Websites not listed in the first pages of a search typically don’t get found, particularly if the competing websites that are on the first page are relevant to the searcher’s needs.
Search engine optimizers are those who work with businesses to improve their ranks in search engine listings.
White Hat SEO refers to methods used which are acceptable to search engines, including content building and improving website quality to improve a website’s rank.
Black Hat SEO refers to manipulation “tricks” called cloaking and spamdexing to improve a website’s search engine rank.
There are a variety of ways to improve a website’s rank including pay-per-click advertising, paid inclusion listings, and organic search results. Search engine optimization focuses on improving organic results, by adding relevant keywords to the website.
The factors that search engines poll to determine page rankings used to be common knowledge until they were taken advantage of for the purpose of ranking manipulation. Now search engines do their best to keep their method and algorithms secret.
Search engine optimizers do their best educated guessing to determine what will improve a website’s ranking. Some of these speculative assumptions include:
Age of site
Length of time the domain name has been registered
Age of content
Frequency of content updates
Amount of text
Age of links and respectability of the linking site