How does HotBot rank URLs in the search results?

The rank represents HotBot's confidence in the match. A high rank is given to the pages that most likely contain the data you are looking for. A low ranking page contains the search terms, but HotBot has determined that it does probably not include the information you need.

Each document which matches the requirements of a search is assigned a rank. HotBot considers a number of factors when ranking.

Some of the most basic factors affecting query result ranking include:

Word frequency in document
In general, the more often a query word occurs in the document, the higher the rank. However, the obscurity of the word also has impact. Common words like "the" contribute less to the rank than rare and discriminating words like "tiki".

Search words in title
Pages that use your search terms in the title will be ranked significantly higher than documents that contain the search term in the text only.

Search words in keywords
Pages that use your search terms in the "keywords" tag, will be weighted more highly than text words, but less highly than title words.

Document length
When the search words appear frequently in a short document, the page will be ranked higher than when the words appear in a long document.