Ever wondered how Google search works? This guide breaks down the three core steps of crawling, indexing, and ranking so you can master your SEO.
The Three Core Steps of How Google Search Works
Every day, Google processes over 8.5 billion searches. That means in the time it takes you to read this sentence, millions of questions have already been answered. But how does Google manage this lightning-fast process? It’s not magic; it’s a complex, three-step process that is a fundamental part of our lives. Understanding this process is the first step in a successful SEO strategy.
1. Crawling
A search engine’s bots, also known as spiders, are constantly crawling the internet. They follow links from one page to another, discovering new content. They download and read the HTML of every page they find. This is how a search engine discovers all the pages on your website.
2. Indexing
Once a search engine has crawled a page, it adds it to a massive database called the index. The index is like a library of all the pages on the internet. It stores information about the content, the keywords, and the images on a page. When you perform a search, a search engine is not searching the entire internet; it’s searching its index.
3. Ranking
Once a search engine has found all the pages that are relevant to a search query, it ranks them. The ranking process is a bit more complex. It uses a variety of factors to decide which pages are the most relevant and authoritative. These factors can include:
- Keywords: Are the keywords in the search query on the page?
- Backlinks: How many high-quality backlinks does the page have?
- Pagespeed: How fast does the page load?
- User experience: Is the page easy to read and navigate?
- E-E-A-T: Does the page demonstrate Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness?
The goal of a search engine is to provide the best and most relevant answer to a user’s question, and it uses these factors to do it.
How to Optimize Your Site for Crawling and Indexing
The first step in getting a high ranking is to ensure that a search engine can crawl and index your site. You can help a search engine’s bots by:
- Having a clear site structure: A clear site structure with a good internal linking system makes it easier for a search engine to find all the pages on your site.
- Having a sitemap: A sitemap is a road map of your website for a search engine. It lists all the important pages on your site that you want to be indexed.
- Not having a noindex tag: A noindex tag tells a search engine not to index a page. You should make sure that a noindex tag hasn’t been accidentally added to a page you want to rank.
A professional SEO platform Clickrank can help with this. The platform automatically crawls your website and provides a prioritized list of optimizations. This allows you to focus on high-level strategy while the platform takes care of the operational heavy lifting.
How to Optimize Your Site for SEO Ranking
Once a search engine has crawled and indexed your site, you need to optimize it for ranking.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is the work that is done on your website to make it easier for a search engine to understand. You should:
- Optimize your page titles and meta descriptions: Your page’s title and meta description are the first thing a user sees. They should be compelling and include your target keywords. There are some free tools that can help you with this, such as an SEO Meta Description Generator, which creates compelling summaries for your pages to attract more clicks.
- Use a blog to build topical authority: A blog is a great way to create valuable content that answers user questions. By writing a lot of content on a specific topic, you are showing a search engine that you are an expert in your niche.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the work that is done on your website to make it faster and healthier. You should:
- Improve pagespeed and mobile-friendliness: A fast, mobile-friendly website provides a good user experience and is a direct ranking factor.
- Fix broken links and redirects: A broken link can lead to a bad user experience and waste a search engine’s crawl budget.
