SEO Basics: How Search Engines Really Work (and How to Make Them Work for You)
Billions of searches happen on Google every day. But how exactly do search engines decide which websites show up first and how can you make sure your business is one of them?
At In-House Brand Lab, we believe that understanding how search engines work is the first step toward mastering SEO. Here’s a clear, practical breakdown.
The 3 Core Functions of Every Search Engine
Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo all work through a similar process:
Crawling – Finding new pages and content online.
Indexing – Storing and organizing that content.
Ranking – Deciding which content appears first for a search.
Let’s go deeper into each stage—and what it means for your SEO strategy.
1. Crawling: How Search Engines Discover Your Content
Search engines use automated bots (often called crawlers or spiders) to explore the internet, visiting web pages and following links to find new content.
The most famous crawler is Googlebot, but other search engines have their own—BingBot, DuckDuckBot, etc.
Why crawling matters for your business:
If crawlers can’t easily find your site, or specific pages, your content can’t rank.
Ways to improve crawling:
Create an XML sitemap so crawlers can see all your pages.
Use internal linking so your pages are connected logically.
Earn backlinks from other reputable websites (boosts discovery speed).
Avoid crawl blockers like broken navigation, redirect loops, or server errors.
Pro Tip: Popular, frequently updated websites get crawled more often. Posting fresh content regularly keeps crawlers coming back.
2. Indexing: How Search Engines Store Your Content
Once crawlers find your page, they store the information in the search engine’s index—a massive database of all the content available online.
From there, your page becomes eligible to appear in search results—but only if it’s optimized.
Best practices for better indexing:
Use descriptive title tags and meta descriptions with your target keywords.
Add alt text to images so search engines know what they contain.
Use clean, readable URLs (e.g.,
/how-search-engines-workinstead of/page?id=123).Avoid wasting crawl budget on low-value or private pages—block them with
robots.txtor meta tags.
3. Ranking: How Search Engines Decide Who Wins the Top Spots
Once your page is indexed, search engines use algorithms to determine where it appears in search results.
Ranking factors fall into two main categories:
On-Page SEO – Everything on your site: content quality, keyword usage, site speed, mobile-friendliness, and technical SEO.
Off-Page SEO – External signals like backlinks, brand mentions, and online reviews.
One of Google’s biggest ranking systems is RankBrain, which uses AI to weigh factors like:
Search intent (what the user really wants)
Location and personalization
Content quality and relevance
Engagement metrics (click-through rate, bounce rate)
Bottom line: Ranking is about proving your content is the most relevant, credible, and user-friendly answer to a search.
Crawl Budgets: Why They Matter
Google doesn’t crawl every page on every site equally, it assigns a crawl budget, which is the number of pages it will crawl within a certain time frame.
To maximize your crawl budget:
Keep your site fast and error-free.
Prioritize indexing important pages.
Avoid duplicate or outdated content.
Quick SEO Wins to Make Search Engines Work for You
Set up Google Search Console to monitor crawling and indexing.
Build quality backlinks to increase credibility and discovery speed.
Share content on social media to boost visibility.
Update old pages to keep them relevant.
The Takeaway
Search engines aren’t mysterious, they follow a logical process to discover, store, and rank content. The businesses that win are the ones that make this process as easy as possible for search engines.
At In-House Brand Lab, we use proven SEO strategies to:
Get your site crawled and indexed faster.
Improve your rankings for high-value keywords.
Build long-term visibility and credibility.