HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK
Lesson - 2
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- How Search Engine Works
- Aim of Search Engines
- What is Search Engine Crawling
- How To Tell Search Engine For Crawling
- How Search Engines Build Their Index
- How To Tell Search Engines For Indexing
- How Search Engines Rank Pages
- How People Interact With Search Engines
- Search Engine About SEO Strategies
- How Search Engines Personalize Search Results
- Search Engines FAQs
- How Search Engine Works
- Aim of Search Engines
- What is Search Engine Crawling
- How To Tell Search Engine For Crawling
- How Search Engines Build Their Index
- How To Tell Search Engines For Indexing
- How Search Engines Rank Pages
- How People Interact With Search Engines
- Search Engine About SEO Strategies
- How Search Engines Personalize Search Results
- Search Engines FAQs
How Do Search Engine Works?
Search engines work by crawling hundreds of billions of pages using their own web crawlers. These web crawlers are commonly referred to as search engine bots or spiders.
Web crawlers follow links from page to page in order to find new content to add to the search index.
When you use a search engine, relevant results from the index are extracted and ranked using an algorithm.
If that sounds complicated, it’s because it is. But, if you want to rank higher in search engines and drive more traffic to your website, you must first understand how search engines work, index, and rank content.
Be relaxed, we will go into details step by step.
Aim Of Search Engines
You will be amazed to know search engine handles more than 2 trillion searches per year and it aims to provide the best and most relevant results to their searchers as fast as possible.
To achieve this, the search engine keeps crawling and indexing the web pages 24/7 and saves the HTML version of a page in a gigantic database.
When a search is performed, the search engine scours its entire database and returns only those results which are most relevant to the searcher’s query within a fraction of a second.
For Example:
If you search for the term ‘off-page SEO benefits’, Google will come up with approximately 36 million results within 0.66 seconds.
To accomplish this entire sequence, from holding billions of web pages to promptly displaying the relevant results, the search engine company have set up their data centre all over the world.
That does three things:
- Crawling
- Indexing
- and Ranking
What Is Search Engine Crawling?
Crawling is the process by which search engines send computer bots (referred to as crawlers or spiders) to find new and updated content.
Crawlers use various techniques to visit each website and try to determine how many pages it has, whether it is textual content, videos, or images; but regardless of the format, content is discovered by links.
It also examines the web page’s internal and external links in order to discover more and more pages.
The spider does it continuously and checks if there are any changes made in the website (adding or deletion of content, images, links etc.) and keeps track of it.
So make sure crawlers will discover and scan your website without any issues.
How Do You Tell Search Engines To Crawl Your Website?
By telling search engines how to crawl your site, you can gain more control over what appears in the index.
If you use Google Search Console or the “site:domain.com” advanced search operator you can easily find how many pages are indexed, missed or unimportant pages have been mistakenly indexed.
The number of results Google displays isn’t exact, but it does give you a solid idea of which pages are indexed on your site and how they are currently showing up in search results.
Use XML sitemap to list all the important pages of your website (It’s a one-time process) — One of the easiest ways to ensure Google will find your highest priority pages. While submitting a sitemap does not replace the need for good site navigation, it can help crawlers find all of your important pages.
Importance Of Good Site Navigation
A crawler needs a path of links on your own site to direct it from page to page, just as it needs links from other sites to find your site.
Many website owners make the critical mistake of not linking some of their pages to the rest of their website pages. Don’t do it; if you do, your unlinked page will become invisible.
That is why your website must have clear navigation, clean information architecture and helpful URL structures.
What Is Information Architecture?
The practice of organizing and labelling content on a website to improve efficiency and findability for users is known as information architecture.
It means users shouldn’t have to think very hard to navigate or find something on your website.
Defining URL Structure
A well-crafted URL provides both humans and search engines with an easy-to-understand indication of what the destination page will be about.
Example of best URL practices:
https://www.example.com/coffee
https://www.example.com/products/shirt
From the above example, users and search engines will easily understand the topic by looking at the URLs.
