How do Search Engines Work?

Every search engines in the internet world have different level of algorithm.

However, their main goals are the same: getting the best answer for the user’s queries.

For example, you do not want to search “How to fix clogged drains” but getting the result as “Best Automotive Spare part” right?

Therefore, the search engines are working hard to improve their algorithm from time to time, in order to satisfy their users in order to get the most relevant and accurate answer.

How do Search Engines Work?

Search engines work by scanning billions of web pages using their own bots.

The bots are working all the time to collect all the website’s information and store the information to the search engine’s database.

After the information are stored in the database, then they will run their algorithm to calculate which web page deserve to be in the first result, second result, and so on.

There are 3 main processes of how the search engines work:

1. Crawling
2. Indexing
3. Algorithm

Let’s learn more in depth for each process.

Stage 1. Crawling

A search engine like Google has bots that goes around the internet 24/7.

These bots are often called as “Web Crawlers” or “Spiders”.

You can imagine the bot crawlers here as the little curious spiders that are always looking for a new thing.

The bots will collect information such as articles, videos, images, or anything that is interesting for search engine to show.

This activity is what we often called as “Crawling”.

In other words, crawling is the activity done by search engines when they are sending their bot to websites to read the pages.

When the search engines had crawled your site, it means they had recognized your site.

Crawling means that the search engine is looking at your web page.

How Often Does Google Crawl Websites?

There are hundred of billions of web pages in the internet.

Therefore, the spider bots are selective to choose which web page to crawl.

There are 2 magnets that can attract the spider bots to crawl your site more frequently: your site’s popularity and crawlability.

Hence, the spiders bots will visit the popular and high authority website more rather than the unpopular website.

Stage 2. Indexing

After the spider bots explored the internet and obtained some information, they will come back home and store the information to the gigantic database storage, or what we called as “The Index”.

Therefore, Indexing is the activity done by search engines by adding your web pages to their database to be shown in the search result.

This index will be updated each time the spider bots come around your web page and find if you have done any revision.

Keep in mind that in order for your web page to show in the search result, the search engines must complete the crawl and the index stage.

If the spider bots only crawl your web page but did not index it, your web page will not be showing in the SERP.

Stage 3. Algorithm

After indexing your web page, the search engine is now ready to show your web page in the SERP.

But how do they decide what goes where?

And from billions of websites that create the same content, how the search engine decide which one should rank higher?

This is where the algorithm take into action.

The search engine’s algorithm takes the data from the index and measures which web page has the most relevant to the user’s query.

Check out here to see how frequent the search engine like Google updates their algorithm.