Search Sites or Search Engines like Yahoo, Google, MSN, are the second most popular thing on the internet, next to eMail. Understanding how they work will help marketers learn how to leverage search engines as a marketing tool.

How Search Engines Find a Site
The search engine doesn’t go out to the Internet to find its results instead, it accesses its internal database of sites that has visited and indexed previously. The search engine won’t consider your site for search result if it does not recognize your site.

Search Engines generally reckons a site in two ways, the first is by following a link to the site. While many sites offer free submission options for site owners to submit their sites, most offer some form of paid submission program. In return, the search sites agree to review the pages faster and more frequently, daily instead of every six weeks or so.

The second and the more valuable way is when the search engine follows a link from another site to yours. Search Engines send out automated ‘spiders’ to crawl the web, reporting what they find. For instance, Google places a great deal of weight on the number and quality of links it finds to your site.

Links are critical to also getting all the pages within your site read by search engines. Sites with dynamic content, secure pages, complex links, etc, can pose challenges for search engine spiders. This is why it is important to review your log files to see when search engine spiders visit your site so you can manage the submission process appropriately.

Moving Your Site to the Top of the Results
Search engine optimization is not a rocket science, it’s just a process of careful planning and continual refinement based on results. Search Engines are continuing to refine their approach, to accurately read and digest what the user would see. Punishment for unethical activities is also a part of it because search engines continuously try to prevent the manipulation of the results.

While there are issues that only relate to search engine readability, optimizing for high search engine rankings should complement efforts to design for human visitors. The site should be easy to read and navigate, containing phrases and keywords familiar to readers. Links from other sites increase the visibility of your site to visitors from that site, as well as search engine spiders.

Conclusion
Search sites are the actual starting point for users looking for information. Search sites offer site owners opportunities to be visible quickly through cost-per-click advertising and longer term through the natural results. Mixing the two allows for quick visibility to a targeted audience with long-term cost-effectiveness.

Success of a search engine totally depends on its credibility to deliver relevant results, and then coupling those results with targeted advertising messages. Understanding how search sites determine the results and advertisements enables site owners to leverage visibility in search sites to attract visitors.