How does one become the first choice in a web search?

Question

My question is who determines the first or second choices in a search when I click on search?

Answer 1

Google, Yahoo and the other search engines have proprietary ways to determine who ends up at the top of the list. Also, those few special ones at the very top pay for the service. For websites, part of the process is to submit a sitemap of a website to Google and Yahoo and ask them to start sending their robots to the site.  The site is rated based on what it contains and if the site actually contains good information. For people, it is possible to find references to an individual from school and organization reports and any publications.  If your name is rather unusual it might be possible to find yourself very quickly. If it is a common name it might be very hard to find yourself listed.