Learning Objectives

At the end of this lesson, students should be able to:

• Explain what a search engine is.
• Understand how search engines discover websites.
• Describe the crawling process.
• Explain how indexing works.
• Understand how search engines rank web pages.
• Identify the factors that influence Google rankings.
• Apply SEO best practices to improve website visibility.

Introduction

Every day, billions of people use search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Baidu to find information, products, services, and answers to their questions.

When you type a query such as:

• "Best digital marketing company in Cameroon"
• "Python programming course"
• "How to build a website"

Google searches through billions of web pages and returns the most relevant results in less than a second.

Have you ever wondered how Google knows which websites to show first?

The answer lies in three fundamental processes:

1. Crawling
2. Indexing
3. Ranking

These three stages form the foundation of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

What is a Search Engine?

A search engine is a software system that helps users find information on the internet.

It continuously discovers, organizes, and ranks web pages so users receive the most relevant search results.

Popular search engines include: