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How Search Engine Spiders Work
OVERVIEW:
Logarithms are used by the search engines to
determine each websites ranking; by
keyword or phrase. The criteria
important to the Search Engines
is:
- Websites your site links to;
- Websites linking back to your site;
- Similarity of all websites exchanging links
with your site; (keywords)
- Traffic count on your website; and
- Traffic count on all similar websites with return
links.
The spider starts with step one and moves down the
list. If any step fails along the way, the spider leaves that category
blank and halts the evaluation process. The
weight of each category varies by search engine, is adjusted 2-3
times each year, but the basic
criteria is the same.
DETAILED EXPLANATION:
When
a search engine spider visits a website, it looks to see what
outgoing links are on that site. If there are no outgoing links it
halts the evaluation process. If links are offered the spider visits those
websites to see
if they offer a return link. If there are no return links, the
spider assumes a website is of little value, stops the evaluation
process and assigns the website a poor ranking or does not include the
website in its database.
When websites exchange links, the spider will do a keyword search
(i.e. "real estate" or "homes") to see if the
websites
offer similar content. If the keywords match the websites are
considered similar the spider is instructed to continue and do a
traffic count for each of the similar websites that exchange links with
your website. The traffic counts
complete the five criteria required to complete each search engines
formula used to determine your website's ranking by keyword and phrase.
The keyword similarity of the linking websites is a major factor in
determining your website's ranking. If each of the five criteria is
well represented, your website should rank in the top-10 on most search
engines. Other factors such as keyword placement, number of words on
a page, number of pages on a website etc., influence the weight
assigned to each criteria. Search engines constantly adjust the
formulas which causes website rankings to vary from time to time. |