Search engines use hundreds of factors to decide the free rankings!

This article is a simple overview, so I will avoid going into all of thee factors. At the very basic level search engines decide free or natural rankings of web sites based on two factors:

Inclusion – for a site to be listed within search engine results, it must be included in the search engines database.

Relevancy – once a site is included within a search engines database, the search engine will decide where to position the site within its rankings for each relevant search phrase

Inclusion

• For a search engine to include your web site in its rankings it must have a number of particular technical characteristics and structure
• No matter how many times you submit your site to the search engines - if your site does not have these characteristics it will never be indexed successfully
• Most web sites do not have the right technical characteristics and structure – meaning that the sites never get indexed properly with search engines
  

Relevancy

• The search engines use complex computer algorithms to determine a sites ranking for each Search Phrase. Each search engine uses a different algorithm.
• Search engine algorithms use a huge number of varied factors to determine a sites Relevancy. E.g. Google uses over 100 different factors.
• The web sites that are high in the rankings are those that search engines believe are the most relevant to the Search Phrase being used.
• Search engine algorithms are constantly changing their Relevancy criteria - therefore a website that is number 1 today may number 13 tomorrow.
  

Search Engine Algorithms
Each search engine has its own algorithm which it uses to determine the content and order of the search engine results pages. These algorithms take the search terms entered by the searcher and then determine the relevance of the sites in the search index to the search term used.

For example, every time you perform a search on Google, Google’s algorithm looks at your search phrase and finds all the pages it considers to be relevant to that search phrase from its database (index) of over 4 billion pages. Google’s algorithm includes over 100 different relevancy factors.

Algorithms are very complex mathematical equations and are updated regularly. It is has been suggested by search engine representatives that algorithm changes happen every day. This is one of the reasons why it is so important not just to implement an SEM campaign, but also to constantly monitor and improve the results.

Secrets to Getting High Rankings
Unfortunately, there are no secrets. Achieving high rankings involves lots of hard work and knowledge. At a very basic level, the secrets involve:

• An understanding of search engine algorithms and how they change over time.
• An understanding of how to develop your site so that is it successfully indexed by all the search engines.
• An understanding of how to develop your site so that it is considered as highly relevant to the Search Phrases used on the search engines.
• Constant monitoring of search engine algorithms, search engine positions and adapting strategies to maintain high rankings in the long term.