investigated
Google and other search engines archives the links it finds for future reference, and for long SEO people have gone away with playing with URL link. Over the years Google search engineers have found out ways to interpret and decipher which link is real and which is false link. Link analysis is not as simple as is thought out to be. The search engineers have to figure out where the links are and which links are real, that was not easy earlier but they are having some success recently.
Patterns and Relationships in a content are analyzed
Search engine like Google looks for keyword stuffing, crafty linking, off-the-curve content, and anything which might make the web document look like a leech or irrelevant, suspicious, malicious, unhelpful. After these tests search engine has to figure out relative value of things in the site, e.g- is it necessary to index phrases, is there anything in the document which is quality content and can be indexed, is it necessary to discarded a page after extraction. Today's search engines look for reason and logic to cut out any bad result or link.They shift through all the data to ascertain the trustworthiness of a link.
Content which is of some value to individuals is chosen
Google and to some extent Bing give any content the benefit of doubt just like a journalist and tries its best to be objective in the final results as much as possible. A search engine algorithm can not totally gauge the exact choices and likes of a Human. It takes into account that a query may eventually crop up sooner or later on a subject of least interest to others in a population. A search engine have to make a quick decision on whether to make the page available or not in such cases.
It's important that SEO services in India start developing original content which is of some use to at-least a small percentage of people, because that is what the latest algorithms in a search engine looks for. They crawl through your work to determine the value and usefulness of a document.
Earlier people used to follow the concept and principle of Wikipedia, which shows that a search engine intentionally shows the less relevant and satisfying content in it's search results because it's the most economic way of satisfying user requirements. After the 2010 Mayday Update, 2011 Google Panda launch and 2012 Google Penguin, in which many website dealers learned a shocking lesson as their sites were booted down, the notion that search engine won't be able to decipher good quality content from bad one has lessened.
Conclusion
SEO service providers and professional should keep should focus on creating content for the people, who are the real users, rather than creating content tailor made to satisfy the search engine algorithm of Google and Bing or any other. The search engines dont always hit the bulls eye, but they are still working on the process, to provide better results to users. The least one can do is create content which is of some quality and use to others.
