How search engines work (plese look inside)?

Question

A few questions.

1. How do seach engines find things about what a website is about besides useing the <meta> tag?

2. How can you get the top result on a search engine if your basic thing is put in. (Ex. Landmark Missionary Baptist Church, right now the (just about) only way to find out site it to type in a nearby location)

3. Is the only way that search engines find things are by robots and by people submitting URLs?

4. How does your URL affect the search results?

5. How much does it cost to pay search engines to be the first results?

6. Is there a simple way to submit your sire to a whole bunch of search engines at once?

7. Is there any other ways besides the <meta> tag to add tags to your result?

If you want to add more, feel free!

When you answer, please add the number of which you are ansewring.

Thanks, the best answer will get 11 points! (not 10)!!!!!

Answer 1

These questions could consume the length of a large book (I suggest looking for one on amazon) - but I will give you some condensed answers anyway :)

1. How do seach engines find things about what a website is about besides useing the &lt;meta&gt; tag?

Search engines read all text on your page.  The domain name, title, header tags are also important.  Search engines also look at the links pointing to your page and the anchor text of those links.  

2. How can you get the top result on a search engine if your basic thing is put in. (Ex. Landmark Missionary Baptist Church, right now the (just about) only way to find out site it to type in a nearby location)

This is very lengthy to answer.  I would recommend making sure you have submitted your sitemaps to search engines, have a good code without errors, include your keywords on your page, and have other websites link to your site with the keywords you want to place for.  

3. Is the only way that search engines find things are by robots and by people submitting URLs?

Pretty much, as far as I know...

4. How does your URL affect the search results?

A lot, look up any search and usually the first placing results have the keyword in the URL.

5. How much does it cost to pay search engines to be the first results?

If you want to be a &quot;sponsored&quot; result it is often done by bidding, so it depends on how competitive your market is.  I know companies that pay $20,000+ per month to hold the top placement.   You cannot pay for organic/natural search results.

6. Is there a simple way to submit your sire to a whole bunch of search engines at once?

7. Is there any other ways besides the &lt;meta&gt; tag to add tags to your result?

I am not really sure what you are asking, but the robots generally read all of the text on your page, not just what is in the meta tags.  (actually it seems these days meta tags are becoming slightly insignificant)