SEOs and web marketers all work to help your websites rank in search engines like Google so that your target audience can find your services. With all the latest tricks, tips, ideas, new technologies and techniques surfacing so rapidly in this fast paced industry, it is always important to keep in mind how the Google search engine actually works so you can focus your efforts on techniques that really gain results.
How Does Google Find Your Website?
The first way Google encounters your website is by crawling and indexing it. Google primarily works by reading and following links between pages and this is why, despite what you might have heard, links still matter as well as great content. The number of high quality links to your site can have a direct and positive impact on your website’s performance in search engines.
The web is made up of literally trillions of pages that are constantly growing so Google uses crawling, by following links, to navigate through this material. It sorts relevant and related information by looking at content and relevant words to work out what topics are related. You need to consider what your target market might search for to find content related to you. Google stores information in its index.
Google’s Infamous Algorithms
Google programs its algorithms in an aim to deliver the most relevant results to the end user. When a user searches for a particular term or enters a certain query, the subject of their enquiry is how Google then sorts relevant information from its index. If your content seems relevant to the enquiry, it’s likely to show but how does Google decide how high you rank. It considers high quality links as this is how it navigates but it also takes into account a large number of other factors too such as overall site and page quality. This is why your website will be much more effective if you utilise high quality and useful content in addition to gaining positive and relevant links. Google also takes into consideration factors such as your website’s security, in fact this is becoming increasing important with Google promising that its algorithms will looks for sites with HTTPS encryption by default in the future. Another consideration is the freshness of your site. The more regularly you add new content the more up to date your website will appear to Google.
You may have encountered the wrath or benefits of Google’s many algorithm updates, which SEOs often treat with trepidation but the aim behind these is only to help refine Google’s techniques for throwing up the best and most relevant content by considering a greater number of factors. Normally this benefits good quality sites.
The Spam War
As a user no one likes spam, it is tedious and not relevant to what we were searching for and that is why Google takes fighting spa so seriously. You must always look from the end user’s perspective. Google’s algorithms target spam automatically but other more unclear documents are sorted manually and then action is taken on these if spammy content is discovered. Google should notify you if they take action against your website so that you have the opportunity to resolve the issue and then notify them.
This is how Google Search works when it brings us results and it is important to keep each stage of Google’s method in mind when optimising your site for the best ranking positions.
