Search Engine Rankings
The number one way that we find information on the Internet today is via search engines. Places like Google, Yahoo!, AltaVista, and Search SU catalog Web sites and then internally rank them against other pages. But how do these elusive rankings work? We all have seen the percentage bar next to results on different search engines, but how are those numbers formulated? How come the number one resource for anything on "Susquehanna University Admissions Statistics" is not our own SU Admissions Department? Hopefully, this tutorial will be able to answer those questions and more.
Different search engines use different technologies, and no two work exactly the same. There is comfort, though, in knowing that most of them process Web pages the same. They look for text on the Web pages themselves, and META tags in the Web page header. This document will review two search engines: Google, and Search SU.
Google
When the term "Search Engine" comes to mind, most people give a knee-jerk reaction to Google. Google searches the text on a page and catalogs it in their massive database. However, it can not read text placed in images on a Web page. Among other factors, Google then weights pages based on how many other Web pages link to your Web page, or how many "backlinks" your page has. Therefore, the more links others make to your Web page, the better you may rank on Google.
Search SU
Our own Search SU is an excellent example of a search engine that goes beyond searching and cataloging the text on a Web page. Search SU, along with most search engines utilizes something called META data when ranking or weighting pages. META data is defined by placing META tags in your Web page. The next question is obviously, "What are these META tags you speak of?!"
The META tag specifies information about the document. The META tag has no effect on the appearance of the Web page. It is intended for use by other programs, such as search engines or web browsers.
If the NAME attribute is supplied, the META tag specifies information about the document. You can use the META tag to convey information about the page to search engines. For example, you could create a META tag that summarizes the content of the page and another one that lists the important concepts or keywords in the page.
In the following example, the META tag stores indexing information that a search engine can use when it accesses the document. Many search engines look for a META tag whose name is "keywords" and will catalog the keywords, as well as one whose name is "description", which it can use to describe the page.
<HEAD>
<TITLE>HTML Reference</TITLE>
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="HTML, documentation, reference">
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="HTML reference page">
</HEAD>
Search engines that explore this page will catalog the page under the terms "HTML", "documentation", and "reference" because they were listed under the "keyword" definition using the META tag. The phrase "HTML reference page" will be displayed as the description of the Web page in search results because it was defined by the "description" META tag.
As you can see, there is a lot of information to be had in these little META tags. A good habit is to place these right after your HEAD tags. Make use of the "description" and "keywords" NAME attributes liberally. These two tags are often the key to getting your page noticed by search engine viewers. Identify key terms from your page and add them to the keywords. If there are particular words you would like to have associated with your page, add them to the keywords.
Dreamweaver provides an easy way to create META tags, and to use the NAME attribute to assign keywords and descriptions. Near the top of the screen, just under the main toolbar, there is a series of icons. There should be a choice to change the icons that are displayed in the form of a drop-down arrow or set of tabs, with choices such as Common, Layout, Forms etc. Choose "HTML." Click the "Head" icon, which should have "Meta," "Keywords," "Description," and other choices. Clicking on "Keyword" or "Description" brings up text boxes where you can input the appropriate text. Multiple keywords can be entered, separating each by a comma. When you click OK, Dreamweaver places the tag automatically in the page with the values you have typed in.
Conclusion
Other search engines have different features, like Dogpile, which has the ability to search multiple engines at once, or Ask Jeeves, which uses a human readable question to search their database of pages. Many of these carry the two big capabilities, though: reading text and scanning for META tags.
In closing, by following these recommendations, you're pages will fare better than most:
- Search Engines read all the text on the page. Therefore, don't place your important text on an image, which can't be read by a search engine crawler.
- Use META tags liberally, but don't go overboard with 100 keywords just because you're in fear of someone misspelling one.
- Build your Web site with the idea of quality over quantity. Having genuine and useful content on your site will increase your ranking more than trying to use a specific keyword as much as possible.
And as always, when in doubt of how a particular search engine works, look at their help document. It tends to be a resource in a time of need, and helped propel this document.
For more information:
This information is provided as a guide only. The procedures may vary slightly depending on the search engine you are trying to get better results with. If you have questions, please contact the Susquehanna University Web Central Office at 570-372-4748 or webmaster@susqu.edu.
