How do Search Engines Work...for beginners

Understanding how search engines function and how they prioritize information is crucial for those managing SEO ecosystems and a bit overwhelming if you're just getting started so, here's a quick 3- minute read covering the basics.

What is a search engine?
Search engines are businesses. As of January 2023 Google served 84.6% of all searches globally while the next closest competitor Bing, served 3.4% of searches.

Search engines exist to provide relevant information to users. They do this through searchable databases that return two type of search results.

• Organic results  are sourced from the search index. Businesses cannot pay prime positions.
• Paid results are sourced from advertisers. Businesses pay to for prime positions.

How do search engines work?
Search engines are comprised of two primary parts: index and algorithms. Search engines discover and index websites through a process that consists of identifying URL's (www.XYZ.com), crawling known URL's for information, processing that information via an algorithm and then adding it to the search index.

How do search engines rank pages?
Search engines rank the information they find through a variety of ranking factors. Ranking is conducted by search algorithms which are unique to each search engine but share commonalities.  Pages that rank highest are perceived by search engines to be Expert, Authoritative and Trustworthy. This is known as E-A-T. Key ranking factors are:

• Backlinks
• Relevance
• Freshness
• Page speed
• Mobile friendliness
• Unique & relevant content

How Key Takeaways

• The index and algorithms are the two primary elements of a search engine.
• Search Engines build an index by crawling known pages and following links to find new pages.
• Search algorithms purpose is to return the most relevant results to the right users.
• Having search engines view your site as Expert, Authoritative and Trustworthy is key search results.
• Key E-A-T factors include backlinks, relevance, freshness, unique content and load speed.