How search engines arrive at results
There are 3 key factors for the search engines in determining which web pages to show in their results for a particular search:
1) The site has to be known to them - i.e. be in their index.
2) The site has to be considered to be relevant to the particular search phrase.
3) For ranking purposes, the sites are listed in order of relevance, with those the search engine considers to be most relevant at the top.
The first factor - being in the index - is fairly obvious, but is often overlooked, particularly by large sites. The next section describes how to ensure your site is indexable by the search engines.
Factors 2 & 3 are the crux of the matter for SEO, and will be covered in detail throughout this section of the manual.
