How Do Search Engines Work?

Are you planning to optimize a webpage for your website and want to rank it higher in the search results? If yes, then you need to know how a search engine works and execute all these actions. It is a must to acquire knowledge about every aspect of a functioning search engine.

A complete understanding can help you in the quick optimization of a webpage. The search engine makes use of various tools to accomplish this process. It includes complex procedures of indexing and crawling, algorithms, machine learning, and user intent. A proper insight into these terminologies can enable you to rank your webpage higher and achieve the desired outcomes.

Before heading towards the working of the search engine, it is necessary to understand one important term of the search engines.

Search engines like Google and Bing are basically advertising engines that lure users to visit their properties stuffed with organic listings. On the other hand, organic is the means to the end.

Why Does This Matter?

This can be attributed to key points that attract them in:

·        The layout keeps on changing.

·        The availability of search facilities like knowledge panels and features.

·        The organic results-producing click-through rate (CTR).

Hence, whenever Google attaches a fourth paid search result to commercial centres queries, it's all because of the above-mentioned points. Not only this, when featured snippets are shown by Google without requiring you to leave Google domain to get answers to queries, it is also because of those points.

 The Search Engines Working Ways

A search engine is a combination of different interlinked mechanisms that work collectively to figure out the content of a specific webpage. It identifies images, content, videos, etc., based on the keywords typed in by the user. Search Engine Optimization techniques are used by website developers so that they can come in the top search results.

The search engine makes use of three primary mechanisms:

Web Crawlers

Web crawlers are the bots that continuously monitor the network for new web pages. These crawlers accumulate the data needed to index a page appropriately. Then, they make use of the hyperlinks present on the page to hop to other pages and index them during this process.

Search Indexation

 Indexation is a process in which the record of all web pages is organized in a manner that links the keyword with that of page content. Search engines can also evaluate the content quality through these indexes.

Search Algorithms

It depends mostly on the calculations done for the quality of the page. The algorithm estimates the relevance of a web page to a specific keyword. By calculating them, it determines the ranking based on its quality and popularity.

The Inner Search Engine

Search engines continuously perform these functions to gather information from various websites present all around the world. This three-step process can help you to get a better knowledge of the actual working of the search engine:

Crawling

Search engines depend heavily on crawlers and automated scripts to browse information from the web. Crawlers start searching from the list of web pages. Algorithms decide which sites have to be crawled and also the number of sites to be covered under this process. They are responsible for guiding the crawlers through different websites.

Crawlers get into each site mentioned in the list. It links itself to other websites through tags like HREF and SRC and jumps to external or internal pages. With time, crawlers create a large web of interlinked pages that keeps on expanding every day. It shows the significance of crawlers in the working of the search engine.

For marketers, it is essential to target this aspect and understand the importance of crawling for a website. Marketers need to ensure that their site is completely visible to crawlers. If bots are unable to crawl your website, then they will not index it, and ultimately it won't come up in any search result. You can use the following techniques to achieve crawler accessibility:

Links: Links are very crucial when it comes to crawling. You have to use links internally on your page. Crawlers can't move in the absence of links. Pages that don't contain any link are not available, and hence, will not move forward to indexation.

Logical site hierarchy: You need to define a proper and complete logical site structure that flows from the domain to category, and then to the subcategory. This allows the crawler to move quickly through the page and also keeps the site within the crawl budget.

XML sitemap: It is better to make a detailed list of all the website's pages; in which you can also include your blog posts. This list will act as a guide to crawlers and provide them with the information to crawl on some specific pages.

Indexing

Indexing is the first step of the ladder. It laid out the foundation on which the whole building of the working mechanism of Google is built up. Indexing refers to adding a web page's content on Google platform. Thus, when you create your own site, there are multiple ways in which you can index them.

Now, you must be wondering since Indexing is the laying foundation and is of utter importance where you have to draw your web pages into google, then Indexing must definitely be a difficult and strenuous job. But this is not actually true. The best way to do Indexing is to do nothing.

Apparently, Google has crawlers on its platform that follows links and hence, your site already appears on the index. So when any new content gets linked to from your intended site, Google will henceforth discover that, and make an addition to its index automatically.

Here the concern arises what If you would want Google bots to locate your page faster, then what? This becomes more of a pressing issue when your page is filled with time-oriented content, or you have made certain additions to the page that you want Google to notice faster.

Using faster methods is suggested when either you have optimized a critical page or adjusted the title/ description to boost click-through rates of your page and especially want to know when pages are picked up and displayed in SERPs to know the starting point of improvement.

Ranking

In the last step, search engines sort through the information indexed in the previous step and provide the appropriate results for each search query. It is done through search algorithms. These are certain rules that assess the searcher's needs and pick the best answer from various results.

Algorithms have specific established standards that are used for defining the quality of the web pages. Google makes use of these algorithms to provide relevant search results. For ranking purposes, it analyzes the popularity of the specific content, and the experience users get after landing on that page. The search engine uses the following ranking factors during this process:

·        Quality of backlink

·        Page loading speed

·        Mobile viewing experience

·        Engagement

·        Freshness of content

The primary aim of any search engine is to serve its searchers with the most relevant and beneficial results. This is done primarily for ad rolling and keeping the searcher happy with its service. Due to this reason, the ranking factors are those that searcher judges while searching for content, such as loading speed, links to other beneficial sites, and freshness.

Therefore, it is better to optimize the website in terms of speed of the page, the density of keyword, and its readability. You can also improve the bounce rate and time-on-page to achieve better rankings on the search result.

Wrap Up

Getting a higher rank on the search engine results is not an easy task. Without gaining proper knowledge and understanding every terminology, it is not possible to attain the desired results. Even if you want to use Search Engine Optimization, then it is necessary to know how a search engine works. This is because every step in the working of a search engine is crucial and directly affects the ranking of your page in the search results.

A brief understanding of crawling, indexing, ranking, and algorithms can make you execute your task easily and quickly. A marketer should not proceed further without knowing each and everything about this little bit difficult procedure. Therefore, for making the site rank higher, it is essential to follow some techniques and tactics, along with the application of knowledge.