How search engines work

Search engines send automated computer programs (called robots or spiders) to "crawl" the Internet in search of Web pages. These programs, which "travel" from site to site, record the text on the different Web pages they visit and then store that information in their search engine's index.

When a user enters a search query at the search engine's Web site, the engine scans its index for the pages that are the best match and then displays the results to the user, with the sites the engine considers the closest matches at the top of the list.

In theory, the search engine programs should be able to find all the sites on the Internet. Because new sites are added every day, however, the search engines' indexes are not always up-to-date or complete. You can increase the chances that your site will be returned in response to a search by submitting your URL directly to the search engines.