about Simplicity

Simplicity is a small creative marketing & web design company. The concept behind Simplicity is to provide hands-on, practical and creative marketing support for your business to get you up and running; give you a competitive edge, and let you concentrate on your business.

To find out more about us, please click here; or call us to discuss how we can help.

simplify, edition #12

You've been spidered. How do search engines actually work?

Did you know that 80% of traffic to most websites comes from search engines? You may have heard the terms “spiders”, “crawlers” or “robots”… but what do these little crawly spiders do? What is a search engine? How do search engines work?

The search engine. According to Wikipedia, "a search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. Information may consist of web pages, images and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in newsgroups, databases, or open directories. Unlike Web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic and human input."

Crawlers, spiders, bots. Search engines (such as Google or Yahoo) use automated software programs known as those little crawly 'spiders' or 'bots' to crawl the web and build their databases - which is similar to a 'memory bank'. Imagine little ants who crawl the web constantly looking for 'food' (food being your website content). Once they find food, they will carry their goodies back to their home where this is stored (memory bank). These little 'crawlers' are constantly hungry and keep 'crawling the web'.

Getting 'spidered'. Basically, a search engine spider is an automated program that reads web pages, grabs the content ('food') and follows any links to other pages within the site. This is often referred to as a site being "spidered" or "crawled". Data collected from a web page is then added to the so called search engine index ('memory bank') which contains a copy of every web page and file that the spider finds ('food'). As per figures released by Google, the size of these indexes is approx 8 billion pages. The spider returns to the sites in its index on a regular basis, scanning for any changes and updates. How often the spider returns is up to the search engines to decide.

'In order of importance'. When you enter a query at a search engine site, your input is checked against the search engine's index. The search engine then ranks your search results in an order that it believes is most relevant. Now you might wonder how a search engine decides on the importance and relevancy of your search results. Each search engine has developed a set of rules and mathematical equations, known as an 'algorithm', which it uses to set the order of its rankings. Exactly how a particular search engine's algorithm works is a closely-kept secret, but some general rules are clear that are often used to increase a website's ranking performance. This is referred to as search engine optimisation (SEO). We shall address this topic in another edition of our simplify series.

It sometimes takes a while for new pages or changes that the spider finds to be added to its index. Thus, a web page may have been "spidered" but not yet "indexed." Until a page is indexed, spidered pages will not be available to those searching with the search engine.

Which is the most popular search engine in the UK? There are loads of different search engines out there. However, no surprise here, Google continued its dominance in the number one position of the top 10 search sites in the UK, with just over 74% share, according to comScore. The term 'I'll google it' is almost every day language when one refers to searching for something on the Internet.

Have you ever wondered what people search for on Google? In the UK, “I HATE Ronaldo” was one of the most popular phrases searched for on Google in 2007, it has been revealed. Second place was “I hate men”, followed by “I hate school”. The word keyed in most often was “ebay”. “Beer” was 'googled' most in Cambridge, “Xmas” in Edinburgh and “Police” in Swindon. Social networking sites MySpace, Facebook and Bebo were the fastest rising searches of the year.

Do you sometimes feel like you're looking for the needle in the haystack? In our next edition of simplify we will give you some useful tips on how you can better find what you are looking for on the Internet, so stay tuned...

The bigger picture. Be found on the Internet, communicate your message, stimulate interest, turn your website visitors into prospects and customers. Even the smallest company can look just as big and professional on the Internet as any large corporate. Simplicity can help create THE most active part of your marketing activities. Every website we design is bespoke and unique based on your specific requirements and brand personality. To learn more about Simplicity: View our services; or simply contact us to discuss how we can help with the design or re-design of your website.

Who? Simplicity is a small web design and creative marketing company. For whom? We specialise in working with small, medium and start-up businesses. Why? Small feet, big shoes; just because you’re a small business does not mean you don’t need to get your message out there in a big way. What’s it all about? We help make your marketing and design matter, be known, be heard, be found; and make the pieces fit. It's not just about your products and sevices, it's about the whole experience. What’s the difference? Personal. We strongly believe in the personal approach to doing business. Creative. We fuse strategy & creativity into one compelling voice. No fuzz. We are practical & hands-on; passionate about what we do; and practice what we preach. Focus. We specialise in working with small companies and start-ups. Ideas. Ideas are the currency of our business. Ideas can have the power to change minds, transform brands and even make a difference to the bottom line. How much? Because we’re a small company without the high set-up costs of larger marketing firms and the fancy London postcode, we don’t charge London rates and are able to pass on some cost savings to our clients. What’s in the mix? [The Roadmap] Marketing Planning & Strategy: Get your marketing up and running. [Image Works] Branding & Brand Identity: Define who you are, what you can see, touch, feel, hear and watch. [A Box Of Chocolates] Demand Generation & Integrated Marketing Campaigns: Integrated marketing in harmony & style. The ideal blend of marketing initiatives. [The Bigger Picture] Website Design: Every website tells a story. Let your website do the work for you. [A Refreshing Change] Website Re-Design: Give your website an inspiring facelift. [The Perfect Pitch] Collateral Design: You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. What is the concept? Simplexity. The concept behind Simplicity is to simplify complex matters and make the pieces fit. Simplicity, where ideas come to life.

special feature - small business start-up kits

Kick-start your business by selecting one of our small business starter packages ranging from S, M, L and XL in size... Find out more, click here.