This article is apart of a series of articles describing what SEO is, how it works, and tips and tricks you can use to rank higher on search engines.
In this article we cover:
What is Crawling
What is Page Indexing
How Ranking works
Additional Resources
What is SEO
Before we begin with what SEO is, it's more important to start with the job of a search engine. A search engine, such as Google Bing or Duck Duck Go, has the primary role of taking the user's query ( search request ) and providing the most relevant results from the internet, the World Wide Web. Think of the WWW as a unified database, and each search engine's role is to pull out the relevant information ( crawling ), organize the data, and show you the relevant information ( indexing ). We will dive more in-depth into crawling and indexing later.
Example: Think of the WWW as a giant library. Every website is a book, and search engines are the librarians that help you find the exact book you need based on your search request.
Ok, so back to SEO. Now that we know how search engines work, we can optimize our content so that search engines can find and rank us; that is SEO: Search Engine Optimization. SEO is critical if you want your website to be ranked high on Google or any other search engine.
What is Crawling
Before information is stored in a search engine's MASSIVE database, it needs to find the information. Each search engine has a crawler (Google's is called the GoogleBot ) whose role is to scan the content of the webpage and send it to the database. It goes through the HTML and tries to decipher what the page is about based on the content, following the links, and even image alt text ( alternative text just in case the image doesn't show up for the user ). If a webpage has images, the crawler can't 'see' the image. It relies on alt text, a description of the image, to understand and index it properly. Now that the crawler knows about your website and what it's about, it sends it back to the search engine for indexing.
Side note: not all websites are crawlable. Each webpage has a robots.txt file to tell the crawler what pages they can crawl. If a webpage defines the Googlebot access to the page, it won't show on Google. Additionally, if a page is blocked by login access, it won't be crawled
What is Indexing
Once a page has been crawled, it is sent back for indexing. Search engines now have to store your webpage in their database. This is where good practice comes in handy. If your page is mobile-friendly, easy to navigate, and structured well, your webpage will index higher.
Ranking
After your page has been indexed, it can be found on search engines. Search engines consider many factors when ranking your site: keyword relevance, the number of quality backlinks pointing to your site, how quickly your site loads, and how users interact with it (whether they stay or leave quickly). Backlinks are like endorsements from other websites, signaling to search engines that your content is valuable. Meanwhile, user engagement—such as how long users stay on your site (dwell time) and whether they immediately leave (bounce rate)—affects how relevant your content appears."
To recap, a search engine's primary role is to crawl the World Wide Web and index content into its database. After that, its ranking algorithm will decide what is most relevant when users search, for example, "pizza near me."
If you or your business need help to design a website or assistance getting seen by search engines, the SEO Crew is here to help. We specialize in building optimized websites, improving search engine rankings, and crafting tailored social media marketing strategies. Reach us here