Search Engine
FAQ's
The
purpose of this document is to provide you with background
information on search engine technology and some tips
on how to get your web
site to appear on the result pages of search engines and
directories. We are by no means promising any miracles.
However, this information will help you better understand
search engines and directories and will hopefully serve
to put you in a better position.
What is a search engine?
How
do search engines differ from directories, announcement
sites, and guides on the Web?
General
Tips for Getting Listed in Search Engines
Indexing Characteristics Specific To Individual Search Engines
How
long does it take a Search Engine to list my site?
Why
should I submit inside pages of my site?
How
do I optimize my announcement with a directory?
How
do I get top search engine rankings and what should I expect
to pay to get them?
"Non-Netiquette"
Things
How
else can I promote my site?
Search engines
utilize indexing software agents often called robots or
spiders. These agents are programmed to constantly "crawl"
the Web in search of new or updated pages. They will essentially
go from URL to URL until they have visited every Web site
on the Internet.
When visiting
a Web site, an agent will record the full text of every
page (home and sub-pages) within the site. It will then
continue on to visit all external links. Following these
external links is how search engines are able to find your
site regardless of whether or not you register your URL
with them. Submitting your URL, however, does speed up the
process. It notifies an agent to visit and index your site
instead of waiting for it to eventually locate you through
one of your external links.
Robots will then
revisit your site periodically to refresh the recorded information.
The revisiting of links is the reason why some search engines
don't require you to inform them of dead links. Eventually,
their robot would try unsuccessfully to update the information
on a dead link and realize it no longer exists.
Finally, an easy
way to tell whether a Web index is a search engine as opposed
to another type of directory is by the information it requires
when adding your URL. A true search engine will only need
the Web address. The indexing agent takes care of the rest.
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How
do search engines differ from directories,
announcement sites, and guides on the Web?
Directories:
The main difference between a search engine and a general
directory is that a directory will not list your URL if
you do not register it with them. They do not make use of
indexing software agents and so have no way of knowing it's
out there. As a result, their registration form will be
considerably longer than just your URL. Directories are
usually subdivided into categories and you have to submit
your URL under the most appropriate heading.
Announcement
Site:
The explosion of sites being added daily to the Web has
created a need for announcement sites that track all of
the new sites that join the Internet. Announcement sites
are not only useful for Webmasters and marketers to kick-off
their online promotion campaign, but also for users to keep
current on what's happening with the WWW. Depending on the
announcement site, different Internet documents can be announced
-- new web pages, new articles as well as new resources.
The time period policy also differs from announcement site
to announcement site, but all "announcements"
are posted for a temporary period of time. Once removed
from the What's New section, most announcement sites archive
these pages so users can continue to access them.
Guides
& Cool Sites:
Guides are quickly becoming an important source for finding
interesting and useful sites on the Web. In general, Guides
review and rate only a small percentage of all sites submitted.
Therefore, make sure your site is "rate-worthy"
before posting. Most of the guides allow reviewed sites
to use their special icons as a sign of quality. Cool sites
usually select one new Web site every day. Getting selected
as a cool site will attract high traffic, but that traffic
will usually only be experienced for a temporary period
of time.
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General
Tips for Getting Listed in Search Engines:
Each
search engine looks at different elements of your page,
therefore we highly recommend implementing as many of these
Tips as possible.
1.
Use keywords in the <TITLE> of your document making
it as descriptive as possible. When visiting your site,
an agent will go first to the <TITLE> tag. For clarification
purposes, the <TITLE> tag is what a browser will
display in its title bar and is not simply the first line
of HTML that shows up on your page. (Although your first
words of introductory text should be descriptive as well).
Search engines will display the text located between the
<TITLE> tags when your web page is listed in a search.
By making your <TITLE> descriptive, you'll be better
off than those who only have keywords within the text
of their page. It will also be helpful when people bookmark
your web site. If a more descriptive name appears in a
person's hotlist, it will be easier to find your site
at a later date.
For example,
instead of using <TITLE> Suncorp </TITLE>
as the title of Suncorp's home page, <TITLE> Suncorp:
Tanning Supplier </TITLE> would be much more descriptive.
