Search
Engine Optimization
Search
Engine Optimization is the technique of improving a page’s
visibility in a search engine such that the search engine’s
algorithm finds that page a more accurate match when searching for
specific words and shows the same accordingly (typically on the top
of results and in the first page). SEO techniques depend on the
search engine under consideration, the algorithms used by it, nature
of the webpage and the type of words users use to search for the type
of content in that page.
Frequency of
searched word
A
naive ranking search engine can rank a page higher if the frequency
of searched word in that page is higher than others. However, this
algorithm can easily be abused by web developers by adding the same
word again and again (even without a proper meaning).
Inbound Links (from
other sites)
To
counter the above manipulation of search engines, Google in 1998,
came up with the idea of ranking a page higher if that page was
linked more from other web-pages. Idea was that if a page was more
useful than others, then it would be referenced more from other
pages.
However,
this too began to be abused by developers and several sites came up
just to provide links to other sites. Some even sold pages which
solely provided links, only to improve the page ranking.
Current Algorithms
Currently,
search engines use a number of different algorithms to rank pages.
Many of them do not even disclose their algorithms. Google, for
example, uses more than 200 different parameters to rank a page.
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