Examples of bad URL practices:
https://www.example.com/455de/sh45/
https://www.example.com/rtgdfd/5879/
From the above example, users and search engines will not understand the topic by looking at the URLs.
However, there are chances where you might not want the search engine to index things like old URLs that have thin content, duplicate URLs (such as sort-and-filter parameters for e-commerce), special promo code pages, login pages, staging or test pages, and so on.
To direct Googlebot away from certain pages and sections of your site, use robots.txt.
Robots.txt
Robots.txt is a text file webmasters create to instruct web robots (typically search engine robots) how to crawl pages on their websites.
You can use almost any text editor to create a robots.txt file. For example, Notepad, TextEdit, and Emacs can create valid robots.txt files.
Key Point of Robots.txt file:
1. Robots.txt is case sensitive: the file must be named “robots.txt”
2. If Googlebot can’t find a robots.txt file for a site, it proceeds to crawl the site.
3. If Googlebot finds a robots.txt file for a site, it will usually abide by the suggestions and proceed to crawl the site.
After you’ve ensured that your site is crawlable, the next step is to ensure that it can be indexed.
How Search Engines Build Their Index?
Indexing is where processed information from crawled pages is added to a big database called the search index.
Search engine stores all the important details of crawled pages. Like when it was created, freshness, title, description, keywords, type of content, alt attribute, internal and external links and other parameters that are needed by their algorithms.
When you type a query into a search engine, you’re not directly searching the internet for matching results. You’re searching a search engine’s index of web pages.
If a web page isn’t in the search index, search engine users won’t find it. That’s why getting your website indexed in major search engines like Google and Bing is so important.
Tell Search Engines How To Index A Website
You can tell search engines how you want your web page to be treated by using Meta directives (or “meta tags”).
Robots Meta Tag
index/noindex tells search engines whether a page should be crawled and stored in its index for retrieval.
If you use “noindex,” you’re telling crawlers that you don’t want the page to appear in search results. Because search engines assume that they can index all pages by default, using the “index” value is unnecessary.
follow/nofollow tells search engines whether or not to follow links on a page. “Follow” causes bots to follow the links on your page and pass link equity to those URLs. Alternatively, if you use “nofollow,” search engines will not follow or pass any link equity through to the links on the page.
noarchive is used to restrict search engines from saving a cached copy of the page. If you run an e-commerce site and your prices change frequently, you should think about using the noarchive tag to prevent searchers from seeing outdated pricing.
How Do Search Engines Rank Pages?
Actually, a search engine is an answering machine and it will only survive if it shows the proper results.
Days have gone, when search engines used to rank a website as per the keywords used in it. It doesn’t mean keywords are not important, it’s still important only if it is used in a proper way.
The selection of keywords and their implementation is a crucial part of SEO. That we will see in our next chapter.
Nowadays people are seeking more accurate and complete information on their queries and in order to fulfil their needs, search engines have updated their entire algorithm.
Today hundreds of SEO factors determine which web page is more relevant to search queries.
Typically the long contextual post performs best because it contains In-Depth information about the topic.
And this is what people and search engines are looking for.
So, if you really want to rank your webpage on the first page of SERPs then start writing valuable In-Depth content.
Along with this, the website having more relevant backlinks and popularity also drags search engine attention to rank it.
Ok, Let’s dissect even more
We all know websites are ranked on the basis of relevancy.
For example:
If you search for the term ‘best insurance policy’, first of all, Google looks for the pages that are closely related to the keyword and brings all of them to the SERPs.
In this case, Google came up with 7.54 billion results within 1.08 seconds.
and out of 7.54 billion results, Google picks up the best web pages and put them on the top of the search result based on:
- Backlinks
- Relevance
- Freshness
- Content
- Page speed
- Mobile-friendliness
Backlinks
Backlinks are one of Google’s most important ranking factors. However, it’s not all about quantity because not all backlinks are created equal.
The more natural backlinks you have from high-authority (trusted) websites, the more likely it is that you will rank higher in search results.
It is entirely possible for a page with a few high-quality backlinks to outrank a page with a large number of low-quality backlinks.