It would also place greater emphasis or relevancy on "Tanning
Supplier" when calculating keywords.
2. Descriptive
keywords in the actual text
of your web page.
You may already know that few people search the web by
using just one keyword. They soon learn that the results
they get are too broad. A common mistake some webmasters
make is that they rely only on a key phrase that is so
popular that they are competing with tens of thousands
of other sites. They are lost in the crowd.
What you really
would like to do is to find key phrases that are highly
used in searches, but are not used by your competitors!
Put those on your site, get them indexed, and you have
a chance of really increasing your traffic!
Do you know
that some of the most used keywords are "search,"
"find," "free," "where'"
"do," "I," etc? Many people actually
type "search for..." or "find..."
or "where do I...or "free"
TIPS:
a.
Visit your major competitors' sites, view their source
code, and see what key phrases and words they are using.
Most browsers will view the source code of a web page
by right clicking your mouse, and choosing something similar
to "view source" from the menu. You will get
some good ideas here.
b.
Include the "most used" words that are mentioned
above somehow on your site, but only use "free"
if it applies.
c.
Don't "spam" the search engine engines. Don't
use words that don't apply to your site. "MP3"
and "sex" are two of the most actively searched
words. Please don't use such words just to generate traffic.
You want targeted traffic - the other visitors will just
be upset with you and leave. Several of the search engines
and directories will catch you at this, and delete your
site from their databases.
d.
Don't over use a keyword or phrase on a page. Look at
the source code of some pages that are ranking high in
a search. Try to match their keyword "density"
and placement.
e.
Put your keywords at or near the top of the body section
of your page. Some search engines don't read the whole
page.
f.
Keep trying! After your pages have been submitted and
indexed, do searches and see how you rank. If you are
not happy with your results modify your keyword tags and
page content and re-submit. With persistence, you can
win!
3. Use
<META> tags which allow you to provide
even more detail about your Web pages and thereby gain
greater control over how your pages are indexed. Not all
search engines make use of <META> tags, but adding
these tags to your pages will make them more accessible
to the search engines that do.
<META> tag codes are inserted within the <HEAD>---
--- <HEAD> tag. The basic syntax is:
<META
name="description" content="a health and
fitness center located in Atlanta">
This will control
what appears as the summary of your Web page and will
be displayed after the title of your document in the index
listing. The content of the description should clearly
convey what one can expect to find when linking to your
site.
<META
name="keywords" content="running, weight
control, nutrition, aerobics, cholesterol, Georgia">
This will allow
you to provide extra information about your page to the
search engines without it being visible to the reader.
While search engines do take these keywords into account
when indexing your page, they are still going to index
the entire contents of your page as many sites do not
include <META> tags. One way to maximize the usefulness
of keywords is to incorporate singular and plural cases
of words as well as active and passive verbs. For example,
diet, diets, and dieting will yield similar but somewhat
varying results in a search. Since you're able through
<META> tags, why not guarantee you come up on all
of them.
Do not, however,
excessively repeat keywords in a keyword <META>
tag as search engines may penalize you for this. At present,
InfoSeek and Lycos are two such examples and others may
adopt similar policies in the future. The penalty will
most likely be the spider disregarding the <META>
tag and extracting keywords from the content of your page-
as is usually the case. However, some Submit It! users
have reported being dropped from a search engine's database
and felt keyword repetition played a role in the removal
of their listing.
Who
should definitely make use of <META> tags?
-
Sites
using Netscape frames:
The main HTML file contains the <FRAMESET> tags,
but fails to provide robots with any real useful information
for selecting a Web site's abstract. Therefore you should
include a description summarizing the contents of the
frames on your page with <META> tags.
-
Sites
using Javascript at the top of their page:
If JavaScript code makes up the first several hundred
characters on your page, you should use <META>
tags to provide a description for your page. An indexing
agent's search logic is programmed to place more emphasis
on the text located at the top of your page than the
content it combs through towards the bottom.
4.
Use ALT tags especially
if your site contains multiple
photos or graphic-image maps at the top of your home page.
Some search engines will take into account the text within
an ALT tag when creating your site's description and keywords.
