How Search Engines Rank Web Sites?

When search for anything using a search engine, the search engine will query through millions of pages in its database and present you with ones that match your search text. The most relevant ones come first

Everyone wants good rankings and listings. Unfortunately, many web sites appear poorly in search engine rankings or may not be listed at all beause they fail to consider how search engines work and how search engines rank web sites.

Every search engines has own unique algorithm, or methodoloty, to index and rank web sites. Search engines' algorithms weigh various factors, such as a page's design and links, to rank pages in their search results. By constantly refining and improving their algorithms, search engines hope to give their visitors the most relevant results. Exactly how a particular search engine's algorithm works is a closely-kept trade secret. However, all major search engines follow follow the general rules below:

• Location, location, and location
  
  One of the most important rules in a ranking algorithm is the location of keywords on a web page. For example, pages with the search terms appearing in the html title tag are often assumed to be more relevant than others. Search engines also check to see if the search keywords appear near the top of a web page, such as in the headline or in the first few paragraphs of text. It's reasonable to suume that any page relevant to the topic will mention those words right from the beginning.

• Keyword frequency
  
  Frequency is also the main rules that determine relevancy. Search engines normally investigate how frequenty the selected keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. Those with a higher frequency are usually considered more relevant than other web pages.

• Link Popularity
  
  Link popularity is fast becoming one of the highest weighted criteria used in ranking your site in the search engines. Google uses it as its most important factor in ranking sites. HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi, and others also use link popularity in their formulas. Eventually every major engine will use link popularity, so developing and maintaining it are essential to your search engine placement.
  
  There are many ways to improve your link popularity. TopForAll Link Exchange is great way to increase your link popularity and get quality exposure to the web. To check your site's link popularity, please click here

• Important page factors
  
  Page factors including:
  • Using the Meta Description tag
    
    The meta description tag describes your site's content, giving search engines' spiders an accurate summary filled with multiple keywords

  • Adding ALT tags to your images
    
    Though your site may look professional, it might not optimized to score high with search engines. Since search engines don't index images, they won't index any text your web site presents in image format -- in this case the above-mentioned business name and slogan. To fix this problem, there are ALT tags, which are basically images' descriptions.

  • Using Comment tags
    
    Comment tags provide a way for webmasters to make notes right on their pages. They're hidden in the HTML code and so are not visible to the site's ordinary users, but some search engines, such as Inktomi, can index them.

• Clickthrought popularity
  
  This is one of the off the page factors. Search engine may watch what results someone selcts for aparticular search, then eventually drop high-ranking pages that aren't attracting click, while promoting lower-ranking pages that do pull in visitors.