Passed on 7 April, 2025
2. How search engines work
In this lesson, we’ll explore how search engines find web pages, what they do with the pages they find, and how they decide what results to show.
✅ Learning objectivesBy the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:Identify how search can support your digital marketing strategy.Understand how a search engine creates its catalogue and finds relevant results.
Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:
Identify how search can support your digital marketing strategy.
Understand how a search engine creates its catalogue and finds relevant results.
Search engine basics
Search is essential to an online marketing strategy. Understanding how it works can help you make it work for you.
Why do search engines matter to me?
Search engines are constantly working to scour the web for content, organise it, and display the most relevant results to searchers.Essentially, search is a way to target people who are already looking for something you provide—whether it’s products, services, helpful information, or initiatives. It helps you reach the right audience and support your marketing objectives.
Essentially, search is a way to target people who are already looking for something you provide—whether it’s products, services, helpful information, or initiatives. It helps you reach the right audience and support your marketing objectives.
Essentially, search is a way to target people who are already looking for something you provide—whether it’s products, services, helpful information, or initiatives. It helps you reach the right audience and support your marketing objectives.
How search engines work
Understanding how a search engine works is a great place to start, so you can consider how search can support your digital marketing strategy.
Search queries
When a person wants to find something, they can type or say a word or phrase into a search engine. This is called a search query.
Visual search tools
Sometimes, finding the right words to describe what you’re searching for can be difficult. That’s where visual search tools can help. These tools let you search using images, making them perfect for identifying objects, products, or landmarks.
How it compares
Unlike text-based queries, which rely on keywords, visual searches use image recognition to deliver results based on the content and context of the image.
How to optimise your images
Visual searches rely on optimised images for accurate results. Using descriptive file names, alt text, and structured data can improve visibility in visual search tools, helping drive traffic and boost your site’s organic search performance.
Creating a catalogue
Each search engine uses its own software program, but the way they work is pretty similar. They all perform three tasks.
First, they examine content they learn about and have permission to see (crawling).
Second, they categorise each piece of content (indexing).
Third, they decide which content is most useful to searchers (ranking).
Crawling, indexing, and ranking
Understanding how a search engine creates its catalogue and finds relevant results can help you to make sure the content you create is optimised for search.We’ll cover Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in more detail in later lessons. For now, let’s explore how crawling, indexing, and ranking work in a little more detail.
We’ll cover Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in more detail in later lessons. For now, let’s explore how crawling, indexing, and ranking work in a little more detail.
We’ll cover Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in more detail in later lessons. For now, let’s explore how crawling, indexing, and ranking work in a little more detail.
Crawling
Search engines ‘crawl’ the internet to discover content, like web pages, images, and videos, using programs called ‘bots,’ ‘crawlers,’ or ‘spiders.’ To help them find your content, create a sitemap—a file that lists all the pages on your site—and link related pages together. Also, ensure all links on your site work properly to make crawling easier.
Indexing
The index is a database of all the web pages and content found by search engine bots. When you search, the engine scans its index to find relevant results. To help your content get indexed, write clear titles and short summaries for each page (meta descriptions) so search engines can understand them.
Ranking
There are hundreds of ways search engines determine rank, including the words on the page, the number of other websites linking to it, and the freshness of the content. No matter what formula they use, the goal is always to connect the searcher with what they’re looking for.To improve ranking, use tools like keyword planners to incorporate relevant terms into your titles, headers, URLs, and content. Focus on creating valuable, well-structured content and avoid overloading pages with keywords.
To improve ranking, use tools like keyword planners to incorporate relevant terms into your titles, headers, URLs, and content. Focus on creating valuable, well-structured content and avoid overloading pages with keywords.
To improve ranking, use tools like keyword planners to incorporate relevant terms into your titles, headers, URLs, and content. Focus on creating valuable, well-structured content and avoid overloading pages with keywords.
Google Search
Watch the video to learn more about how Google Search works. We’ll cover the concepts mentioned in the video throughout the lessons in this module.Remember, all search engines work slightly differently and their algorithms are updated over time.
Remember, all search engines work slightly differently and their algorithms are updated over time.
Remember, all search engines work slightly differently and their algorithms are updated over time.
Elapsed time
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Transcript
Transcript
Activity
Make a note of anything interesting you remember from the video.
Download PDF
Download PDF
Check your knowledge
Let’s find out what you’ve learned about search engine optimisation.
Question 1 of 1
Put the steps below into the correct order to identify how a search engine processes content and queries.
1
Search engines ‘crawl’ the Internet to discover content, like web pages, images and videos.
2
Search engines categorise content into an index.
3
Search engines rank content according to what could be most useful to searchers.
Show Answer
Show Answer
Not quite.Search engines ‘crawl’ the Internet to discover content, like web pages, images and videos. They then categorise content into an index and rank it according to what could be most useful to searchers.
Search engines ‘crawl’ the Internet to discover content, like web pages, images and videos. They then categorise content into an index and rank it according to what could be most useful to searchers.
Lesson complete
Great job!You now know the basics of how search engines work.Next up, you’ll learn more about how search engines interact with web content.
You now know the basics of how search engines work.Next up, you’ll learn more about how search engines interact with web content.
Next up, you’ll learn more about how search engines interact with web content.
Next up, you’ll learn more about how search engines interact with web content.