How Search Works

Have you ever wondered how Google decides which results to favour above others? Or how the search giant is able to produce accurate and relevant results within a mere fraction of a second?

Well listen up folks, because understanding the inner workings of Google search can be a decisive factor in your business` online success.
What sets Google apart from other search engines is how it ranks search results. This in turn determines the order in which Google presents their results on its search engine ranking page (SERP). The secret to this methodology is Google`s trademark algorithm called “Page Rank” that makes use of certain key factors to assign each web page a “relevancy score”.

Google uses small internet based programs, often referred to as “spiders” or “crawlers” to build a comprehensive index of the World Wide Web. These crawlers are constantly data mining millions of websites, producing massive amounts of data which are all analysed and processed by Google`s servers to extract certain key factors. An Important thing to note here is that when a searcher performs a search, he is not actually searching the web but Google`s index of the web!

As a matter of fact, Google analyses over 200 factors to provide their users with unbiased and relevant search results. So for those of you who are still reading … Let’s take a more in-depth look at these “key factors” mentioned above.

• Backlink information, although less important nowadays, is still considered one of the most important factors among SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) professionals.
• Backlinks are links on other web pages that point back to your website. These can be seen as “Votes” so to speak. If another webpage decides to link to your own it means that they endorse your website and in Google`s eyes this lends credibility to your site and also adds to your “relevancy score ” or “Page Rank”
• The frequency and location of keywords within your web page is also of major importance. Google will break down each and every word or phrase in order to specify what your webpage is about. This means be sure to include descriptive and also relevant words in your written copy.

At this stage you might be thinking... wait a minute; let’s just stuff our keywords into the page as many times as possible… WRONG! Google has become very clever when analysing written copy. Using sophisticated tools and algorithms Google is able to determine how “natural” your written content actually is. Lately Google has been penalizing sites that are engaging in these sorts of manipulative activities.

Social media signals have also become a big part of what makes your Website rank. Google relies increasingly on these metrics as they are very hard to manipulate and also give very good indication on how credible the author of a website or article might be.

Linking your Social Media profiles to your website is a huge advantage in modern search engine optimisation. Having thousands of “likes”, “follows” and “plus ones” will tell Google that those people endorse your products which in turn will favour your page above others.

After analysing all of these ranking factors and more, Google will combine all the extracted metrics into a single score (Page Rank). The higher your page rank , the better you will rank for your respective keywords.

The truth is however that the exact page rank formula/algorithm is very complex, ever changing and will remain a closely kept trade secret. This not only ensures that Google remains dominant in the search engine industry but also makes it very hard to manipulate their search engine rankings.

JONATHAN STRICKLAND : HTTP://COMPUTER.HOWSTUFFWORKS.COM/INTERNET/BASICS/GOOGLE.HTM
PAMELA VAUGHAN: HTTP://BLOG.HUBSPOT.COM/BLOG/TABID/6307/BID/32542/HOW-GOOGLE-SEARCH-WORKS-IN-A-NUTSHELL.ASPX
MATT CUTTS'S BLOG: STRAIGHT FROM GOOGLE: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW