Search engine techniques are a set of methods that can be applied to databases and search engines to get more precise, focused results. Applying these techniques can save time and stress in the long run. They are also very easy to learn and master.

A search engine is a computer program that searches through huge web resources to find information that matches a user query. It identifies the keywords in the query and then scans the database for relevant content containing those words. The search engine then returns the best matching results to the user.

In order to find the best results, the search engine analyzes various factors, such as keyword density, the number of links to a page, and the popularity of the pages. It also examines the page content for signs of authority, credibility and trustworthiness. In addition, it looks at the page title and meta tag for clues to determine what topic it’s about.

The process of finding relevant pages begins with the search engine spidering, or crawling, a large number of websites in an effort to build up an index of pages on the World Wide Web. Once this is done, the index is stored in a database for use by users who submit search queries. When a user submits a search query, the search engine searches the database for pages that match the query and then presents those results to the user in the form of a list of web content in the form of websites, images and videos.

Many of the techniques used by search engines are proprietary and kept secret. This is due to both the need for the companies that own the search engines to remain competitive with one another, and the desire to prevent their algorithms from being manipulated by unscrupulous marketers. However, there are a number of common search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that can be applied to improve the results returned by the most popular engines.

One of the most important search engine techniques is focusing on the keywords that you want to target. By concentrating on these keywords and ensuring that they appear in your web copy, you can make sure that the search engines are able to identify the relevance of your content. In addition, it is useful to use truncation and wildcards in your searches. Truncation is the use of a symbol, often an asterisk (*), to search for different forms of the same word in one search. This is a good way to reduce the number of unrelated results that you have to wade through when looking for something specific. A common example is the search term “electric*” to find sites that include the word electric in any of its forms.