Search engines - how do they work?

Google uses an array of 'bots', also known as 'spiders' or 'crawlers', that trawl the web looking for new website content. Bing (formerly MSN) and Yahoo!, the other two in the 'Big Three', have their own versions of spiders.

Assuming your site has been built to be search engine friendly, the spider will be able to search your website to gather the information it needs to categorise your content in the right place in its search engine database.

From a marketing perspective unless your site appears in the top 30 listings of the major search engines and directories, you will be unlikely to get much worthwhile traffíc. Therefore, search engine positioning is vital to your success on the web.