"Understanding the Way Search Engines Work Can Be the Differance Between Success and Failure..."

"In less than a decade, Internet search engines have completely changed how people gather information."

No longer must we run to a library to look something up; rather we can pull up relevant documents with just a few clicks on a keyboard. Now that "Googling" has become a commonly used phrase in the English language, online searchengines have gained an incredible importance in our everyday lives. Everyday there are billions of searches conducted for just about everything. From a business perspective, having a website that performs properly in search engine searches can literally be the difference between dominating a marketplace and going bankrupt!

 

"If You Can't Find Your Website Neither Will Anyone Else..."

 

Here’s something to think about; some estimates have stated that 85-95% of websites are found through search engines. You may have a great-looking website, but without the proper structure it will likely be invisible to the search engines. In fact, the internet is much larger than most people think. The “invisible web“ is thought to be as much as 500 times larger than the conventional web that we think of. As a business owner you need to understand what search engines are, how they work and why they are vital to your business and your website.

 

Search engines come in two varieties, human-edited and spider indexed. The only types of search engines in which you have some control are those which use spiders (sometimes called robots) to read, index and rank your site. The spiders are basically software applications that travel the Internet by following links and finding websites to read and add to their databases. Once the spiders find your website and index it, it will move along to other sites from your outbound links. There are a number of ways to making sure your website gets indexed:

• You can submit your website to the searchengine directly.
• You can submit your website using a software submission service or application.
• You can have your website submitted by a third party, usually a Search Engine Optimization company or perhaps a Web Designer.
• Lastly you can do nothing. Eventually the spiders will probably find your website and begin the indexing process.    

The last example is not recommended as you will have no idea when or even if the searchengines have indexed your website.

Once your site is indexed, the process of ranking your pages begins. All of the major search engines that use spiders to index websites also use complicated algorithms or calculations for determining the Page Rank of your site. When a user comes to the search engine and makes a query, typically by giving keywords, the engine looks up the index and provides a listing of the best-matching web pages according to its criteria.

The search engine starts looking for pages containing the exact phrase. Then it looks for pages with the words close together and finally for pages that have the words scattered around. In some cases, pages with words close together (but not the exact phrase) appear higher than pages with the exact phrase.

"The Easiest Way to Impress a Search Engine is With Strong, Relevant Content..."

  

The search engines look at many factors. They look for the words throughout the page, both in the visible page and in the HTML source code for the page. Each time they find the words, they are weighted in some way. A word in one position is “worth” more than a word in another position. A word formatted in one way is “worth” more than a word formatted in another. This is an example of a search engine’s algorithm or calculation. The relevancy of your web pages, which make up your website, in relation to the search engine’s algorithm will determine how well your website is displayed in the search results.

 

To aviod manipulation of the search results most search engines alter their algorithms from time to time. This protects the integrity of the search results and prevents scam artists from profiting from their 'illegal' techniques. 

Having said that search engines do maintain certain standards that they like to see on your website. Content, keywords as well as link popularity and link density are very important to attracting traffic to your website. While there are several ways to gain high rankings in a short period of time, almost all of them are considered “cheating” and can result in very damaging penalties for you and your business. However if your website is not performing well a quick fix may be pay-per-click, paid inclusion, or paid placement. This is the practice of paying search engines to post a small advertisement for your website alongside the standard search results. These ads are often called sponsored links.

As of mid 2006, Goggle continues to dominate the search engine wars garnering anywhere from 40-50% of the market. With thousands of search engines to choose from, that level of dominance is impressive so let’s look at Google a little closer.

"What if Every Time A New Prospect Went Searching for Your Product or Services Your Website Appeared and Your Competitors Did Not...Can You See The Potential?"

 

Around 2001, the Google search engine rose to prominence. Its success was based in part on the concept of link popularity and Page Rank. The number of pages and websites that link to another is taken into consideration with Page Rank. The idea is that good pages will have more links than bad ones. After all, everyone wants to be associated with a winner, right? Google’s Page Rank isn’t influenced on merely the quantity of links but the quality as well. That may sound complicated but actually it’s fairly straight forward. If you have links to pages with high Page Ranks then your pages will rank higher as a result. This would be considered a quality link. Google seems to prefer quality over quantity. So having more of your pages linked to fewer high quality pages is preferable to having a larger number of links pointing at lower quality pages. This makes it possible for Google to order its results by how many web sites link to each found page. Obtaining a high rank on Google can be a gigantic boost for your website and thus your business. According to studies conducted by web usability expert Jakob Neilson more than 90% of users never go beyond the first page of the search results. Imagine if your website was the number one listing in Google’s search results. So, every time a prospective client was looking for your services or products you were the first option presented to them. Does that sound attractive? If so, let’s continue on and discuss search engine optimization…