Basics of Search Engine Positioning
By Renee Kennedy © 2001
Terms
A machine
"tuned" by humans to index web pages. For instance,
Excite.
Algorithm: The way in which the
search engine is "tuned". An algorithm is the way the
search engine will determine ranks - it is the way the search engine
is programmed to determine ranks. An algorithm may take only certain
things into account - like keywords in the title or link popularity.
Some engines use cyclical algorithms - meaning they may change
algorithms from week to week.
Directory: A list of sites compiled
by humans. For instance, Yahoo!
Spider: A spider goes to your site
and finds your pages. It then stores those pages in a database for
future retrieval by the search engine.
Indexing: When the search engine
takes the pages from the database that the spider has created and
places them in an order based on the algorithms of that engine. All
search engines have a different indexing process - due to different
algorithms - that's why you get different results in different
engines.
Query: The keywords that a person
types into a search box. A person is "querying" the search
engine.
Crawling: When the spider follows
the links from the page you submit - the spider is
"crawling" your site.
Automatic Update: When the spider
returns to your pages at periodic intervals to check to see if
you've made any changes.
Optimizing: You can optimize, tune
or configure your web pages for a specific search engine. This means
that you are employing specific strategies for specific engines.
Spam:
- Using the same keyword more than three times in your keywords tag.
- Putting keywords into your tags that has nothing to do with
your actual page content.
- Using text, spacers, or borders the same color as the
background.
- Using tiny text with keywords in an attempt to increase ranks.
Search Engines v. Directories
There is a difference between a search engine and a directory. A
search engine is a machine - or a "robot". A human may
program algorithms for a search engine, but a human will have
nothing to do with your site when the spider is visiting your site
or the engine is indexing your pages.
A directory can be compiled by a robot, but more often than not,
it is compiled by humans. Yahoo! is a prime example of a directory.
When you submit your site to Yahoo! a human will review your site
for consideration in their index.
The lines between search engines and directories are becoming
jaded. This is because each major "search engine" is
associated with a "directory." For instance, we used to
call AltaVista a search engine. However, we have to be careful with
that terminology. When you go to AltaVista and you type in a search
- you are definitely getting results from the "engine"
part of AltaVista. But when you search down through the
"categories" - you haven't typed anything into the
"search box" - you are now getting results from a
directory (these results come from two directories - Open Directory
Project and LookSmart.)
There is a relationship between search results in the
"engine" and the directory or directories that are
associated with a particular search engine. It appears that many
search engine's algorithms have been set to include results based on
the directory. Therefore, it is imperative that you are listed in
the directory associated with each search engine.
What happens when I submit my site to a search engine?
First, the search engine's spider will visit your site
immediately, and schedule your site for inclusion in the search
engine's index.
Second, usually within a few weeks, the engine will place your
site in their index.
Third, the spider will revisit your site, to include any updates.
Once you are included in the index, the spider will usually revisit
every two weeks. The spider will also begin to "crawl"
your site by following the links off of the page that you submitted.
This process is also called "automatic update". With
Excite - these new updates seem to be automatically included once
the spider has visited the site. However, if you are dealing with
the Inktomi spider - slurp - which gathers data for Hotbot, Snap,
Yahoo! and others, this information may not be included in each
particular engine's index for several weeks.
Fourth, when someone uses a search engine, they type
"keywords" into the search box. They are submitting a
query to a search engine. The search engine, depending on how it has
been tuned, will pull up all of the relevant sites which pertain to
that query.
Variables That Affect Ranks
When you are optimizing your web pages for certain engines, you
must always keep in mind that keyword frequency in text and location
of your keywords, is the most important part of how the engine will
rank your pages. ALL search engines rank pages based on frequency
and location of keywords.
Some engines also are programmed to give a boost to pages which
meet the following criteria:
Link popularity
Keywords in the title, most important keywords first.
Keywords in the names of the linked pages. For instance:
<a href="educational-toys.htm">educational
toys</a>
Keywords in alt tags.
Keywords as names of images. For instance:
<img src="educational-toys.gif" alt="educational
toys">
Keywords in the description tag.
Keywords in the keywords tag, most important keywords first.
About The Author
Renee Kennedy has taught the basics of web marketing for the past 3
years, has developed several tutorials for marketing on the web and
is co-author of the book, "Search Engine Optimization and
Placement: An Internet Marketing Course for Webmasters".
