How Search Engines Operate

Search engines have a short list of critical operations that allows them to provide relevant web results when searchers use their system to find information.
1. Crawling the Web
Search engines run automated programs, called "bots" or "spiders" that use the hyperlink structure of the web to "crawl" the pages and documents that make up the World Wide Web. Estimates are that of the approximately 20 billion existing pages, search engines have crawled between 8 and 10 billion.
2. Indexing Documents
Once a page has been crawled, it's contents can be "indexed" - stored in a giant database of documents that makes up a search engine's "index". This index needs to be tightly managed, so that requests which must search and sort billions of documents can be completed in fractions of a second.
3. Processing Queries
When a request for information comes into the search engine (hundreds of millions do each day), the engine retrieves from its index all the document that match the query. A match is determined if the terms or phrase is found on the page in the manner specified by the user. For example, a search for car and driver magazine at Google returns 8.25 million results, but a search for the same phrase in quotes ("car and driver magazine") returns only 166 thousand results. In the first system, commonly called "Findall" mode, Google returned all documents which had the terms "car" "driver" and "magazine" (they ignore the term "and" because it's not useful to narrowing the results), while in the second search, only those pages with the exact phrase "car and driver magazine" were returned. Other advanced operators (Google has a list of 11) can change which results a search engine will consider a match for a given query.
4. Ranking Results
Once the search engine has determined which results are a match for the query, the engine's algorithm (a mathematical equation commonly used for sorting) runs calculations on each of the results to determine which is most relevant to the given query. They sort these on the results pages in order from most relevant to least so that users can make a choice about which to select.
Although a search engine's operations are not particularly lengthy, systems like Google, Yahoo!, AskJeeves and MSN are among the most complex, processing-intensive computers in the world, managing millions of calculations each second and funneling demands for information to an enormous group of users.

Top 7 SEO Myths

Search engine optimization like in everything is not spared of having their own myths. Listed below are the top 7 myths (out of 20) of SEO.

SEO firms will use or exaggerate this myths in order for them to land a contract. They will say that these things will keep you on top, whereas, in reality this may get your web site not only poor ranking, but may altogether be banned.

These top 7 myths are strongly disapproved for use in SEO, as some of them are almost as old as the internet.

Top 7 SEO myths

• Meta tags
• Multiple Domain Names
• Doorway and Gateway pages
• Constant update
• Expensive SEO experts
• Self-Optimized pages
• Search Engines are not as good as other media

Meta tags

A few years ago, meta-tags are created to be used by the web-masters to assist them. They were created also to help search engines tell what the certain web-page is all about. As a result when people start to realize this, they abused this. Now the search engines have found a way to get over with this, as such, it is now almost useless to try the same thing again.

Multiple Domain Name

A myth that was so much abused before. Having multiple domain names as, of this time is not only a time consuming process to maintain but an expensive strategy as well. One of the reasons why such a myth is now unusable is that search engines now penalized mirror sites. And if some company say, have 10 domains, not only does they have to pay for each of them, they also have to maintain and configure them so as not to appear as a mirror site to each other. Mirror sites are now penalized thus, making this myth a dangerous SEO strategy.

Doorway and Gateway pages

A myth that is almost as old as the internet itself. Doorway and Gateway pages are illegal for the most part and should be avoided. This method has created a lot of spam in Search engines.

Constant update

Contrary to popular belief constant update may harm your website more than it can help.. Once a website is properly optimized it should yield excellent rank, as well as have a steady supply of visitors surfing the web page.

Expensive SEO experts

This may stem from the tide that the Search Engine Optimizers have no standard rates on their services thus some SEO may be cheap while others are thought of as expensive when in reality, SEO gives a higher ROI (rate of return) than any PTBL. They are also a lot cheaper than pay per click (PPC) and other advertising.

Self-Optimized pages

SEO has become a specialized field. Whereas, before a few tweaks of meta tags, insert a keyword and constant update provide good rankings, now, such things are next to useless as the search engines algorithms are evolving and changing frequently. Thus it must take a lot more time than it used to

Search Engines are not as good as other media

Most people buy products from companies by searching for their products on search engines and not go directly to the company's website (or URL) that produced them (only 9% of web surfers know how to go to the correct URL). Investing in SEO will give a drastic increase in sales as the net is vastly growing, and with its growth, so will consumers.