Search engines that are populated by spiders or by submissions result in large databases that Web surfers query to find Web sites. When you visit Lycos, Yahoo!, AltaVista or another search engine and type in a keyword, you're actually performing a database query.

To determine which document or Web site to return for a particular keyword search, each search engine must have its own method of ranking documents, the Web sites, within its directory. Most use a "probable relevance" scoring method.

How Search Engines Rank Web Pages:

Important Note: From time to time, search engines change their scoring systems and stop rewarding certain techniques that gave you an advantage just days before.