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Links are important to search engines because they show the importance of a page in contrast to others and show how pages relate to each other. Links are an important part of how pages are ranked in search engines. While the exact way in which search engines rank their pages is unclear because this secret is closely guarded by the search engines, links are known to play a major role in ranking on SERP’s.           

First, the search engine will take into account all of the links that go directly to one website from other sites, links known as inbound links. This is important because the number shows the popularity of the site. If a lot of people like and are linking to a site, that site is assumed to be of good quality and has a good reputation. If another site has very few links that direct users to that site, that page’s ranking will be lower because the page is presumed to not be as popular or as high quality as other pages.           

Also, linking gives websites a kind of reputation. If shady sites known for spamming or deception link to a site, that site’s ranking is lowered. Since search engines want to keep spammers off of their ranks, these companies will punish spammers by lowering their rankings or removing them from rankings altogether. See the chapter “Black Hat SEO” for more information on this topic. This is also the case for the links to other pages found on a site, known as outbound links. If a page includes links to shady or deceptive sites, that site’s ranking is also lowered because the search engine presumes that that site is also a shady site. If webmasters link only to quality sites, their ranking won’t be lowered in search engines. If they link to bad sites, their ranking might be lowered, sometimes considerably.

Most search engines have two types of listings on SERPs, organic listings and sponsored listings. The difference may not seem dramatic, but these differences are critical to who will actually click on a site.           

Organic Listings are the listings that the search engine finds and produces in the results page. These listings are posted free of charge to the website. The goal of any search engine is to provide a useful surfing experience to their users. After all, search engines are businesses and the search experience is their product. These listings are the bulk of what users see on search engine results pages. Most people, about 70%, will click on an organic listing when using a search engine. This figure can be even higher, depending on the search engine. People tend to trust organic listings more. After all, not all sponsored links relate to exactly what a person is looking for. Organic listings will show all pages related to that specific topic, not just the ones that have something to sell.           

Sponsored listings, on the other hand, are websites which have paid Google for their prominent display on a SERP. Since the majority of search engine users click on organic listings, why would anyone want to pay for a sponsored listing? Consider this: the search for “kittens” yielded 15 million listings. There might be millions of pages that use the same keywords and relate to the same topics. A sponsored link is a way to spread the word about a site and get more visitors, especially if that site is lower down on the search engine’s ranking for a particular keyword.

Search engines use something called an algorithm to determine which pages will be displayed higher for the keywords entered into the search engine. An algorithm is a step-by-step mathematical formula that produces results based on the data the search engine has compiled. Imagine an algorithm as a number-crunching machine. The algorithm is like a complicated formula that sorts information into a more useable format.           

After the user has entered all this data into the algorithm “machine,” sorted information begins coming out the other side. In this case, the data is a ranking of websites indexed by the search engine based on the keyword the user has already entered into the algorithm “machine.” By using a complicated formula, the search engines can determine the best quality websites online without having to rely on human editors to physically visit each site and determine that site’s quality. The job of the search engine is to provide the best searching experience for their users. To ensure that users keep coming back, they want to make sure they produce results that are relevant. This is an important part of SEO that we’ll be discussing at great length: relevancy.           

The algorithm helps determine which pages are most relevant. For example, if a user goes to a search engine and types in “snow tires,” the search engine uses their technology to determine which pages most closely relate to snow tires. The job of the algorithm becomes finding the best information related to a particular keyword. The search engine then displays the results in order of relevancy.

Remember that there are many factors that contribute to how search engines work, and some of them are closely-guarded secrets. Google, the most popular search engine, keeps parts of their operation under wraps to prevent fraud and dishonesty. 

Web Spiders and Bots 

In the old days of the Internet, a website would often have to be submitted directly to a search engine in order for listing on that search engine. This was often the only way to gain a listing on a site like Yahoo! because directory listing sites relied on human editors to select the topics and contents of directory listings. Some search engines had rudimentary ways to search pages on the Internet. The problem is that search engines hadn’t yet developed the ability to filter results very well. By using a search engine, the user couldn’t be assured that he or she would even come upon pages related to the keywords typed into the search engine.           

Today, however, no submission is necessary in order to be listed in search engines. Because technology has evolved, search engine listings are much more refined and certainly more user-friendly. Today’s search engines spend lots of time, money and research in order to provide a searching service that will give the user the best web experience possible. In fact, the search engine business model relies upon this fact. The more people that visit a search engine, the more web traffic that site will receive. The more web traffic, the more people will see advertising on that search engine. Since search engines frequently rely upon advertising to support the site, this works out for everyone. The user gets better search results and the search engine gets more users to their site.           

How do search engines provide an improved web experience for their users? One technology development that has improved the typical web search is the spider or bot. A web spider is a program run by the search engine. Instead of relying on the slow speed of a human editor, search engines can now rely on computer programs that never need to stop searching websites on the Internet. The sole purpose of these programs is to “crawl” the web all day, every day. These computer programs are, in essence, looking over every single website they encounter. These programs search through websites, checking links, and examining keywords. The spiders will also look at HTML elements within the pages like page descriptions, meta tags, and page titles. Basically, these spiders are used to compile a large amount of data from sites on the web. Here is a list of elements within a website that are scanned by search engine spiders: 

Text within the website Links within the website Page descriptions embedded within HTML Keywords embedded within HTML Photos and photo descriptions and alternate text 

All of this information is then compiled into a series of databases maintained by the search engine. This database is what eventually helps search engine users find the information they want. When a user goes to a search engine and searches for the term “kittens,” the search engine will then go to the database of all indexed information. The search engine will look for the keyword “kittens” within all of those databases, and then presents this information to the user. In order to give the best results to the user, the search engine will also sort this data by relevancy, putting the sites that are most related to the keyword or words at the top of the listing. By “indexing” all these sites, including their links and keywords, search engines can then provide a rank for each of these pages.

Search engines are an important part of the growing online economy, mainly because they are becoming an important part of how people use the Internet. Just 10 short years ago, Internet users weren’t using search engines very often, but favored index sites like Yahoo!, and for good reason. Index sites generally had human editors that chose websites based on topic and posted them in a hierarchical way where there were main categories and sub categories that got more specific. For example, under the heading “Arts and Humanities,” were more subtopics like “Artists, Art History, Visual Arts” and more. When users clicked on any of these subtopics, they would see even more subtopics. The directory of sites by topic allowed the user to find the exact topics they wanted and verity, with the help of human editors, that those pages contained good information. The sites listed were usually reliably accurate in regards to what the user was seeking and still exist to this day.           

On the other hand, search engine technology was far behind today’s standards ten years ago. By using older search engines, users would likely come up with search results unrelated to their keywords. Back then, the technology hadn’t evolved to accurately find and filter search engine results. By simply using some shady techniques, a webmaster could get his or her site displayed for totally unrelated keywords. For example, a site selling herbal supplements might be able to get their site to show up in search engines under search terms unrelated like “education” or “home mortgage.” The result was that search engines were fairly unreliable and not as many people used them. Today more than 85% of web users use search engines to find the pages they want.           

Currently there are several ways in which users can find the web pages they want to view:

First, they can use search engines. More than eighty-five percent of web surfers use this method in order to find what they’re looking for.
Users can go to websites they’ve heard about on TV, radio, and print advertising. Examples include traditional advertising that lists a website as part of normal advertising, like listing fedex.com in a Fed Ex ad. Another example is an advertisement for a specific website like Monster.com or eHarmony.com.
Users can click on ads they see online. Many sites display advertising on them, and users can follow those ads to find the sites they want to visit.
Users can find websites they learned about from viral marketing techniques, a topic that will be discussed in greater detail in a later chapter. This includes links that have been sent to users by a friend or recommended by someone they know, like word of mouth advertising.