In addition, you will be greatly appreciated by all people
who visit your site with their Auto Load Images option
turned off or by those who prefer to use character browsers.
ALT tags are placed after an image file and generally
look like the following:
<img
src="/images/submits.gif" alt="Submit It!
: Web site marketing services and tools." >
5.
If your site utilizes frames,
you should be aware that search engines treat frames as
if they are links within your main page. As a result the
engines will review and index your main page and, at a
later date, return to index each individual frame just
as it will return to index all other internal links within
your web site. Therefore, in order to have your main page
(typically titled index.htm or default.htm) indexed accurately
and efficiently, we recommend that you add some descriptive
text between the <noframes> and </noframes>
tags of the HTML source coding of your main page. The
noframes tags are usually placed below your frame set
information. The frame set information is designated by
<frameset> and </frameset>. This text should
include your most important keywords and keyword phrases.
Adding this text will provide the search engines with
content from which to derive keywords for indexing. After
this change has been made to your Web site, the page itself
will appear exactly the same to anyone using a browser
that supports frames. However, users of browsers that
do not support frames (i.e. Netscape 1.0 or lower) will
now be able to successfully view your home page.
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Indexing
Characteristics Specific
To Individual Search Engines:
Excite
At the present time, Excite does not make use of tags. Since
keywords and summaries are automatically generated by Excite,
you have less control over their creation. However, there
are still a few things you can do. Excite's software looks
for common words or themes within a page. It then selects
sentences for the summary that either contain these words
or convey the overall theme. The words within these sentences
are also used as keywords for which the site can be searched.
-
Especially
at the beginning of your page, be as concise as possible
and limit non-descriptive sentences. If the Excite robot
comes across a number of ambiguous phrases, it will
have to look deeper and deeper into your site to determine
its theme and site summary. Along the same line, too
little text will also force the robot to travel further
into the site for more information in order to establish
a theme.
-
Excite's
indexing software places preference on complete, punctuated
sentences. If you have content, such as a quote, at
the top of your page that you do not want Excite to
include in your site summary, do not display it as a
complete sentence. This will lessen the chance that
the quote will be included, but will not guarantee its
exclusion.
HotBot
/ Inktomi
-
HotBot supports
both the keywords and description <META> tags.
-
If you strongly
believe that your site was not ranked as high as you
thought it deserved in a search query, HotBot allows
you to send them an email to bugs@hotbot.com. Be sure
to include the URL of the search page.
InfoSeek
-
InfoSeek
supports both the keywords and description <META>
tags. Your description can include up to 200 characters
of text and the keywords can include up to 1000 characters
of text. Do not repeat versions of a keyword more than
seven times. If you do, InfoSeek will disregard the
entire keyword list.
-
If you do
not make use of the description <META> tag, InfoSeek's
agent will simply insert the first 200 characters after
the <BODY> tag as the web page description. Hence,
if your Web document does not contain <META> tags,
at least try to make your first 200 words accurately
describe your Web site.
-
InfoSeek
also indexes the ALT attribute in the <IMG> tag.
If the majority of your home page consists of graphics,
you can describe your page with the ALT attribute.
The syntax for
an <IMG> tag code is:
<IMG SRC="/images/clinton.gif" ALT="picture
of President Clinton">
InfoSeek
Ultra
InfoSeek Ultra will make use of <META> tags allowing
you to control the description that appears in a search
result as well as guide its web indexing in the selection
of your site's keywords. If you do not make use of <META>
tags, Ultra will simply use the first few words it comes
across as your Web site summary.
Lycos
Lycos creates Web site titles and descriptions from the
text of your Web page. Lycos' search agent selects a portion
of the site that well represents its theme. It then displays
this section as the site's description.
The keywords are
also chosen via artificial intelligence by Lycos' spider.
With this in mind, do not open your page with an image map.
If you do, Lycos will not be able to take an abstract for
your document.
