Demystifying Search Engine Ranking Methods
Have you every wondered how search engines sort through millions of Web pages and rank them? They follow a set of rules, known as an algorithm.
Exactly how a particular search engine’s algorithm works is a closely-guarded trade secret. But all major search engines consider a common set of elements. Here are three of the main factors they consider:
1. Page Content
Page content has always been the most important factor in providing a satisfying experience for your visitors and to keep them coming back for more. Page content has now becoming the key to higher search engine rankings. Major search engines like Google and Yahoo! are now relying more on page content to determine relevancy and themes within their ranking formulas.
Most search engines index the full text of each page, so it’s vital to place keywords throughout your text. Make sure your Home page is full of keywords. It has a higher chance of being indexed than your other pages, and it will be the only page indexed by some engines.
2. Keyword frequency and relevance
Search engines analyze how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a Web page. Those with a higher frequency are often deemed more relevant than other Web pages. Keyword placement, proximity, and density are also important factors. Pages with the search terms appearing in the HTML title tag are often assumed to be more relevant than others to the topic.
Search engines also check to see if the search keywords 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 beginning.
3. Outside Criteria
Major search engines also make use of “off-the-page” ranking criteria to ensure greater relevancy of search results. These are elements that Web masters can’t easily influence. Link analysis is one of the most significant off-the-page considerations. By analyzing how pages link to each other, a search engine can both determine what a page is about and whether that page is deemed to be “important” and thus deserving of a ranking boost.
Another important off-the-page factor is click-through measurement. Essentially, the search engines will watch what results are selected for a particular search, and then eventually drop high-ranking pages that aren’t attracting clicks. Similarly, the search engines will promote lower-ranking pages that do pull in visitors. This allows them to highlight the most relevant information to searchers’ queries.
Now that you understand how search engines evaluate Web pages, you can make the necessary tweaks to boost your online ranking-and sales.
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