Search Engines

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.

Most Recent Articles on Search Engines

Local Pack Header Specificity Vanishes while Local Packs Downtrend
Miriam Ellis

Local Pack Header Specificity Vanishes while Local Packs Downtrend

Local SEO | Search Engines

In July of this year, Moz published a report analyzing an element of Google’s local results we termed “local pack headers”. About a month after publication, members of the local SEO community began noticing that the extraordinary diversity of headings we had captured had suddenly diminished. Today, Miriam presents a quick follow-up to the manual portion of our earlier study in an effort to quantify and illustrate this abrupt alteration.

A Different Way of Thinking About Core Updates
Tom Capper

A Different Way of Thinking About Core Updates

Search Engines | SEO Analytics | Algorithm Updates

Google algorithm updates seem to come in two main flavors. There are very specific updates, like the Page Experience Update, which tend to be announced well in advance, provide detailed information on how the ranking factor will work, and eventually arrive as a slight anti-climax. This post is about the other flavor: the updates announced when they're happening or have already happened with vague guidance. The kind that can have cataclysmic results for affected sites.

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How to Know When You Need a Dedicated Paid Landing Page
Travis McKnight

How to Know When You Need a Dedicated Paid Landing Page

Paid Search Marketing (PPC) | Search Engines

Creating custom, campaign-specific landing pages is resource-intensive, and not every team has the necessary tools, expertise, or personnel to build the content. So, how do you know if you need a custom page, or if you can safely send paid traffic to an organic page and still achieve your KPIs? This three-step, data-driven evaluation helps answer this question.