Search engines have two functions. One is to crawl through the web and build an index. The other is to provide users with relevant answers to their searches. In order to have one, you must have the other. In order for search engines to give you the best result for your query, it has to spend its time going from link to link and finding which pages have the best answer. Search engines work by doing this beforehand, they’re not doing all the research the day the paper is due, per say. They have another function that does it for them – they’re called spiders.
“Imagine the World Wide Web as a network of stops in a big city subway system. Each stop is a unique document (usually a web page, but sometimes a PDF, JPG, or other file). The search engines need a way to “crawl” the entire city and find all the stops along the way, so they use the best path available—links.”
Once spiders have their research all organized and stored in massive databases, it sits and waits for you to ask for it. At that time it does two things: looks for relevant results for what you searched for and then ranks them by level of popularity of their source (ie: the website the result is on). Deciding how popular the source is relies on a good bit of information, and the parameters that decide what is popular and what isn’t is called an algorithm.
How Can Search Engines Work For You?
In order to get found by search engines, so that you get found by users, you have to properly implement a SEO plan for your site. Think about what your target audience will be searching for so that they land on you. If you have a coffee shop in Brooklyn, you’ll want to make sure to add keywords like “coffee shop Brooklyn” into your SEO plan.
While there is more to SEO than finding a great group of keywords, that’s a great start. For more information on creating a great SEO marketing plan, and making sure that search engines work for you, get in touch with Eyler Creative. We will audit, optimize and analyze your site so that you see increased web traffic and, in turn, more ROI.
source: How Search Engines Operate
Eyler Creative:
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