How exactly does Google work?

[PatTheRat]

A few of our staff are managing another company for a short while. This other company has it own website and if you put its name into Google, its the first result found. Its a Belfast based tour guiding company. However, if I just put in 'Belfast Tour Guides' or 'Walking Tours Belfast' etc, out website in nowhere to be found.

How exactly does google search for sites and is there any way of manipulating the results on Google?

[OBonio]

No-one knows exactly how Google ranks its findings. It's a closely guarded secret.

Here are some tips you should bear in mind when trying to get higher rankings :

http://www.highrankings.com/tentips.htm

[lucasdigital]

Google use their own search engine, a system that uses a very complex collection of rules for indexing web pages. There is no simple answer for how google rates sites as they uses many factors. I recommend that you do a google search on the subject of "Search Engine Optimisation". This is a whole field dedicated to manipuating search results.

Google's initial success though was due to the use of hyperlinks. The more other peoples websites link to your webpage, the higher rating Google would give you. Today things are much more complex though. Many companies use unfair tricks to increase their rating. Using webpages that have been designed for search engine spiders rather than human readers.

[fo3nix]

OBonio's totally wrong on this one I'm afraid. It's a very open secret as to how they get such good results.

http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.ht ml

[OBonio]

You might want to read the red text at the bottom of the page first :

Note: This page was posted for April Fool's Day - 2002.

[Mattk]

google is also country classed ie if you search on football in the uk you will find man utd,liverpool etc etc but if you search in the states you will get miami dolphins etc etc

[fo3nix]

sssh Obonio! I nearly had Pat there ;)

(maybe..)