WebCrawler
WebCrawler relies on the statement within the <TITLE>
tag to use for the name of your page. While other search
engines will derive a summary from the <BODY> text
of the document, Web Crawler will default to the URL if
you fail to include a title. In conclusion, do not make
it your goal to appear in the top ten list of every search
engine. This would not only be a very difficult task, but
would most likely end in disappointment. You are virtually
guaranteed to have varying success rates with different
search engines due to the collection of variables that play
a role in every search result. These variables include size
of database, method used for determining relevancy, policy
on spamming, use of <META> tags and more. Hence, optimize
your listings by capitalizing on the indexing criteria shared
by search engines. If you have a favorite or preferred search
engine that you feel strongly about being yielded as high
as possible in a search, customize your Web pages accordingly.
Just keep in mind that this might lessen your perceived
relevancy on another.
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How
long does it take a Search Engine to list my site?
Many of
the search engines take time to list a site. The approximate
time it may take a search engine to list your site is:
Altavista |
1
to 2 weeks |
Excite |
2
to 3 weeks |
Google
/ Yahoo! Web Pages |
1
to 3 weeks |
HotBox
/ Inkto / AOL / GoTo / MSN |
1
to 2 weeks |
InfoSeek
/ Go Network |
6
weeks |
Lycos |
2
to 4 weeks |
Northern
Light |
2
to 3 weeks |
WebCrawler |
3
to 6 months |
Yahoo |
8
to 12 weeks |
If after the time listed in the chart above has elapsed and
you are still not finding your site listed, you should re-submit
your URL to the search engines that do not have your listing.
It often takes more than one submission to get the best results.
Search engines receive
tens of thousands of submissions every day. On days when the
submission level is above normal, a certain number of submissions
can be received properly but still not get listed. If your
listing is not appearing on a certain search engine, you should
resubmit it.
For the FAQ pages
of individual search engines, please see the following links:
Altavista
Excite
HotBot
Infoseek
Lycos
Webcrawler
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Why
should I submit inside pages of my site?
When
considering how many pages of your site to promote, it is
important to remember directories generally accept one listing
per company. This is usually your home or main page. Search
engines index multiple
pages within a site, but you cannot control which pages
they will index unless you submit the individual URLs (pages).
The critical
pages to submit are your major topic pages, pages with unique
content, or pages that describe a specific product or service.
For example, a sports store will have separate pages on
basketball, baseball and football which should all be submitted.
Another benefit to submitting multiple pages in this example
is that the basketball page will appear higher in a search
for "basketball" than the sports site home page.
These pages should also include descriptive title tags and
meta tags. In order for site visitors to easily navigate
your site, these major topic pages should provide clear
links to other topic pages and your home page.
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How
do I optimize my registration with a directory?
Since directories
are hierarchical databases organized by subject, subject
category selection would logically be the most critical
aspect of linking your site to a directory. Give some thought
to which category(s) your URL should be placed as this location
will ensure the right people (those interested in your site)
will be visiting your link. URL registrations can quickly
become complex process when every directory contains a different
sub-categorization scheme.
There unfortunately
is no formula or exact method for correctly placing one's
site into a subject-oriented guide. However, here are a
few Tips:
-
Do not assume
a category (i.e. Entertainment) means the same thing
on every directory.
-
Take the
time to drill down within the directory until you come
to the subcategory most appropriate for your site. If
you find many organizations similar to your own listed,
you're probably in the right place.
-
Do not choose
a less fitting category because it's either alphabetically
desirable or doesn't contain many other links. If it
is not appropriate, there is no reason to believe anyone
clicking that category would be interested in visiting
your site.
-
If you cannot
find an appropriate category, do not hesitate to suggest
a new one. This advice even applies to Yahoo!! Do you
think the Yahoo! staff thought of all 22,000 headings
all by themselves?
Yahoo:
Since Yahoo! is well ... Yahoo!, it will be discussed separately
from the hundreds of other directories included in the Submit
It! Service. It actually is unique from all other directories
in that you could be listed on Yahoo! without having submitted
your URL. They make use of a robot that searches for new
sites at certain Internet locations (i.e. announcement sites,
etc.). Despite Yahoo!'s implementation of this search robot,
mostly all of their new additions still come via their "Add
URL" form.
Your Yahoo
Submission Made Easy
For Internet users,
Yahoo! is one of the more notoriously difficult submission
forms to successfully complete. In actuality, the Yahoo!
submission form is far from a mind-numbing experience. We
have outlined the necessary steps below. If you follow them,
it will not only simplify the process for you, but also
enable you to gain the greatest advantage possible through
your submission.
