Guide: How Google Works

[aswettla]

A lot of people will think that google uses meta tags

<meta name="description" content="this is kool 'eh">

Google willl actually search the page for keywords it self then decide how to list them.

Now you are probably wondering how does google decide who is at the top and who is at the bottom. Two Ways:

1) Relavancy - If it has you listed under Pizza then pizza would be the big topic on that page
2) Linkage - The amount of links going to that page from external sources.

Hope this helps. I know it did when i had a website :P

[Dani]

So true. While some other search engines still take meta tags in high regard, google practically ignores them. Afterall, anyone could just put whatever they want in them - even if it has nothing to do with what the site is about. Instead, google spiders the content on each page and comes up with relevancy keywords.

Then, google uses its PR rating to decide how "important" a page is. That is, how many external links link into the page. After all, if other people link to the site, that must mean it has good stuff, no? ;)

[Zachery]

thats only sorta true :)

google does use metta tags still to display adsense but it also uses keywords too :) i noticed when i changed my keywords to a ton of microsoft stuff all my AS became MS releated ;D

[Dani]

Really? I didn't know that ... good 2 know.

[IbnKuldun]

Quick question on google,

If my website is update say weekly, do I have to re submit my site to google for it to schedule the site for another crawl? Or will google make a record of my URL and re-crawl after a period of time?

[samaru]

Google spiders web sites periodically, so you don't have to worry about resubmitting. That goes with other search engines as well. If you want to check out cached versions of your site or any other site for that matter, you can check out: http://www.waybackmachine.org/ - it's interesting. You can see what Macromedia's web site looked like in 1996: http://web.archive.org/web/19961022175211/http://www.macromedia.com/

[carolblake1973]

thats only sorta true :)

google does use metta tags still to display adsense but it also uses keywords too :)

That is such BS. Forums have generic meta-tags but still have great relevancy for adsense where threads are spidered.

[I, Brian]

Google doesn't give meta-tags any weight in themselves. Proof:

http://www.seo-lab.com/seo-lab-tests/meta-tags/

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean to say that Google doesn't reference meta-tags for ranking purposes - which is an old Inktomi tactic and not necessarily exclusive. Caol is quite right about generic meta-tags as well - forum threads can do very well for non-competitive keyword/phrase searches, but still lack the meta-tags relating to that topic.

[ajax-the-techie]

Yes, both Carol and Brian have a very valid point. Tags by themselves are pointless, but when it comes to Google, tags are imprtant for determining whether a site is really based on what it's keywords tag says. By itself, the tag is meaningless...

[carolblake1973]

Is anyone going to offer proof that Google even references meta-tags tho'? IT sounds like one of those rumours that get spread around forums as fact without ever havin been tested.

[ajax-the-techie]

aswettle, you hit it right on the nose. Another important thing to watch out for is 'code spamming'. Perhaps your page has a lot of different products and services to offer, for example, and you want to include everything you offer in your keywords. BIG MISTAKE! Try to be specific and keep it under about 10 keywords. Have you ever seen a page in which the webmaster chose to include every word on the site, random words that are frequently searched, or the same set of words arranged every way possible (i.e. 'hot blondes' 'blondes hot' 'hot babes')? This will destroy your PR and put you at the bottom of the list for the keywords you should REALLY be aiming for. Find a few keywords you'll be frequently using in your content and go with it.

P.S. Long time, no see, dani. I'm not really back online yet, I'm just searching for some answers for a problem I'm having with my system (I changed my password when I was drunk and now I can't remember it...furthermore, I'm running a copy of XP that wasn't entirely 'store-bought' and I can't reinstall due to the lack of an XP disk.) What a mess! And I just bought Half-Life 2!!!

[naqiboy]

i doubt google judges by meta tags as far as what ive heard.

and as i read earlier, keywords within the website and externale traffic are i think the keys to good ranking. my opinion only.

[JoeBloggs]

Surely the pages are ranked purely on the Pagerank. The Pagerank is the stationary distribution of the Markov Transition Probability matrix which is derived from the connectivity matrix (which pages link to which other pages).

[Dani]

I don't think pages could be ranked purely on pagerank. Relevancy has to of course be more important - along with backlinks that use the keyword as anchor text, keywords in the page title and in <H1> and <H2> tags, etc. Right? ;)

[JoeBloggs]

My theory on how it works (more of a conjecture to be honest) is that the documents containing the words (as meta keywords and in the document text) in the search are selected, then are ordered on the page purely in terms of Pagerank.

[Dani]

I reserve the right to disagree. :)

[jewboy]

According to Danny Sullivan of Jupiter Media - editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, Google ignores meta tags. Yahoo uses them, and Teoma unofficially. This is current as of SES Conference New York, March 3, 2005.