How do search engines rank web pages?

This section is a bit technical but it will help you to understand how search engines specify the position of a web page in the search results. Search engines use mathematical formulas to determine the rank of a web page. These mathematical formulas are called ranking algorithms. Although search engines don't reveal the exact algorithms. All major search engines use the same principle to rank websites. The exact ranking algorithms differ from search engine to search engine but the principle is the same. We'll use the ranking algorithm of Google as an example.


How does Google rank your web pages?

Google explains the ranking algorithm on their company pages:

"Traditional search engines rely heavily on how often a word appears on a web page. Google uses PageRank™ to examine the entire link structure of the web and determine which pages are most important.

It then conducts hypertext-matching analysis to determine which pages are relevant to the specific search being conducted. By combining overall importance and query-specific relevance, Google is able to put the most relevant and reliable results first."

As mentioned in the quote, Google uses PageRank (which is a mathematical formula and not the same as the green bar in the Google toolbar) and hypertext-matching analysis to rank your web pages. What does this mean?


1. You need good links

To get good results for the PageRank factor, you need good links from related pages that point to your site. It's a simple principle: if page a links to page b then it is a recommendation from page a to page b. The more links point to your website, the better your rankings.

The quality of the links is also important. A link that contains the keyword for which you want to have high rankings in the link text is better than five links with the text Click here. A link from a website that has a related topic is much better than links from unrelated sites or link lists.



2. You need optimized web page content

While the linking concept is easy to understand, the hypertext-matching analysis factor is a bit more complicated. Google explains hypertext-matching analysis as follows:

"Hypertext-Matching Analysis: Google's search engine also analyzes page content. However, instead of simply scanning for page-based text (which can be manipulated by site publishers through meta-tags), Google's technology analyzes the full content of a page and factors in fonts, subdivisions and the precise location of each word.

Google also analyzes the content of neighboring web pages to ensure the results returned are the most relevant to a user's query."

As Google analyzes the full content of your pages you also have to optimize the full content of your web pages. It is not enough to edit your meta tags. You have to optimize all factors that can influence your search engine rankings.


One page is not enough

As mentioned in the explanation of Google's hypertext-matching analysis, Google also analyzes the content of other web pages on your site to ensure that your web page is really relevant.

That means that you must optimize different pages of your website for different but related search terms. The more web pages of your website are optimized for keywords about a special topic, the more likely it is that you'll get high rankings for a special keyword that is related to that topic.

It is not enough to optimize a single web page.