How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, Ranking, & More

While not confirmed as a ranking factor, structured data is invaluable to search engines like Google in understanding a page. With structured data, websites can provide more information about their content, products or services, and offerings to Google and LLMs. In 2025, SEO success depends on great user experience, mobile-friendly sites, and quality content. Properly optimized images not only improve user experience but also help search engines better understand and index the content, which can lead to higher rankings. As mentioned, search engines continue working on their algorithms to improve their users’ experience.

• Here’s a comprehensive look at the major elements that contribute to an effective SEO strategy.
• Third, when people search Google, it shows what it thinks are the most relevant results based on the search terms they enter (out of the trillions of pages in Google’s index).
• Keyword Stuffing One of the most outdated and damaging practices is keyword stuffing.

Optimize Website Structure

Links are increasing in their perceived importance for “regular” local rankings over time too. But their perceived importance for “map pack” rankings has stayed roughly the same. You can learn more about this process in our local keyword research guide below. To expand this list, use the service keywords as “seeds” to find more services people are searching for.

Google’s approach to AI-generated content is rooted in its commitment to rewarding high-quality, original content, irrespective of how it’s produced. The key criteria for content evaluation remain centered around the principles of expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). Google emphasizes the importance of content quality over the method of creation, whether it’s AI-generated or human-written. The focus is on delivering reliable, high-quality search results to users, which has guided Google’s content policies for years.

However, the linking site’s relevance and authority are important for ranking improvements. Criteria that search engines use to improve your website and determine where to show you our pages in search results are called SEO ranking factors. Note that these factors are not “proof” of what search engines use to rank websites, but simply show the characteristics of web pages that tend to rank higher.

SEO tools

Google’s bots are analyzing your website and look for duplicate content. If you have to link to a low-quality website, it’s best to use a nofollow link. An article from The Verge shed light on leaked documents detailing parts of Google’s ranking system. While it revealed some new pieces of information that no one knew, much of it just reaffirmed what we’ve been doing all along, including many SEO strategies professionals already use. Explore search everywhere optimization to enhance visibility beyond traditional SEO and reach audiences across multiple platforms.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the strategic process of enhancing a website’s visibility and ranking on search engine results pages to increase organic traffic and online presence. Positive reviews not only paint your business in a favorable light but also provide a meaningful boost to your local search engine ranking score. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of your business featuring prominently in the local pack, improving its visibility for those using search location functions. While search engines use hundreds of ranking factors, some carry more weight than others. By focusing on the most influential factors, you can allocate your resources efficiently and create a targeted SEO plan that delivers results. By focusing on enhancing the overall user experience, websites can improve these UX signals, positively impacting their SEO performance and, ultimately, their visibility in search results.

Sites that have a high percentage of returning visitors are deemed to be of higher quality than sites that don’t get many return visitors. A lower bounce rate attracts higher visibility in the search results. A negative link velocity will have a negative effect on your visibility in search. John Mueller explains that no follow links aren’t included in the algorithm. John Mueller’s view on SEO Anomaly guest posting is to make any links back to your site ‘no follow’. He believes visitors coming to your site via ‘no follow’ links are the people you want.

Having unique images and videos to support your main content is a quality signal. I recommend investing in a good graphics design team who will produce unique images. You should take advantage of this and ensure you include your target keyword. Matt Cutt’s originally suggested that private Whois data can be combined with other factors as a negative signal.