A “spider” is a robot that search engines use to collect information about websites: What kind of information is on your site? What websites are you linked to? and What sites are linking to you?

Once the spiders have gathered this information, it’s sorted, ranked, and stored, so the next time someone is looking for “widgets,” they may find your site amongst the top listings.

While you can submit your site to a search engine to be indexed and ranked, it’s not really necessary because their spiders will eventually find you on their own – remember, it’s a “web” that everything is linked in one way or another.

Sometimes submitting your site to a search engine speeds up your appearance in their results, but most times, they’re so inundated that it takes however long it’s going to take. Sounds a bit like a snobby maître d’ in a popular restaurant – and it pretty much is. While there are things you can do to improve search engine placement, in the end, it lies with each individual engine to determine your ranking for a specific set of keywords.