How do search engines work?

Search engines are almost a fundamental aspect in one's life in the 21st century. The use, manipulation and application of search engines have become integrated in all mobile devices, PDAs and any similar technology to maximize its productivity.

People have reached a state of dependence on search engines so much so that, according to Alexa Ranking's stats, Google is the most important Web site in the World. This is because there are 34,000 keyword phrases entered into Google every second. People have come to neglect other search engines because Google has intuitively provided services to dominate the market in E-mail, analytics, and online advertising. However, in order to make the best use of search engines, one must understand how they work.

The first search engine, Archie, used to be an archive, as it did not semantically differentiate between keyword phrases, provide suggestions and accurate results. What makes Google so much more successful than Yahoo!? It is clear that the intuitiveness of a search engine is one of the most significant aspects of its success, just have a look at Yahoo!'s homepage and compare it with Google - the difference is the lack of clutter, faster loading, intuitive searching (Google only provides a bar to search whereas Yahoo!'s cluttered layout makes it difficult to navigate).
Search engines consist of four components: a query interface, search engine results page (SERPs), robot and databases. A query interface is what you see when you go to Google, the single bar for searching and the two buttons "Google Search" and "I'm Feeling Lucky". After inputting a keyword, one encounters the SERP visible to the user - the higher a site is on that list, the more traffic that Web site obtains. Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals attempt to bring a client's site to those higher rankings. In order for Google to index Web sites, it deploys a data gathering agent called a robot which scans everything on a site. The robots dump all that information into a database where information is compared, analyzed and ranked using Google's patented, and closely guarded secret algorithm, "Page Rank", measured from 1-10 - the highest meaning the most important site. All results one encounters in the SERPs are a combination of keyword relevance and Page Rank (PR).

In SEO, a Web site's PR is a critical component to achieving an incredible online presence, and so SEO specialists rely on three factors to influence PR in order for their results to appear in higher SERPs (the higher the SERPs, the more likely one will click that link). The three factors consist of: on-page modification (meta tags), whole-site alterations (anchor text) and off-site link building (incoming links). A robot indexes a site for the 1) location of specific keywords that you may have typed, 2) how often that keyword appears, and 3) the number of sites linking to the page that interests you. With these factors, SEO professionals modify and alter their client's Web sites to particularly optimizee using keyword research, page design and link building tactics (legitimate methods).
As I mentioned in last week's article, "Are You Search Engine Optimized?", BlackHat SEO methods have caused such a frenzy with Google that the company had recently updated their PR algorithm to combat content thieves, link farmers and spammers. Google stated their goal was "simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content - both good and bad - comes online all the time". This change has affected the SERPs and Web sites currently in the US only, but will soon impact elsewhere.
When using search engines, look through a number of channels in order to find your information, and avoid being ignorant that Google's top results will always have the information you seek. On the Internet, there are several channels to explore content.

Sufi Mohamed is a Search Engine Optimization specialist, and Brock alumni, who operates a multi-educational Web site called The Glaring Facts, theglaringfacts.com.
Source http://media.www.brockpress.com/