1. Find
your Yahoo category.
From Yahoo's home page, drill down and locate up to 2 Yahoo
categories that best describe your Web site. A good indicator
that you have found an appropriate sub-category is when
you scroll down and see sites already listed that are similar
to your own, or, even more so, find a direct competitor!
If after searching through a number of Yahoo categories,
you still are not sure where to place your site, try searching
by a keyword you would want your site to be found under.
Existing Yahoo categories will be displayed with the search
results.
Tip:
Yahoo requires commercial sites to be placed within a Business
and Economy subcategory - either under Companies or Products
and Services. Personal Home pages must go in the Entertainment/People
category. If your site is regionally specific, add it to
the appropriate subcategory under the Regional heading category.
Tip:
If suggesting more than one category, press the ADD URL
icon when on the category of your first choice. Then enter
the string of the second category into the Additional Categories
field. To avoid making a typo to a long string, copy the
URL located within the Address or Location field of your
browser. To do this, highlight the text after http://www.yahoo.com/
with your mousse. Right mousse click and release the mouse
over 'copy'.
For example:
Business_and_Economy/Companies/Music/ CDs__Records__and_Tapes/Online_Shopping/
2. Click
the Suggest A Site hyperlink at the bottom of the screen.
After finding the category you wish your site to be placed
within, click the Suggest A Site hyperlink at the bottom
of the screen. This will take you to the Yahoo submission
form with the Category fields already pre-filled.
3. Fill
out the ADD URL Form
Two particularly important fields are the Title and Description
fields. Yahoo does not allow you to suggest keywords in
their submission form. Instead, it will use both the Title
and Description fields to derive search words for your site.
Therefore, think carefully about what keywords you want
Yahoo to list you under and construct your Title and Description
fields around them. Do not, however, just submit keywords
separated by commas. Enter complete, coherent phrases/sentences.
Example of a poorly
constructed title:
Brian's Music Store
Example of an
optimized title:
Brian's Music Store, CD's for sale
Tip:
Your title should not exceed 50 characters (including spacing).
Example of a poorly
constructed Description:
Click to this page to listen to a wide variety of music
sure to fit your interest.
Example of an
optimized Description:
Pop, Rock, New Age and Alternative CD's. Many artists, your
favorite music, CD's on sale.
Tip:
Your description should not exceed 20 words or 200 characters
(including spacing).
Yahoo has employees
visit the URL of submissions to verify that the category
you selected is appropriate and that the title and description
are accurate. As a result, do not exaggerate what is located
on your site. In the end, your site will simply not get
listed.
4. Click
the Submit button.
Once you have completed the form, click the Submit button
to send your Web site information to Yahoo. If the form
has been filled out properly, Yahoo will display a screen
that thanks you for the submission. If there is an error
in the submission form, Yahoo will display a screen informing
you that the submission has failed and, depending on the
error, tells you why the submission failed. In the case
of a failure, press the Back key on your browser, make the
necessary changes and resubmit.
5. Check
your listing
Yahoo states that it should take two weeks for your site
to be listed. They recommend you do a search for your URL.
If your site is not listed, then resubmit your entry using
the Add URL function in Yahoo.
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How
do I get top search engine rankings and what should I expect
to pay to get them?
Most people have
limited knowledge when it comes to search engine ranking
and the various types of services on offer. We all know
that having top 10 positions on some of the leading engines
can bring all the traffic we can handle, and then some.
A simple way to approach this is to look at your competition.
Do a quick search on one of the leading engines like Google
or Alta Vista, using a search phrase that people might use
when looking for your products or services, and see what
comes back.
Based on your
search results use this as a 'rule of thumb' guide for evaluation
purposes -
Between 1 and
5000 results puts you in a "low competition" category.
Between 5001 and 25000 puts you in a "medium competition"
category.
Between 25001 and 250,000 puts you in a "high competition"
category.
Over 250,000 puts you in an "extreamely hight competition"
category.
Based on the above,
determine the competitiveness of your category, then start
to research the level of service necessary for your site.
