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The four functions of a search engine are crawling, building an index, calculating relevancy & rankings and serving results. Through links, search engines’ automated robots, called “crawlers” or “spiders” can reach the many billions of interconnected documents. When a consumer searches for a particular word or phrase online, it requires the search engines to go through billions of documents, and do two things – one, return only those results that are relevant or useful to the searcher’s query, and two, rank those results in order of perceived value or importance. The search engines are in a constant quest to improve their results by providing the "best" possible results. While "best" is subjective, the engines have a very good idea of the kinds of pages and sites that satisfy their searchers. The general characteristics that these sites have in common are: easy to use, navigate, and understand; provides direct, actionable information relevant to the query; professionally designed and accessible to modern browsers; and delivers high quality, legitimate, credible content. There are a limited number of variables that search engines can take into account directly, including keyword placement, links, and site structure. Usability and user experience are also considered as influences on search engine ranking success. They provide an indirect, but measurable benefit to a site's external popularity, which the engines can then interpret as a signal of higher quality. It is both the relevance and importance that the process of search engine optimization is meant to influence.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. As online environment is becoming increasingly competitive, websites and pages compete for attention and placement in the search engines, and those with the best knowledge and experience with these rankings will receive the benefits of increased traffic and visibility. The aspects of an advertising strategy that are measurable can also be improved, and in search engine optimization, measurement is critical to success. Expert SEO practitioners track data about rankings, referrals, links and more, to help analyze the efficiency of the strategy and create road maps for success. Over the 12 plus years that web search has existed, search marketers have found methodologies to extract information about how the search engines rank pages and use that data to help their sites and their clients achieve better positioning.

About the Author:
Mariah writes articles and blogs on search engine optimization,social media and PPC management among others.