Search Engine Optimization: What Happens When You Perform A Web Search?
Posted Under: Search Engine Optimization
Knowing what happens when you perform a web search on Google, is extremely important for your search engine optimization efforts.
When you do a Google search, you need to remember that you’re not really searching the web; you’re searching Google’s INDEX of the web, or as much of the web that Google’s software spiders have found and indexed.
The Google software spiders search the web for website pages and then follow the links on those pages to the pages that the links point to; they then follow the links on those pages, to the pages that they point to, and so on until a large portion of the web is indexed.
When we say a large portion, we mean really LARGE PORTIONS; like billions of pages that are stored on thousands of computers.
So, what happens when you perform a web search for something that you need to get information about; like Mosquito Lagoon boat launch ramps?
You type Mosquito Lagoon boat ramps into the search engine bar and hit enter. But do you know what happens then?
Google’s software spiders will search Google’s index to find each and every page that includes those search terms.
In this case, there are only about 15,200 results.
The next thing you need to know, is how Google decides which web page you really want.
The answer is obvious, by asking over 200 additional questions.
The software queries questions such as:
- How many times the web page contains your keywords
- Do the keywords appear in the title
- Are the keywords in the URL
- Are the keywords adjacent to the URL
- Does the web page include synonyms for the keywords
- Is the web page from a quality website
- Are the keywords spamming
- Is the web page of low quality content
- What is the page rank of the web page
The page rank is extremely relevant to how Google decides what page your really want. It is determined by a Google formula that rates the importance of a web page, by looking at the number of IMPORTANT outside links that point back to it.
All these questions are combined within a micro second, to produce an overall score for each web page and is reflected in the results you get for your search.
Each search result entry provides you with a URL, a title, and a short 160 character snippet that is intended to help you decide if the page information is what you are actually searching for.
In addition, you will also get links to similar web pages of Google’s most recent versions of the page, along with related searches that you might find helpful.
Knowing what happens when you perform a web search is important and will help you keep your search engine optimization targeted to the queries that the Google software spiders use to reply to search requests.
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