In this guide, we will explore how search engines work, including their internal processes, and discuss their crawling and indexing mechanisms to determine the best path for our SEO positioning strategy.
Search engines scan countless web pages with their web crawlers, commonly called search robots or spiders. Every search engine browses the web by analyzing web pages and following their outgoing links to discover new pages on the same topic.
Search Engine Indexing
When a search engine finds a web page, it is stored in a database known as the Index. This Index contains all the discovered URLs and essential data used to categorize each page’s content.
Let’s look at some examples:
- Keywords discovered in the page’s content: what topics does the website cover?
- The type of content being crawled: What is included on the page?
- Current status of the website: how long ago was it last updated?
- The interest that your website generates in users: how and for how long do they interact with your page?
What is a search algorithm, and what is its purpose?
When we talk about a search algorithm, we are referring to one that is specifically designed to locate elements with specific properties within a data structure. Google Algorithm Updates are an important aspect of search algorithms, as they continually refine and enhance the way search engines retrieve and rank information from vast datasets, ensuring more relevant and accurate results for users.
Its goal is to present a relevant set of high-quality search results that will have a greater chance of satisfying the user’s search as quickly as possible.
This set of results is reflected in the SERPs, pages that appear after performing a search. In these, the results that the algorithm considers most important for the search in question are displayed in order.
What happens when you perform a search?
It is already clear to us that every time a user performs a search on a search engine, all the relevant pages are identified thanks to the Index, which uses its algorithm to hierarchically classify all relevant pages in a set of results staged in the SERPs.
Well, these algorithms differ greatly for each search engine. For instance, a website that ranks well for a search query on Google might achieve a different ranking on Bing.
Furthermore, the search result is independent of the keyword variation. Every self-respecting search engine uses additional data to help it decide which results to display. These include:
- Location: Search queries are usually location-based, returning results that match what you’re looking for and are as close to where you are as possible.
- Language: Search engines consistently prioritize results that match the language of the user searching.
- Search history: If you repeat the same search in, say, different months, it is likely that the natural positioning ranking has changed. However, search engines analyze your search history to include in the results the pages you have already visited, which gave you results.
- Device: Search results are determined by the device you are using. If you search from a mobile device, the results will always be adapted to that device.
Why can’t I get a page indexed?
A very common question we get at Marketeros Agency is when a client comes up with a newly created website and needs help understanding how search engines work and why it doesn’t even appear on Google, or in other words, why it isn’t indexed.
Several SEO factors determine whether a search engine will index a URL.
Let’s look at the most common ones:
- Robots.txt file exclusions: This file tells search engines which types of URLs in a web architecture should not be visited and, therefore, indexed.
- Commands whose function is to tell search engines not to index that specific page (noindex tag) or to index a previously selected similar page (canonical tag).
- If a search engine’s algorithm deems your page to be of low quality, to have little content, or to contain duplicate content, it may even fail to index your site.
- The URL leads to an error page, the most common being the famous 404 error, so it is important to check it occasionally to avoid this type of problem.
Conclusion
As we’ve observed, numerous factors impact search engine results.
The most important thing to remember is that they are not based solely on the keyword entered in the search. Rather, it is a complex process that includes everything from optimizing our website to the parameters of our URL and complementary data such as our location or search history.
This is how search engines work. I hope you found it useful. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
