Search Engine Work
Explained In A Common Man’s Language
Search Engine Work is a complicated task.
Know all about what the “beast” does behind the back of your website, in an easy to understand non-technical language. Deeper knowledge about a search engine work is crucial to the selection of keywords for your website.
Since our website helps in the making of your own website, and not about getting trained in the nitty gritty of a search engine, hence we will discuss the matter in a very non-technical language. That way it will be a good reading and helpful for those not so computer savvy.
As you read further you will discover that we have used the metaphor of a “beast” to describe a search engine. It is merely to make things easy to comprehend and make it fun what otherwise could be a boring lesson from a computer engineering course.
The topics discussed on this page are:
What is a Web S.E.?
Why Is It Important To Know How Does A Search Engine Work?
How Does A Search Engine Work?
Click to read the article of your choice or continue reading for complete information.
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What is a Web Search Engine?
A Web search engine works as a tool (read computer program) designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results, commonly called hits, are presented in a list and may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files.
Search engines work with very sophisticated computer programs, called algorithms, and collect data from the websites available on the internet. They have a very detailed and intriguing filing system where all the collected data is filed or “indexed” as they call it. Obviously the indexing is done based on certain predefined criteria which help in the search engine work of retrieving back that information whenever called for.
The World Wide Web is filled with billions of web pages. It is impossible for anyone to find information from the web without the help of a refined system.
In response to a query the search engines work using these complicated computer software and search all their indices, at their own back end, and retrieve data based on some criteria, especially one that searches the Internet for documents containing certain specified keywords.
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Why Is It Important To Know How Does A Search Engine Work?
Whenever any person wants to seek some information from the web she relies on that little petite window on a website which has the “magical powers” to answer all her queries. You feed your query and it springs back related results.
Here is the key. If you want your web pages to be found by these search engines, they must match with that person’s requirements. You need search engines for your valuable traffic and these God like search engines provide free traffic!
Once you know what all will facilitate easy locating of your web pages you will then mould your web pages accordingly and hence will get found by these search engines more often.
Hence, it is very important to know - How does a search engine work, from the inside.
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How Does A Search Engine Work?
A search engine is a three faced “beast”.
While only one face is visible to the world it cleverly manages to make invisible to the naked eye its other two faces. The other two faces work incognito.
Let’s look deeper and find out its working before we can “dissect” it for our profitability. We need to know what it feeds on so that we can tame it by supplying enough of what it wants.
Despite being a “beast” a search engine is a friend and not an enemy. The only thing is that it has got rules. If anyone wants to come any closer to it, she has to respect those rules.
Funny thing about a search engine is that it has a distinctive taste and it doesn’t like to be challenged for that. Feed it what it likes and it will be happy beyond limit and reward you handsomely in return. But anything that goes against its liking can have severe effects and the “beast” can penalize the future of your website.
So it’s wiser to know what the beast likes, and even dislikes, so that we can make friends with the demon.
First the invisible faces.
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Face-1: The Spider “Face”
This “Face” of a search engine has the characteristics of a “Spider”.
This is what “crawls” into your website, on submission, and collects all the vital information about your website.
It is not interested in the inticacy of your HTML or Javascript. Amongst other things a search engine works to look for the following:
- - Looks at the Title of the page
- - Looks at the Description of the page
- - Notes down the Primary and Secondary Keywords
- - Reads the Textual Content in the webpage
- - Verifies the quality of the content
- - Checks for the relevance of the content with the Meta Tag Information
- - Checks for the quantum of information
- - Loves and looks hungrily for all Incoming and Outgoing Links
- - Feeds itself on all the URL mentioned
It in fact looks at your website with more angles than can actually fit into 360 degrees! Most of what it does is outside the jurisdiction of this website and beyond its scope. The above mentioned points are more important from a webmaster’s point of view.
