Have
you ever wondered how search engines determine which keyword or
key phrase is number 1, 2, or 10,000 when you query a search engine?
Search
for anything online using your favorite search engine (Yahoo,
Google, MSN). Within seconds, the search engine will display results
in the millions and present you with websites that match your
query (or at least very close). The search engines will sort through
the millions of pages indexed into their database and present
you with ones that match your topic. The matches will even be
ranked, so that the most relevant ones come first...sometimes
non-relevant results are displayed.
I
get a lot of calls from prospective clients saying "I want
to be number one" or "I want to be ahead of that guy
when you type in XXXX on Google".
Imagine
walking up to a librarian or a clerk at a book store and asking,
"I need a book on real estate". You'll probably get
a surprise look with a blank expression. If he or she is really
helpful she will then ask you more questions to be more specific
on what kind of book on real estate you want.
Unfortunately,
search engines don't have the ability to ask a few questions to
narrow down your search, as a librarian can. They also can't rely
on judgment and past experience to rank web pages, in the way
humans can. The result is that no search engine has the exact
same collection of web pages to search through.
Question:
How do search engines rank web pages and determine which website
is number 1, 2, 3 or 100 out of millions of websites?
Answer:
Every search engine follow a set of rules called algorithm. Exactly
how a particular search engine's algorithm works is a closely-kept
trade secret. However, all major search engines have certain criteria
used to rank websites. Below are factors considered in ranking
websites (not in any order of relevance):
-
Title
Tag - Very important. A title of a website is similar
to a title of a newspaper article or a book. If the title
of the web page is "homes for sale in Los Angeles",
then the assumption is the website has to do with the sale
of homes in Los Angeles and not how to rob a bank.
-
Age
of domain - The age of a website or domain determines
Longetivity. Age of a website is becoming a major factor in
determing web site rankings.
-
Keyword
frequency - A search engine will analyze how often
keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page.
-
Link
popularity - Link Popularity is sometimes called
a site's significance ranking because it is believed that
one measure of a site's "value" is the number of
other Web sites who felt your site was sufficiently important
to link to.
-
PageRank
- This is Google's way of ranking web pages. Google interprets
a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page
B. Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching
techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant
to your search.
-
Site
Design / Structure - Sites built using flash or dynamic
pages usually rank lower on search engine results. Also, a
website built using all images in the eye of a search engine
spider means nothing. A picture can mean several things.
-
Keywords
meta tags - Some search engines consider the keywords
in the meta tags as part of their algorithm.
-
Off
Page Factors
- Your website will be banned or rank lower on search engines
if you employ illegal tactics to get results such as cloaking,
keyword stuffing, hidden or invisible text, meta tag stuffing,
gateway or doorway pages, link farming, spam blogs, hidden
links, page hijacking, buying expired domains.
