Most search engines use the location and frequency of keywords on a web page as the basis of ranking it in response to a query.
The exact mechanism is slightly different for each engine. In addition to location and frequency, some engines may give a page a relevancy boost based on other factors. These usually can help a little, but they don't guarantee a boost to the top.
Some major factors are listed below.
Meta Tags Boost Ranking Some search engines that support the meta description and keywords tag will also give pages an extra boost if search terms appear in these areas. Not all search engines that support the tags also give a ranking boost.
Reviewed Status Boosts Rankings Some search engines also review sites or list them in an associated directory. They may also give a boost to sites that have been listed in this way.
Link Popularity Boosts Rankings As described above, all search engines can determine the popularity of a page by analyzing how many links there are to it from other pages. Some engines give pages with lots of links, or links from important web sites, a relevancy boost.
Direct Hit Boosts Rankings Direct Hit is a system that measures what users click on from search results in order to refine relevancy rankings. This shows which search engines use this as a factor.
All major search engines penalize sites that attempt to "spam" the engines in order to improve their position. One common technique is "stacking" or "stuffing" words on a page. This is where a word is repeated many times in a row. If the search engines spot a spamming technique, they may downgrade a page's ranking or exclude it from listings altogether.
The items below cover design elements that could cause a spam penalty.
Meta Refresh Some site owners create target pages that automatically take visitors to different pages within a web site. See the What Is A Bridge Page article for more information about this. The meta refresh tag is one typical way of doing this.
Some search engines will refuse to index a page with a high meta refresh rate. Go will not index pages with any redirection, whatsoever. Google doesn't worry much about meta refresh tags or the items below because its link popularity ranking system pretty much defeats spam attempts.
Invisible Text This is the technique of placing text on a page in the same color as the background, making it invisible to human viewers. Many search engines either refuse to index this text or will not index any page containing invisible text.
Tiny Text This is the technique of placing text on a page in a small font size. Pages that are predominantly heavy in tiny text may be dismissed as spam. Or, the tiny text may not be indexed. As a general guideline, try to avoid pages where the font size is predominantly smaller than normal.
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