This is the second lesson of SEO , in which we will discuss, explaining how search engines work in an easy and simple way.
Understanding how search engines work is the first step, and the key that will enable you to properly and effectively configure your site for search engines.
To get started with anything, you need to understand it and how it works.
Note: Given that Google is the first search engine in the world, which dominates almost all of the market, especially in our region.
Therefore, we will talk about the Google search engine in particular in many aspects.
Search engines work stages
The work of search engines, led by Google, mainly depends on three basic functions. These functions or stages of work are related and dependent on each other.
The first stage: crawling
The word crawling literally means “crawling”: it is a process that takes place through smart computer programs called (spiders, bots, or crawlers).
Search engine spiders visit every web page they meet in order to collect data on it, to be indexed in the search engine's database.
It also monitors new sites and pages, and understands the updates that take place on existing sites and pages. Search engine spiders mainly depend on links, to move from one web page to another.
Spiders start the crawling process by relying on links to pages already in the database, and from there they move to links to newly created web pages.
It is worth noting here that search engine spiders understand web pages from the code used as HTML.
The second stage: indexing
Indexing is the process by which: Data and information are stored, which are collected through a crawling process.
Every web page is archived according to the content it contains. Google's search engine database contains an index of billions of web pages, videos, images, documents ... etc.
Not all web pages are actually saved to the search engine database, but specific portions of the content of each web page are preserved.
For example, each web page is linked to some words and phrases that express it. Which is used in the search results afterwards.
It is worth noting that the indexing process is a process that is intertwined and intertwined with the crawling process, so there are a lot of talk about crawling and indexing as a single process.
The third stage: Providing Results
In this process, the search engine returns the results to the user, according to the search words (Query). Of course, the source for the research results is the database, which was collected during the previous stage.
It is worth noting that search engines have huge databases around the world, run by a group of huge, high-speed machines, and this makes the process of appearing search results in Google less than one second.
The search results are ranked according to pre-prepared algorithms based on many factors and criteria called Rank Factors.
The search engine represents the eye or the directory that directs the user to the appropriate path, in order to reach what he wants according to the search word he entered.
To understand the idea in a simple and easy way, imagine the Internet world with all its websites as a group of stations. Google, as a search engine, for example, sends its robots continuously to wander between these stations, to find out what each station contains.
And what is added in terms of new stations or new contents within each station, and what has been removed and renewed as well. Then he draws, through his database, a complete map that includes each station, and the things it contains.
When you tell him, as a user, that you want to go to a specific station, or even tell him what you want to get anyone, he will guide you through his map of the paths (links) that you must follow in order to reach the station you want.
It will also provide you with the internal path inside this station to get the exact thing you want (that is, the page that answers your question specifically)
Some information and statistics for search engines
- 51% of all website visitors come from search engines.
- By the end of 2016, there were 130 trillion web pages in the Google search engine database.
- 1 billion users use the Google search engine on a monthly basis
- The average word count in search results on the first page is over 1500 words.
- Google accounts for more than 70% of the searches that take place on the Internet around the world, and exceeds 90% of the searches that are made through smartphones.
- 87% of smart mobile device users use Google at least once every day.
- Google searches perform more than 63,000 searches every second.
These statistics are global statistics, and the numbers may differ somewhat, according to the nature of the Internet user.
On what basis does Google rank search results
We explained above that the job of search engines is: to guide users in the paths that answer their questions. Search engines perform this function through three basic operations: crawling, indexing and providing results.
But the question here is: On what basis does the Google search engine rank these search results?
In the beginning, when someone types a search word in the Google search box, and presses the search button, the search engine program filters its database, and arranges the results based on two basic criteria in general:
Relevance
Of course, the results that appear when writing a keyword must be relevant to what the user wants specifically. In the past, the concept of relevancy did not go beyond matching between search words and the words on a web page.
But now, after the tremendous technological and technical development witnessed by search engines and witnessed by Google in particular, convenience has become after another.
Smart factors are now contributing to the concept of relevancy between Query and Search Results
Among these factors:
1- RankBrain
It is a name that Google launched on a new system based on artificial intelligence technology or machine-learning, Google announced the application of this technology in October 2015.
Two years earlier, in 2013, the fact was revealed, that every day Google receives search words that it has not tested before, at a rate of 15% of all searches. That's a lot, and it's a problem for Google.
The RankBrain job here is to help provide you fitment web pages for these search terms. This is done by trying to understand the new long and vague search sentences, and linking them to other research words that may be outwardly different, but linked in some way.
And also by measuring the visitor's experience with the search results for these new searches.
In the end, RankBrain technology, by applying its own algorithms, is able to self-educate, to provide search results that are more relevant to the user, even when a search phrase is first received.
2- Synonym System
Google has a smart and efficient system to understand the synonyms between words. Thanks to this system, Google is able to provide more relevant results for the user. By understanding what the user means, regardless of the vocabulary used, and then presenting results that serve the meaning rather than the vocabulary.
This is extremely important to the user and to the website owners as well.
On the one hand, this enables the user to reach the most appropriate results, in the case of using local languages and colloquial vocabulary. It gives the opportunity for site owners to appear in search results for more diverse search words.
There is also a popular SEO term associated with this component, called Latent Semantic Indexing, which is short for LSI. It means indexing to denote words.
3- Other factors related to how people use search engines
There are other important factors that contribute to shaping the concept of relevance related to how search engines are used by users.
For example, voice searches, and the use of smart phone devices. And the search history for each user separately.
Quality
The second main criterion that search engines use in ranking results, is the quality component. After determining the results that are most relevant to the search engine user, comes a quality standard that determines the correct ranking of these results.
There is no doubt that the primary goal of search engines is: user satisfaction. Of course, the quality component contributes significantly to shaping user satisfaction.
And because we are talking about Google in particular. The popularity of the web page, and the confidence it enjoys, contribute greatly to shaping the concept of quality. So in the SEO community, you find tons of articles on concepts like Authority and Trustworthy.
And how these elements are very important in the ranking of results in the Google search engine. From Google's point of view, the more popular and trusted a web page the audience is, and affiliated with a site that enjoys fame and influence, the more obvious it is that this page is of better quality than others. Respectful point of view however!
It's not that simple, as there are more complicated and paper-based algorithms that Google uses to rank search results.
What are Google's algorithms for ranking search results
The word "algorithms" is a word he sticks to the ear that indicates difficulty and complexity. But it really isn't, and as you are looking to learn SEO, you don't have to deal with the idea of algorithms from its mathematical complexity.
But you just have to understand the idea and this is what I will explain to you in a simple and easy way here.
Algorithms belong to mathematics, and the idea of algorithms was first revealed by an Uzbek Muslim scientist, called Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, in the ninth century AD.
But the concept of algorithms is closely related to computers today.
Algorithms are simply: a set of pre-prepared mathematical rules and laws that allow solving a problem, or reaching a specific result in logical steps.
Computer algorithms: It is a set of programming commands that allow the computer to create a set of graphic processors to solve a problem or reach a conclusion.
Google Search Engine Algorithms: They are a set of smart programming rules and laws, which work together to provide Google users with satisfactory search results.
As we know together, Google has a huge database of all web pages on the Internet, algorithms are the programming commands that determine, which of these web pages appears as a search result when writing any search word or phrase, and arranging these pages in the appropriate way to satisfy the user.
But on what basis are Google's algorithms built?
Rank Factors are the basis for Google's search engine algorithms.
What are the rank factors
Ranking factors: It is a set of criteria, or qualities that are determined by the search engines, to indicate the relevance and quality of each web page in order to appear within the search results for a particular search word, and in what order this page appears.
Ranking factors represent the informational inputs that algorithms depend on, in ordering the correct search results for each search word.
To clarify the idea and untangle the entanglement between algorithms and ordering factors, we have to resort to an example in our real life:
Winter begins and we decide to buy some winter clothes, say a jacket, and let these be your preference factors:
1- Black is preferable, followed by brown, then yellow.
2- The price ranges from 1 to 3 $.
3- Silk is your favorite followed by cotton, then leather.
You take all of these factors, and put them into an equation based on the value of each trait and how important they are to you. It produces what is called algorithms.
You apply these algorithms to the coats in the store and make it a hundred coats. It comes up with a list of only 20 coats, and they are specially arranged according to your criteria.
This is exactly the idea of Google's algorithms, but in a more complex, paper-smart, and with a large number of ranking factors (Google has more than 200 factors to rank search results).
It is worth noting here that search engines, including Google, do not announce their own criteria or the factors they use to rank search results.
So on what basis have we been able to know many of these factors? And on what basis is the SEO industry based?
The most important information resource upon which the SEO industry is based
What information available by search engines
Search engines are not entirely stingy about webmasters. But there is some information that you share with them. There is a Google Advisor for SEO , and another for Bing .
Analytical tools
There are many important analytical tools, through which you can get graphic and statistical information about any website, including competitors' sites. With this information, you can access some changes that raise your site's ranking in the search results.
SEO experts
There are many engineers who specialize in the field of search engines who do not work for a particular search engine. And who through their skills, intelligence and experience, they are able to anticipate and arrive at some ranking factors.
Experience and experience of website owners
Finally, there is the experience factor, which is available to all. For example, you, as a website owner, can try and test some variables, in order to reach better results.
Also, as a regular user of search engines, with some thought and analysis of the initial results, you can understand what they have in common, which you can apply to your site.
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