Understanding Search Engines Part 5: Search Engine Result Pages

Understanding the role of search engines and how they use spiders and algorithms to help create their index leads us towards SEO solutions that have proven successful for many web pages and websites. When users search the index they are presented with a list of relevant pages sorted in order of relevance and value. The aim of SEO is to ensure that web pages first appear in the search engine result pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords and then to improve the performance of those pages in the SERPs.

When an SEO optimises on page content and off page factors they do so in order to generate better rankings within SERPs and they use as much information regarding algorithms and spiders as they have. When undertaking an SEO campaign any website owner or online marketer needs to first understand the role, the behaviour, and the methodology of the search engines in order to help improve the rankings in the SERPs.

Search engines are constantly updating their indexes and, as such, the search engine results also change with sometimes alarming regularity. This state of change is further enhanced by updates to algorithms as well as spiders finding new links, indexing new pages, and the discovery of other information. While changes can mean improvements in ranking they can also mean a drop in ranking so that your pages appear further down the SERPs and while this can mean a loss in traffic it may be short term change that can be remedied with quick and insightful action.