There are a few essential things to understand when working with the Internet and this is one of them. Here’s why – of all searches for 4 weeks ending 11/4/09 Google served 91.25% – MSN 4.74% and Yahoo 3.26%. [Source]

If you have a website you need to know the basics of how Google works.

Here goes…

Google works by crawling through the Internet via links, to make a library of all the websites that it can find.

When a user types a search query into Google, the search engine looks through its library and uses a ranking algorithm (computer program) to compile a list of the most relevant websites to satisfy what that person is looking for.

It also looks for advertisements that are relevant and displays these in the right hand column of the search results (Google Adwords results).

Yep – that’s it in a nutshell.

Of course there are a million and one other details that the above doesn’t cover but if you can get your head around this simplified version – you’re probably miles ahead of the competition when it comes to understanding how search engines work and the process they go through to present the list of websites to answer a search query.

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5. Website Marketing Basics – Getting Visitors to Your Website

Filed under: Attract good visitors, Do good business online, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Tips