Search engine ranking refers to where a page falls in the results returned by a SE for a given keyword phrase. Search engines use a scoring algorithm to rate results based on how often and where a keyword appears on a page. For example, if a keyword appears in the title tags it will rate higher then if the same keyword appears in the header tags which will rate higher then in normal body text. If the keyword appears in all three it will generally be rated higher then if it appeared in each one.

All search engines use a different algorithm for scoring. Often other factors are important in addition to the occurrence of keywords in the text.

Examples of other considerations are:

• Link popularity
  How many sites are linking to your site
• Number of pages
  The total pages of your site may boost ranking
• Name of page or domain name
  If the searched keywords appear in the page name or domain

Ranking tips

• The first step to quality rankings is to provide quality content.

Further Reading