One of the great features of the World Wide Web is searching. We have all had experiences keying in a few words to find something and getting suprised by a discovery. These random results make the web an interesting place for playing around. But there is an underlying structure to the randomness.

Searching is done through a search engine. There are many companies that developed unique ways to search the web. Some of the best known are Google, Yahoo, and AOL. Even though there are just a few popular search engines there are many small ones. The differences in how each engine stores and retrieves information contribute to the randomness.

Each of the search engines looks for websites to add to its list. This is where the spiders and crawlers come in. These programs venture out into the web to look for new websites not yet catologued. One way is to follow the links within a website to other websites. When a new website is found, the description and keywords found on the website are used to catalogue the site.

Old websites, ones not updated for a while are skipped over. The crawlers check the date of last update. A key part of getting a better placement is giving a search engine a reason to re-catalogue your site. New information is one of the reasons. This is why setting a schedule for updating your website at least four times per year is so important.

At least once each year, as part of your regularly scheduled website updating, you should review your Description and Keywords. Change the information to match your business focus. If you have added new products or services or changed the emphasis of your business, your website should reflect that change.

Better web search placement is random, but you can improve your chances. Leave some crumbs for the spiders and crawlers. Give them something to take back.