How Do Search Engines Work?
When I talk to friends about my Internet endeavours one of the most common questions I am asked is “how do search engines work?”. Well, all search engines use complex algorithms to determine where your site ranks for any given phrase. Think of the SE as a question sheet and your website as the answer sheet. The more answers you get right, the higher your website ranks. This will include things like page relevancy, site structure, and good quality backlinks. It is said that Googles algorithm now considers around 2 million variables about each website. This is one reason why people with poor quality sites are beginning to lose the battle. Google becomes more efficient each day at filtering out rubbish, so whilst it’s impossible to know all the variables they consider when looking at your site, you can be sure that you need to provide real content and make your site a good resource for your target market.
Most SEO efforts are focussed on Google because they are the most used search engine. But people tend to forget that Yahoo still has around 22% of Internet searches, which is a lot of traffic we could be missing out on by not optimising correctly. I read an experts post recently who stated that Yahoo’s algorithm is around 4 years behind Googles. This is an interesting theory. If it’s true then that means we use Googles past to rank better in Yahoo, but i’ll wait for further opinions on this before making any hasty decisions.
