Understanding how search engines work, Google in particular, is important when working in SEO. The basics of crawling and indexing are amazingly useful to understand if you want to rank your own content.
Additionally, Google updates its algorithm several times a year. Understanding the more significant updates, and how they work, can help you to craft content and SEO strategies that are up-to-date.
We've written extensively about how search engines work, and included some of the top resources here. You can also browse the latest posts on search engines from the Moz blog below.
How Search Engines Work : New to SEO? Start with the basics of how search engines operate with our free beginner's guide.
Search Engine Ranking and Visibility : Learn the fundamentals of how search engines rank content on search engine result pages.
Google Algorithm Update History : A complete history of Google algorithm updates since 2000. This includes important links and references for understanding how Google works.
How Search Engines Value Links : Search engines work off a number of signals, but two of the most important are content and links. In this video, Rand Fishkin explains the basics of link evaluation.
MozCast : Is Google updating it's algorithm as we speak? MozCast is the Google algorithm weather report, so you can see how much Google results are changing each day.
Just a bit of fun here but does anyone else notice that valentines google logo reads as googe? Looking at www.google.co.uk/ there is a chocolate covered strawberry in the shape of a G but noL ... I dont think the stalk of the strawberry is an L though. ...
This afternoon while logging into one of my Gmail accounts, a window popped up asking me if I wanted to make Gmail my default program for when I clicked on e-mail address links on websites. I'm not sure how long this has gone on, but this afternoon was the first time I noticed it. Gmail offering itself as a default option for e-mail links makes it seem like it is asserting its e-ma...
When Google opened for business PageRank was innovative and produced best of peer results because the landscape was clean(ish). Folks tended to link naturally. When the magic behind PageRank became known that level playing field went out the window and ...
If you have a problem to work with the "Query Stats for your Site" feed from Google Webmaster Central, which includes all Keywords with Ranking per Website Sub folder, Google Location (Google.com, Google.de etc.) and Search Type (Web Search, Image Search etc.), here is a tool for you.Have a loo...
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Have you paid any attention to personalized search yet? If you stay logged into one of your Google accounts such as Gmail, your search history will start to accumulate. As your history grows Google starts to modify the SERPs that they send you in ways that they think will be more pleasing. I first noticed this a few days ago when Google seemed to know which site belonged to me in the SERPs....
Personalized Search: The Next SEO FrontierThere is a reason folks from Yahoo were discussed in The Wisdom of Crowds. I doubt anyone involved in determining the future of a major search engine's modus operandi has not read that book. If the crowd is truly wiser, one would assume that Google would use data gathered from mil...
I may have missed it in the recent run through of my RSS for this week, but it seems no one is talking about the new Google Local results for nearly any search with a city included. When doing a search for a city plus keyword you will see above the natural rankings a very large map followed by 3 very large links to the top Google Local results. It ...
Danny Sullivan was in town over the weekend and on Saturday night, Vanessa Fox from Sitemaps invited Mystery Guest and me over to Google's Kirkland offices. We had a ton of fun and got to meet some new (and very friendly) Googlers. Just a few photos: ...
A Wired News article from yesterday - How Yahoo! Blew It - comes to some interesting conclusions: Semel has been Yahoo's CEO for nearly six years, yet he has never acquired an intuitive sense of the company's plumbing. He understands how to do deals and partnerships, he ...
For several years now, Google has disabled its link command via web search. Actually, what it's done is worse, providing mis and dis-information, causing thousands of search marketing professionals to receive questions every day on why "Google only knows about 10 of my links." However, I was thrilled today to find that their link search works flawlessly in their ...
With Mrs. Cutts out of town, Matt's blogging like... like a... well, like an SEOmozzer. I don't want to take up too much of Matt's very precious time, but I do have some questions I'd love to get answered so, since Matt couldn't make it to Chicago to be on any any panels, let's see if he's willing (or able) to run through some multiple cho...
Ever since I first saw Matt Cutts, Google's head of search quality, "investigating" sites through his super-secret application (during an SES conference in NYC); calling out spammers and identifying crawl and ranking issues for curious site owners, I've wondered about the content of his tool collection. What secrets can Googlers pull up on comma...
In addition to the brilliant editing of the WebProNews team, this video actually has a lot of great content from Vanessa - she tackles questions in a straightforward manner that you can't help but appreciate. Thanks, Vanessa. ...
A few months ago, I was out of my office for an appointment with a client in downtown Montreal. Since I knew (well, I thought I knew!) how Google Adwords IP geotargeting system worked, I wanted to give him a demo with a concrete example. I used, as my example, my own firm's Adwords campaign, which had the keyword “conception web” (translation: “web design”) geotarge...