Relevance
Search engines especially Google have invested in many technologies to help understand the relationships between entities like people, places, and things.
The search engine even understands what kind of information the searchers are looking for.
For example: When you type “How to start an online store”, the search engine will understand that you are looking for instructions on starting an e-commerce website thus it returns all the web pages that contain the guide on making an online store.
They even know that the meaning of ‘How to change a light bulb’ is the same as ‘How to replace a light bulb’.
It means relevance goes way beyond keyword matching. Now Google uses interaction data to assess whether search results are relevant to queries. In other words, are searchers finding the page useful?
Freshness
Freshness is a query-dependant ranking factor. It mostly depends on what people are searching on the web.
For example, in the case of a query like “new movie,” freshness is important because searchers want to know about newly added movies. That is most likely why Google prioritises newly published or updated search results.
There are some queries where the freshness of the results is mostly irrelevant, such as “How many continents are there?” The number of continents hasn’t changed in decades, so it doesn’t matter if the search results are from yesterday or 1990.
Content Of A Site
A web page can be authoritative, fresh, and relevant but it doesn’t mean it will be useful.
And if the content is not useful for the searchers then Big G is not going to rank it anywhere.
For example, let’s say you searched for ‘benefit of yoga’.
And opened the first result (Result A) which is written by the foremost expert on Yoga.
Since it was written by an expert it covers almost everything related to the topic, because of that, it got lots of backlinks.
but…
When you start reading, you find the content is unorganized, images are unrelated, topics are not systematic and lots of Jargon is used that you don’t understand.
What will you do?
Most probably you will leave the website immediately.
Now, contrast that with another result sitting on the second page of Google (Result B) which has relatively fewer links pointing toward it.
You found that web page HELPFUL…
…because it was well organized with great presentation, relevant images, and proper subheadings.
Well, that page is going to rank higher on the basis of the ‘usefulness scale’. Even though the backlinks and authority of Result B are less than Result A.
Here Google measures ‘User experience’. It analyzes how searchers are interacting with the search results and then ranks them accordingly.
It’s a machine-learning algorithm called RankBrain.
Page Speed
Google has indicated site speed as an SEO signal used by its algorithm to rank web pages (and recently they have given even more importance to Page Speed).
So make sure your website loads in under 2 seconds because a slow site completely hampers user experience which results in a high bounce rate.
You can check the speed of any web page in PageSpeed Insights, which also generates suggestions to make the page faster.
The hosting I use helped me a lot in improving my site speed from 4.3 seconds to nearly 1 second.
Along with the best hosting, you should also consider using CDN, Compressed images, Minify CSS, JavaScript, HTML and the fastest theme like Astra.
Mobile Friendly
Today 60% of Google searches are coming from mobile devices and mobile searchers are growing fast.
People love to access the internet while they are on the go, which means local SEO is going to become even more popular.
You can test the mobile-friendliness of any web page using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool or the Google Search Console’s Mobile Usability report.
How Do People Interact With Search Engines?
Over the years human interaction with search engines has evolved so much, that you can say it is getting more specific.
However, the primary principles of conducting a search are still the same and it goes as:
- People experience the need for some information or help.
- Formulate that need in a phrase or question or even words, commonly known as ‘the query’.
- Enter that query in the search box of search engines like Google or Bing.
- The search engine will show some relevant results.
- Searchers will click on the result shown in SERPs and scan for the solution.
- If the searcher’s got what they were looking for then well and fine or else they will go back to the SERPs and click on another link to get the solution.
Generally, people have two types of queries:
1. Informational query: When people are seeking some information.
Such as the Best University in the world, the Biography of Steve Jobs, the Best SEO company, How to rank my website etc come under informational queries.
2. To do something: When people are willing to do something.
Such as buying a movie ticket or buying a domain name comes under transactional queries.
In both types of queries, searchers look for the relevant result.
That is why I am repeating this, again and again, Build your website for users not only for search engines.
Even the search engines themselves are working after providing the relevant results to their users as fast as possible.