Something that you must understand at this point is that
either you, or somebody you pay will have to submit your
site to all the leading engines and directories. There is
a plethora of so called "submission" services
around the internet, be very careful with these services
and understand fully what you are paying for. Many of them
use "hype" such as - "we submit your site
to 1000+ leading search engines" etc. This is extremely
misleading. There are only a handful of top select search
engines, the rest are usually topic specific directories.
Directories require
a manual submission process where you locate the most appropriate
category for your listing then enter your web address, email,
business info, phone, keywords and a site description. This
can only be done manually. These directories are extremely
important. Yahoo!, for example, searches it's directory
listings before turning to the "search engine"
for more results.
Once you have
determined the level of competition for top positions in
your business category, use the following as a basic guide:
-
Low to Medium
Competition - Locate a good submission service who will
give your home page a "tune-up" or "prep"
and then submit your site to all the leading engines
and directories. Expect to pay anywhere around $5 to
$25 dollars a month for search engine submission service
and about $25 to $65 for search engine and directory
submission services.
-
Medium to
High Competition - Try to locate a service that will
go beyond basic Meta Tag revisions. Very few search
engines pay much attention to what's in your Meta tags,
so look for someone who will make changes to the HTML
on your key content and page text to give them a boost.
At the lower price service levels, the changes will
be mostly hidden and will not change the outside appearance
of you site. These services are less predictable than
more expensive services, but in many cases can generate
some very good page rankings. Whoever you chose should
submit your site manually to all the to all the leading
engines and directories. Expect to pay around $55 to
$95 per month. Make sure that you are getting more than
revised Meta Tags at this price level.
-
Sites with
extremely high competition - You
will come across various approaches at the higher service
levels. Most common is to use what is commonly referred
to as "doorway" or "leader" pages.
These pages are designed to focus on a specific search
phrase, each targeting a specific search engine. These
pages "float" outside your site (they are
not part of the normal link navigation of your site)
and are meant to just grab searchers and pull them into
your site. It is not necessary to have to modify any
of your existing pages to add them.
A respectable web design service or some one educated
on the subject should be able to assist with the creation
of these pages. Please keep in mind that these pages
might need to go through a trial and error period to
increase its notoriety. Look for a service that adopts
the "theme" of your main site, and actually
adds valuable content to your site. Costs are widely
varying at this level of service. Some charge a basic
setup fee then charge you for "click-throughs".
Paying a fee each time someone visits your site is unpredictable
and can get very costly. Remember, you want targeted
marketing. It would be rather easy for a service to
trick people onto your site... but these people probably
won't be your customers and you will be paying for all
of the traffic.
Others charge setup fees then have a "pay on results"
system where you pay an agreed commission when one of
your pages reaches a top 10 or 20 position on a targeted
search engine. This approach is incentive driven and
provides you with a "maximum cost exposure"
at the start of the job. Others charge based on an hourly
rate and provide "best endeavors" to achieve
the rankings you require, without any guarantees.
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There
are several "tricky" things you can do to try
to get your URL listed higher or more times on a search
engine results page. We are listing these alternatives,
but are in no way recommending them as these Web site promotion
methods may be viewed as "cheating" by some members
of the Internet community. In fact, some of the search engines
are starting to penalize people that use these tricks. The
reason why we list these tricks is to help you understand
why some sites always show up multiple
times or always at the top.
-
Placing mass
amounts of hidden keywords <!software manufacturer,
software manufacturer,...> at the bottom of your
document. Search engines calculate keywords by how many
times they appear on a page. It is important to be aware
that search engines may penalize you for excessively
repeating keywords. At present, InfoSeek and Lycos are
two examples and others may adopt similar policies in
the future.
-
Changing
your name to A1 Enterprises or !Rob's Restaurant in
order to appear at the top. Our suggestion is that you
pick something descriptive instead. You might appear
at the top by changing your name, but be skipped over
because the new one does not evoke a professional or
trustworthy company image.
-
Changing
your <TITLE> regularly so when robots revisit
your site to refresh their information, they will interpret
the new title to mean the existence of a new site. The
result being your page will be listed more than once
in a search.
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