How do search engines use keywords

Keywords are the staple diet of Google and other search engines, this is because Google is basically a huge library that uses keyword information to list, sort and serve results to its users.

For example, if you ask Google to search for a phrase or keyword it will already have a selected list of relevant pages to return when you hit the search button. It can also provide a sub list of related terms it thinks may save you time.

You can see exactly how Google returns results to your query by checking out Google 101.

Google 101

In order to provide your search return Google has Cached or Indexed billions of web pages and placed them in its index ready to be Served to you.

It will have used over 200 factors in determining which web pages it will Serve
to you in your results search, and in determining the order of these pages. Google will list the majority of web pages it has found for your query (millions usually).

The places Google looks to find keywords are the websites URL, its meta tags (title and description), the sites html coding (keywords can be included as attributes to images or links) and the text content within the webpage. Google also examines incoming links to a website incoming links may contain keywords.

If websites do not have the relevant keywords somewhere on the website (or in their link profiles, as in some cases Google can rank a site solely based on the content of its incoming links!), then Google will not rank the site for those keywords.

Sites that do not include much text content for instance, those that rely heavily on graphics will find that Google has difficulty in listing them correctly, if at all.

Below are Googles own Guidelines to web developers on how to develop a web sites content.

• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
• Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
• Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
• Make sure that your