The question seems simple enough – How do search engines work? Then, once you get in to the ideas behind search engine optimization, rankings, and keywords, it can all seem a bit jumbled. Delve even further into social media optimization, keyword tracking, and internet marketing companies, and the simplest notion of how the search engines that rule your page rank actually work get a little clouded.
Breaking it down into two easy concepts, search engines work by collection and calculation. The collection part is the first step to search engine operation. Search engines gather information through links by using “crawlers” or “spiders.” The information for the billions of websites, that are interconnected documents, is housed in large datacenters.
The second aspect of how search engines work is the calculation. This step consists of finding the websites relevant to the search, separating them from the billions of stored sites, and ranking the results according to importance. Importance can be translated as the “popularity” of a website. Letting math do the work, search engines use algorithms to find the most popular websites and rank them according to various factors, including links, keywords, and traffic. Thus, creating the premise behind an SEO company, to utilize search engine algorithms and formulas and help client websites compete in page rankings.









