Paul Brooks | 8 Oct 2007

Search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, are often the first point of call for web users looking to find a product or service or information on a particular topic. You type in a keyword or phrase and the search engine will display a list of websites that relate to it. But how do they decide which websites to show you?

The search engines keep (very long) lists of all of the websites that exist on the Internet and they ensure these lists are up-to-date, they visit them regularly using automated computers called ‘spiders’. These spiders visit every page on your website, recording keywords and phrases that they find along the way – the more often a keyword appears on a page, the more that page will be associated with it.

These spiders take note of how the page has changed since their last visit. If they find the page doesn’t change very often, they will visit the site less regularly. Sites that change daily will usually have daily visits from spiders – those that change infrequently (or never) might only have a visit once every 3 months.

Search engines also log the pages on other websites that have links into yours. You might have links coming from your customers or suppliers, or from web directories and other information sites. The search engines record these links and the subject matter on the pages that include the links.

Through these techniques, search engines build up a good picture of every page on your website. But how do they decide how websites are ranked in search results?

The exact logic of how search results are sorted is cloaked in mystery – if everyone knew how it worked they would know how to abuse the system - but the main considerations are as follows:


Keywords in your text
The more often a specific word or phrase appears in one of your web pages, the higher it will appear in search results for that term.

Inbound links
The more links that come into your site from other websites, the more important your website is deemed to be and the better its search results will be.

Regular changes
Search engines want to show their users up-to-date and relevant websites. If your website’s content changes regularly, it is more likely to a) receive regular visits from spiders and b) appear higher in search results.


So, your strategy for search engine success should involve adding relevant content to your site, changing it regularly to keep it up-to-date and working to generate links from other websites into yours.

Our WebPlan service is designed to help you improve your website’s performance and search engine optimisation – please get in touch to find out more.

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