Understanding what it is the search engines are looking for when ranking websites in their search results is of great importance to those businesses that want to have their website ranked highly and has always been an important area for consideration for any website owner. The search engines take into consideration a range of different factors when evaluating the relevancy and quality of a website and these factors are constantly being updated and developed so that the search engines can provide users with the most useful results possible.

In the beginning of search engine optimisation, keywords were of extreme importance. Search engines used the keywords found in a website to understand the content and to determine when it could be useful. Site owners knew that having the right keywords within their content and meta tags could largely determine how successful they were in the search results provided by the search engines and so a manipulation of keywords developed. Keywords were stuffed into meta tags as much as possible and even invisible text was used to try to gain the advantage over competitors. Many unethical techniques based on the use of keywords developed. These techniques did not help the search engines to provide users with accurate results and so the importance of keywords was reduced and new factors considered instead.

Links have also always played a significant role in search but when link algorithms were first implemented by search engines, these algorithms were basic and once again it was easy for manipulation to occur. Site owners would try to establish as many links to their websites as possible regardless of quality and relevancy and once again this behaviour was not useful for the search engines. Links could be easily bought and swapped and this manipulated the search engines inappropriately. Algorithms concerning links had to be developed and improved a lot further if links were going to provide the search engines with useful and productive information. These algorithms were developed by many of the search engines and links remain an important factor in search today.

The factors used by the search engines to evaluate the quality of a website and when it will be appropriate to rank a website highly in the search results are highly significant to those involved in online business. High rankings can mean a great increase in the amount of traffic that visits a site and this can of course have a massive impact on sales. Acknowledging the factors used in the past and learning about they have developed is useful to gain a full understanding of how search engines work and how you can work with them successfully.

We at SEO Consult have a thorough knowledge of search engine behaviour and constantly monitor any new developments taking place in search so that we can provide our clients with the most up to date information for their search engine optimisation campaigns. Keywords and links play an important role in SEO, but we can also highlight many other important factors and show you how to use this information effectively.