There are few technological marvels of the modern world quite as impressive as Google search. In a matter of less than two decades, the search engine has become capable of addressing practically any user query, spoken or typed, sometimes with instant answers or embedded results. Moreover, it’s the search tool of choice for billions of users around the world.
So how exactly does Google rank entries so efficiently? The sophistication of the programming involved here is staggering, but it boils down to a shockingly simple combination of two factors: authority and relevance.
Relevance
Relevance, as the name implies, is simply a measure of how appropriate a given entry is for a user’s query; in other words, how efficiently or accurately does this entry respond to the question? If you’re searching for mouse traps, a store that sells mouse traps might be a good fit; a night club probably wouldn’t.
Authority
Not all “relevant” sites are trustworthy or authoritative, so Google also uses a layer of authority evaluation to determine how to rank sites. Here, it primarily uses onsite content and offsite backlinks (links pointing back to your domain) to determine how valuable your brand and site are.
Where SEO Comes In
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a strategy designed to rank your site higher and more frequently in search results, and almost every tactic you can think of falls into either the “relevance” or “authority” category. For example, backlink building is a way to build authority, while keyword research and title optimization are ways to build relevance.
Granted, Google is far more complex than this article might have you believe. This is merely a way to simplify and summarize the broad-strokes vision of how Google operates. With that in mind, you can better understand the “hows” and “whys” of SEO.
