If you’re like most people, whether you’re looking for a new Thai restuarant, need a plumber to fix a leaking tap or are researching an overseas holiday, you’ll use a search engine. Like the engine in our car, however, most people have little idea how a search engine works. Here are some interesting facts about search engines, some of which can be useful for us businesses trying to improve our own search engine rankings.
- When you type in your keywords, the search engine provides a ranked list of websites based on a number of factors.
- Google, the most sophisticated search engine, bases its rankings on more than 200 factors!
- Search engines change the factors, and the importance placed on each of the factors, regularly.
- A search engine, such as Google, uses computer and software (Googlebot) to collect information from the Internet. It then uses this information to build its searchable index.
- Large search engines index more than 15 billion pages!
- There are around 3 billion searches on Google every day.
- Around 3/4 of us never scroll past the first page of the search results.
- The number one ranked website gets approximately 40% of the traffic.
A key point to remember is that search engines are created for searchers. Bringing searchers the most relevant results is one of the reasons why Google is so popular and its why it continually invests in ways to improve its results. Not necessarily good news for us business owners or website managers trying to crack the top 10 or number 1, but pretty handy when you’re looking for a takeaway place that delivers on a Friday night!