Search Engine Optimisation - a quick guide

Author: Christopher Ruane

Search engines have the main purpose to index thousands of millions of web pages. Once you look for a word or a phrase, the search engine scans automatically the entire database where it has the stored pages indexed and it returns to you as a result a list containing the most relevant results for that search.

The only criteria are the number of pages found and their relevance depend on are the capabilities of the used search engine.Google has become the largest search engine at present but there is a constant battle between companies to be at the forefront .

Search engines appeared somewhere in the early 90's when Alan Emtage, a student at the McGill University in Montreal created the first search engine tool. It was called Archie. Its purpose was to search through the information available on the FTP servers. The files on these servers were available for anyone, but one couldn't use them unless knowing the exact address of the server and of the file.

Archie looked through this database and gathered lists of files for each server. It was used by people to match phrases and characters in order to take them to the server address the file they were looking for was on.

Its creation was the first step in the search engine rally that is going on now. As the public grew more and more aware of the existence of the internet, the need for a search tool became visible.

So, first there were some software robots, using the concept of spidering to index the web, following links from one site to the other and saving the text from all visited websites in a database.

Between 1994 and 1995 three important search engines appeared: Lycos, WebCrawler and AltaVista. At about the same time Yahoo! appeared but Yahoo! is not a search engine. Yes, it has a search engine function, but yahoo is firstly a directory of data and articles, providing different services as email and hosting. Recently yahoo has signed contracts with other search engines as Google for both of them to provide more search results.

Today search engines are in a continuous competition. There are thousands of search engines, but just a few big ones. This small group of top search engines is responsible for more than 90% of online searches.

However, if search engines are free and they can be used by everyone what keeps them financially alive? The answer to the question is very simple: advertising and traffic. The more visits they have, the bigger the traffic then the more money they can make providing AD space.

Search engines are competing to develop the best formulas and algorithms to evaluate the web pages accordingly to the keywords provided.

If someone is looking for a top position in search engines, then he has to be sure that his site is projected in such a way that search engines would find it easily, being relevant for the keywords and phrases the owner wants it to be found by.

SEO tools

Search Engine optimization is of two kinds, Organic and Mechanical. Organic SEO depends on manual or natural ways of optimizing a website and takes more time resulting in long lasting results. Mechanical SEO use software i.e. seo tools to optimize a website. It takes less time but results have a shorter shelf life.

SEO tools are numerous. They are available for keyword verification checking and suggestions, link popularity checks, meta tag optimization, search saturation checking, back link building, search engine ranking etc.

The seo tools are being extensively used today to optimize websites. In the fiercely competitive industries it is very important to be on top of Google, Yahoo or any other search engine rankings to tap targeted audiences. This greatly helps to sustain, grow and expand your business through your website.

Each category of seo tools in turn has a number of software developed by different companies. It is relevant to know which are good before you embark upon using one. Almost all of them have demo versions available for free download. You can always try them out before narrowing your options and buying the best. Remember, SEO tools need to be used carefully or the search engines can black list you.

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