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.
Google Instant: Fewer Changes to SEO than the Average Algo Update
Ugh... Part of me just wants to link to this old blog post and leave it at that. But, since there's actually a bit of data to share helping to show that (at least so far) Google Instant changes less than your average algorithmic rankings update, let's share. 880,0...
Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Google's Rankings are Remarkably Well Correlated
Last week at our annual mozinar, Ben Hendrickson gave a talk on a unique methodology for improving SEO. The reception was overwhelming - I've never been part of a professional event where thunderous applause broke out not once but multiple times during Ben's remarks. ...
Dear Google: Big Brands Aren't Enough
Google's recent brand update means that a large brand can completely dominate the top 10 with a single website. Is that what searchers really want?
6 Ways to Replace Yahoo's Link & Linkdomain Search Commands
Today, Yahoo! formally announced that it's fully transitioning its search engine backend to Microsoft's Bing. While this is good news on many fronts for marketers (simplification of advertising platforms, a bigger competitor for Google, etc), it's a big loss to webmasters wh...
10-Minute Missing Page Audit
Inspired my time on member Q&A, a step-by-step process to diagnose a missing page in 10 minutes. Can be applied to many indexation and ranking issues.Level Up Your SEO Skills With Our Free Training
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What is PageRank Good for Anyway? (Statistics Galore)
This is my first YOUmoz post, and I would greatly appreciate your feedback. I will be actively responding to comments, and I know that we will get a great discussion going. Please comment with any critique, questions, or random thoughts that you may have. If you would rather skip the statistics, feel free to jump ahead to the discussion section.
Matt Cutts Movie Marathon
In 2010, Matt Cutts has released over 70 Webmaster Help videos, I watched them all, so you don't have to (although you probably should).
How to Determine Your True Organic Google Ranking
For years there was never a reliable way to know for sure what kind of ranking you had overall in Google for any particular keyword due to all the data centers. For a few years now, Google's webmaster tools would display ranking data for your top 100 keywords in the Top Search Queries area. However, ...
The Science of Ranking Correlations: How Does PageRank Perform?
I've been an SEO for a long while - nearly 8 years. In all that time, I still haven't been able to wean myself off the intoxicating drug dealt out by the Google toolbar - that "little green fairy dust" called PageRank. Intellectually, I know its flawed in lots of ways, but so many people in our field (and in the broader webmaster/marketing community) still talk about...
An Illustrated Guide to Matt Cutts' Comments on Crawling & Indexation
Late last week, Eric Enge of Stone Temple (and a co-author of mine on The Art of SEO) published a fascinating interview with Google's head of Webspam, Matt Cutts. I think the whole of the S...