What Do Search Engines Say About SEO Strategies?
- Make your webpage for users, not only for search engine
- Create useful In-Depth content
- Make a site with easy navigation
- Don’t misguide users and search engine
- Use keywords to create descriptive meaningful content, titles, and URLs
- Avoid unnecessarily keyword stuffing
- rel = “nofollow” and rel = “canonical” tag should be used properly
How Do Search Engines Personalize Search Results?
Open a new tab in your browser (an incognito window will be better ) and type “SEO Company”
what did you get?
List all the SEO companies near your location right?… YES.
This is how search engines have evolved.
They will automatically analyze your search history, browsing behaviour, location, your interest and then combine all the data in order to provide you with the most accurate result within a second.
As I have mentioned earlier, people nowadays are getting more specific. Like if someone wants to start an online business, then their queries will be as:
- How to start an online business in India?
- How can I make a website to start an online business?
- What are the requirements to start an online business?
- Can online businesses make money?
- Where to register an online business?
and so on…
So if you start writing In-Depth content which covers almost every detail about the topic will definitely get ranked because people like a website which provides almost every detail in one place.
And if they (people) find it worthy, your post will definitely get shared, resulting in driving more traffic to your website.
It indicates to the search engine that your web page has valuable content and your page will get ranked on the first page of SERPs.
It’s cool right…? Yeah..!!
Now, if you are wondering how you will find all the questions people can think of, here is a great website you can go with.
You just have to enter the word and you will get hundreds of questions related to that keyword. Choose some of them, analyze them and start writing your article.
But how you will choose a proper keyword and how you will properly implement it? Check it out in the next chapter.
Faqs On Search Engines
What is a search engine?
A search engine is a web-based tool that helps users find information on the internet by indexing and organizing web pages and providing relevant search results based on user queries.
How does a search engine work?
Search engines use automated bots to crawl and index web pages, algorithms to rank those pages based on relevance, and deliver search results to users based on their queries.
What is a search query?
A search query is the set of keywords, phrases, or questions that a user enters into a search engine’s search bar to find specific information.
What are search engine rankings?
Search engine rankings refer to the order in which web pages appear on the search engine results page (SERP) in response to a user’s search query. Higher-ranked pages are considered more relevant.
What is organic search vs. paid search?
Organic search results are non-paid search results that appear naturally based on relevance to the user’s query. Paid search results are advertisements displayed at the top or bottom of the SERP.
What are meta descriptions?
Meta descriptions are brief summaries that provide a preview of the content on a web page. They appear below the page title in search results and influence user click-through rates.
How do search engines determine rankings?
Search engines use complex algorithms that consider factors like keyword relevance, content quality, backlinks, user experience, website authority, and more to determine rankings.
What are search engine algorithms?
Search engine algorithms are sets of rules and criteria that determine how web pages are ranked and displayed in search results. Algorithms are continuously updated to improve search quality.
What is a SERP?
A SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is the page that displays the search results after a user enters a query. It includes a list of web page titles, descriptions, and URLs.
How do I optimize my website for search engines?
Website optimization involves creating high-quality, relevant content, using appropriate keywords, improving user experience, ensuring mobile-friendliness, and acquiring quality backlinks.
What are featured snippets?
Featured snippets are concise answers displayed at the top of some search results that aim to directly answer a user’s question without requiring them to click on a result.
How can I improve my website's search engine rankings?
You can improve rankings by focusing on creating valuable, relevant content, optimizing on-page elements, building quality backlinks, and providing a positive user experience.
Are there alternative search engines to Google?
Yes, there are alternative search engines like Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and more. These engines offer different features and privacy options.
Is chrome a search engine?
A browser (firefox, internet explorer, chrome) is a program to display websites. A search engine (google, bing, yahoo) is a particular website that provides you with search results.
How do search engines handle mobile and voice search?
Search engines adapt to mobile devices and voice searches by delivering mobile-friendly results, voice-based results, and understanding natural language queries.
What are the five elements of a search engine?
The five elements of a search engine are documents, index, user query, ranking model and results page (SERP).
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