Search Engine Marketing
SO HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES GO ABOUT DETERMINING RELEVANCY?
Search engines have three major elements. First is the spider, also called the crawler. The spider visits a web page, reads it, and then follows links to other pages within the site but also any external links to other websites you have reciprocating agreements with. This is what it means when someone refers to a site being “spidered” or “crawled”. The spider returns to the site on a regular basis, such as every month or two, to look for any changes. Examples of web crawler search engines include Ask Jeeves, Google, Lycos and Alta Vista. To enable the spider to find the most relevant information, 310k Internet Solutions will carry out website optimisation to your site.
Everything the spider finds goes into the second part of a search engine, the index. The index, sometimes called the catalogue, is like a giant book containing a copy of every web page that the spider finds. If a web page changes, then this book is updated with the new information.
Sometimes it can take a while for new pages or changes that the spider finds to be added to the index. Thus, a web page may have been “spidered” but not yet “indexed.” Until it is, it will not be available to those searching with that engine.
Search engine software is the third part of an engine. This is done by complex mathematical formulas called ranking algorithms, that sifts through the millions of pages recorded in the index to find matches to a search and rank them in order of what it believes is most relevant.
As WebCrawler founder, Brian Pinkerton puts it “Imagine walking up to a librarian and saying ‘travel.’ They’re going to look at you with a blank face.” Unlike the librarian, search engines don’t have the ability to ask you questions to help focus their search. They also can’t rely on judgement and past experience to rank web pages, in the same way as humans can.
The librarian, to find a book to match your request of “travel”, will first look for books with travel in the title. Search engines operate in the same way. Pages with keywords appearing in the title are assumed to be more relevant than others to the topic.
The search engines will also check to see if the keywords that describe your products or services, appear near the top of a web page, such as in the headline or in the first few paragraphs of text. They assume that any page relevant to the topic will mention those words right from the start.
Frequency is the other major factor in how search engines determine relevancy. A search engine will analyse how often keywords appear in relation to other words on a web page. Those with a higher frequency are often deemed more relevant than other web pages.
All search engines have the basic parts described above, but there are differences in how these parts are tuned. That is why the same search on different search engines often produces varying results. 310k Internet Solutions website optimisation service allows for these differences.
MAINTAINING YOUR HIGH PROFILE
There are no “special search engine secrets” that will generate a top listing, however, there are a number of basic techniques that 310k Internet Solutions employs in its website optimisation, to produce major results.
310k Internet Solutions website optimisation starts with strategic planning. Our Webmasters view a proposed site for navigability. On the web people scan they don’t read. If they don’t see what interests them or they get lost finding things, they will quickly leave. So when planning a site we will try to make it attractive, engaging, interesting, professionally done, but also easy to use and understand.
This also helps with directories, hybrid search engines and with associated directories. They may give a boost to sites they have reviewed. The logic is that if a site was good enough to earn a review, chances are it’s more relevant than an un-reviewed site.
Far too many websites owners name their sites badly. Sometimes the title is all that people see when you come up in a search engine hit list, so as part of our website optimisation, we will recommend an appropriate title, for example, if you were an estate agent then “Houses for Sale.”
Next 310k Internet Solutions website optimisation ensures your important keywords are used more than once on a page. Remember how we mentioned earlier that some of the major search engines rank sites based on relevancy of the keywords used. HotBot and Infoseek do give a boost to pages with keywords in their Meta Tags whereas Lycos doesn’t read them at all.
Most search engines will also penalise pages or exclude them from an index if they detect spamming. An example is when a keyword is repeated hundreds of times on a page, often in the same colour as the background to appear invisible to the eye. The reason is to increase the frequency and propel the page higher in the listings. Search engines watch for common spamming methods in a variety of ways, not least by following up on complaints. Most professional Webmasters will try to prevent spamming; however, the occasional site does get through. 310k Internet Solutions website optimisation service will check for any errors.
Many people who visit the Internet are looking for free information on some topic. Furnish this information and your site fills a need and is therefore worth listing. An Estate Agent who doesn’t just supply details on properties for sale but includes information on surveyors, solicitors, mortgage brokers, schools, tourist attractions, local services, maps etc., with links to other associated sites are more likely to get a review and high listing. 310k Internet Solutions website optimisation service submit all of our client’s sites for review. Search engines have three major elements. First is the spider, also called the crawler. The spider visits a web page, reads it, and then follows links to other pages within the site but also any external links to other websites you have reciprocating agreements with. This is what it means when someone refers to a site being “spidered” or “crawled”. The spider returns to the site on a regular basis, such as every month or two, to look for any changes. Examples of web crawler search engines include Ask Jeeves, Google, Lycos and Alta Vista. To enable the spider to find the most relevant information, 310k Internet Solutions will carry out website optimisation to your site.
Everything the spider finds goes into the second part of a search engine, the index. The index, sometimes called the catalogue, is like a giant book containing a copy of every web page that the spider finds. If a web page changes, then this book is updated with the new information.
Sometimes it can take a while for new pages or changes that the spider finds to be added to the index. Thus, a web page may have been “spidered” but not yet “indexed.” Until it is, it will not be available to those searching with that engine.
Search engine software is the third part of an engine. This is done by complex mathematical formulas called ranking algorithms, that sifts through the millions of pages recorded in the index to find matches to a search and rank them in order of what it believes is most relevant.
As WebCrawler founder, Brian Pinkerton puts it “Imagine walking up to a librarian and saying ‘travel.’ They’re going to look at you with a blank face.” Unlike the librarian, search engines don’t have the ability to ask you questions to help focus their search. They also can’t rely on judgement and past experience to rank web pages, in the same way as humans can.
The librarian, to find a book to match your request of “travel”, will first look for books with travel in the title. Search engines operate in the same way. Pages with keywords appearing in the title are assumed to be more relevant than others to the topic.
The search engines will also check to see if the keywords that describe your products or services, appear near the top of a web page, such as in the headline or in the first few paragraphs of text. They assume that any page relevant to the topic will mention those words right from the start.
Frequency is the other major factor in how search engines determine relevancy. A search engine will analyse how often keywords appear in relation to other words on a web page. Those with a higher frequency are often deemed more relevant than other web pages.
All search engines have the basic parts described above, but there are differences in how these parts are tuned. That is why the same search on different search engines often produces varying results. 310k Internet Solutions website optimisation service allows for these differences.
Want to know how your website is performing? Simply call us on 0845 6441181 (local rate) or e-mail