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Saturday, June 5, 2010

Search Engine Algorithm: What is it?

In Search Engine Marketing, One of the most elusive things that people are scratching their heads with is the algorithms that actually determine what should be the page rank of a page. These algorithms are proprietary in nature and so only very few people outside a search engine company know how the algorithm is designed and how exactly it works.



These algorithms are so complicated that there is debate whether a single person of the search engine company understands the entire algorithm fully? This explains they are so complicated. Even if an ultimate math genius were given a chance to see the algorithm, then he would take lot of time to understand it. This makes optimizing for the search engines really difficult job. They are just so complicated (perhaps more than a girl, who always say ‘You can never understand me’) that understanding their working is ‘huh… I tried everything’ job.

Various researchers have been chasing their complexity and understanding them with experience. They have found that there is a baseline established by search engine to compare different websites. This baseline is of course different for different search engines. For example, more than 200 factors are considered to establish a baseline in Google’s search algorithm.

Even when people find some baseline components of a search engine with their experience, they are not in ‘I have got it’ situation because major search engines like Google make about half-a-dozen changes in their baseline of the algorithm to reflect the manner people make searches on their search engine. Some changes are major and some are minor but after all, they are secret with Google and you never know them, even if you are an expert.

The main thing which experts say about making a website, as per SEO perspective is to make the website for people and the users, not for the search engines. Providing more and more relevant content makes the search engines happy. If you put advertisements on your website, then see if those ads are relevant to what your website is about. If they are really relevant, then they can help visitors in some services that they might require at that instant. Like if I visit a website for booking for vacations in Goa and if I get to see an ad about hotels in Goa (may with some special attractive offers), then I may click that ad and book for the hotel at the same time.

Search engine like the way the website is designed for customers and how it is updated. If you are really paying attention to your visitor’s needs and requirements, then you can trace your way in top search results. But it’s still a game of cat and mouse to play with search engines.

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