Most Search Engines have what is called a spider. This is a program robot that is continuously running through the internet, looking for new websites, and new links on websites. These spiders pick up any URL (Uniform Resource Locator or your website address in layman's terms) that is visible on the net. It then checks your site for keywords and ranks it according to relevancy.

For example, if your website is about speed boats, and your keywords say "adventures", the search engine would rank your website very low down on listings. But if your website is about speed boats and your keywords are "speed boats, speeding boats, boats that speed", the search engine spider will rank your site higher. Of course this is a simplified view of the complex workings of modern search engines.

Then there is the important factor of keywords in your text. If you use these keywords in the text on your site, the search engine will see that the site really is about speed boats and will move it up even more.

Search Engines don't always look at keywords. Some search engines look at descriptions of your site for keywords. Others don't look at any of these, but take the title of your website.

Google has a indexing algorithm where it searches for website popularity. This is where it searches how many websites link to your site, and if you link back to them. If you do, chances are 100% that your website will be ranked high up.

Here is a list of the major search engines:

South African Search Engines: