| Search engine optimization (SEO)
is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a website
in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search
engines.
Research shows that most web traffic comes
from search engines. If you have a website, and you want people
to find it easily, then your site must be designed to be search
engine friendly.
First you need to understand how search engines
operate.
How does a website get into a search
engine?
A search engine run automated programs, called
"bots" or "spiders", that use the hyperlink
to "crawl" the pages and documents that make up the
World Wide Web.
Once a page has been crawled, the spider starts
reading all the text in the body of the page, including markup
elements and URL links. The contents can then be "indexed"
- stored in its central database that makes up a search engine's
"index". The spider follows the links found on the
page, repeating the same process.
When a request for information comes into
the search engine, the engine retrieves from its index all the
document that match the query. A match is determined if the
terms or phrase is found on the page in the manner specified
by the user.
Once the search engine has determined which
results are a match for the query, the engine's algorithm (a
mathematical formula) will determine which is most relevant
to the given query. They sort these on the results pages in
order from most relevant. Therefore, it is important to optimize
your site and content for a better ranking in SERPs (search
engine result positions).
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