While it is good to know what it likes, it will not hurt to also know what it doesn’t really care about. These are some of the things that basically don’t go into the food of a search engine:
- - It cares little or nothing about the simplicity, complexity, intricacy, or novelty of your html or javascript or any other jargon used to create special effects
- - It has short sight (it can only “crawl”) and hence doesn’t really appreciate or look into any photos or graphics. It is always hungry for more textual kind of fodder.
- - It is color blind and hence doesn’t know the difference between black, red or green or all those funny colors that you want to splash all around on your webpage.
- - It doesn’t know how to read buttons, and thus doesn’t care much about nav bar buttons or what is deceptively written on them. But it does relish on Links of all kinds.
All this and much more is what the search engine spiders do and that too at a remarkable speed. This face of the search engine collects information.
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Face-2: The Storekeeper “Face”
This “Face” of a search engine does all the dirty clerical work.
It collects all the information about various web pages that is supplied by the spiders and like a hard working employee diligently puts the inventory in appropriate “shelves”.
The “storekeeper face” is responsible for putting to order all the raw stock for immediate retrieval.
This is where all the top computer experts engaged by the search engine companies all over the world, work at fabricating complex software codes, to assist the “storekeeper face” of the search engine.
The search engine works to decipher and arrange the unbelievable amount of internet information in a manner that is unique and secret to all their working.
Based on what people have been searching for in the past and depending upon their own forecast and projections, they categorize this mammoth informational raw stock.
The hard working employee keeps updating this information practically everyday so as to supply latest results when sought for. That’s because the quality of information a search engine supplies in response to your queries is what keeps it in business.
And now the visible face.
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Face-3: The Simpleton “Face”
Yes, this “Face” of a search engine, which is the only visible face, is the most innocuous looking and simple fellow kind of a face. It makes you feel that a search engine is a like a small little “pet” and not a “beast”.
It presents itself to the world in the shape of a rectangular window where you can enter your desired keyword.
Have you seen the Google home page? There is a lot of white space and a longish rectangular window right in the middle, invoking you to feed in some words, called query, so that it can throw back its valuable results at you.
The simple guy is in fact the smart one. As soon as you hit the search button after filling in the keyword box, this face of the search engine works to match your query with the name tags on the “shelves” in its own go-down, and with the speed of light, returns to you so much information, that it is difficult for you to digest it all in one go.
And quite humbly it calls it output as “hits”.
We call this the smart work. You get the feeling that the search engine work has searched so many websites in a fraction of a second. You start singing praises. But truly speaking it is the hard work of the other two “invisible faces”, that it smartly brings up for your reference.
Your satisfaction gets the search engines more business which keeps them firing on all cylinders.
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Conclusion
You have now tamed the “Beast”. You are not scared of the “Beast”. In fact you want to make it your friend because only then can it promise to send massive free traffic to your website.
Now you know - How does a search engine work?
Learn the rules. Respect them and adapt them in your web pages. Don’t manipulate, because very soon your hanky panky stuff will get discovered and you will be penalized.
Read the following must read article:
Incorporate what a search engine wants while not losing the essence of your website concept.
Sooner the likings and disliking of a search engine work are accounted for in your web pages, the sooner will you start en-cashing the rich dividends.
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How Does SBI! Help You With Search Engine Work?
SBI! is the only product that takes the time to prepare you to build a profitable business, before you jump into building your site. No matter who you are, you are guided all the way until you succeed.
To announce your site to Search Engines, you need to submit a specialized file called a “Sitemap XML” file. SBI! does it all automatically, a huge time saver, that enables you to quickly achieve wider distribution and attract more targeted free traffic.
Search Engine spider/listing/ranking reports let you see how your pages are being handled by the Search Engines. You can see what pages rank best and drive traffic. Each report's insights help you to determine how to increase traffic and monetization. Most pros don't have easy and reliable access to this type of information.
Traffic Stats and Click Analysis help you understand what your visitors like most. Understanding them helps you know what to write about, which in turn leads to more and more business.
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