The calculations made by search engine software that determine how a website is ranked within a search result list. Each search engine will use a different set of algorithms (which are closely guarded secrets) and factors such as a website's title, body copy, meta-tags and link popularity may be important in achieving a high search engine ranking.

Google's famous ranking algorithm is perhaps the most highly-guarded secret on the internet. The entire business of Search Engine Optimization is built around catering to this algorithm in order to achieve high rankings for client websites. Were these algorithms suddenly to be revealed every Search Engine Optimization firm in the world would know exactly what to do with their pages to achieve rankings - and the result would be a new generation of spammers scrambling to make it to the top.

That said, Google does drop plenty of hints on how webmasters can get their pages highly ranked. For starters, the biggest booster for rankings is inbound links. You get these by keeping your pages stocked with good, fresh content that your users will appreciate.