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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 higher on the result pages of search engines and directories. I am 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 than you currently are in now.
Google
makes heavy use of link popularity
as a primary way to rank web sites. This can be especially helpful in
finding good sites in response to general searches such as "cars" and
"travel," because users across the web have in essence voted for good
sites by linking to them. The system works so well that Google has gained
widespread praise for its high relevancy. Google also provides some
results to Yahoo and Netscape Search. Submit only your homepage URL.
It will automatically index the entire site.
Google
is arguably the best SE on the Net, and for good reason -- they are
*extremely* picky. Google is on record as saying they prefer to list
LARGE, CONTENT-RICH sites in their
database because these sites are most likely to effectively fulfill
a visitor's search. My experience certainly reinforces this policy.In
the grand scheme of things, 30 -- even 60 pages -- is a relatively small
number of pages to build. But it *IS* enough, in Google's opinion, to
indicate that you and your site are committed to providing something
of VALUE to Google's visitors.
Another
crucial aspect of getting pages listed in Google is your PAGE
RANK. Page Rank is Google's evaluation of the importance
of your site, based on their proprietary algorithm which tracks incoming
links. Sites with little or no Page Rank score will have a TOUGH time
making it into Google. Page Rank stats are reported on Google's Toolbar.
I recommend you install it, if you have not already done so. For more
information... http://toolbar.google.com/
Listing in Look smart
,Dmoz and Yahoo improves your ranking
Submit
to Google here
Secrets to submitting to Yahoo search engine:
If
you are selling something on the Internet, Yahoo is where you need a
listing. Yahoo is the most used search engine. To submit your page you
must be in the category that best fits
your subject matter.
When
listing your title with Yahoo!, do not exceed
40 characters in length. Keep things brief. If you put a
period in the title they will cut it off and use the part before the
period.
Your
pages should be of the highest quality and content.
Yahoo! has an actual person look over your page and look for quality
and content.
Don't
use a submission service for submitting to Yahoo! There are
too many specific things that Yahoo asks for. You want to do this on
your own so you know it is done correctly.
When
making a description of your site do not use more than 200
characters. Yahoo! uses an alphabetical listing format. It
is beneficial for you to start your title with a number or the letter
A if at all possible. Make sure that you don't look obvious in you title,
the Yahoo staff has seen it all.
Yahoo
uses Inkatomi as a secondary database for listing info that can not
be found in Yahoo. Submitting your site to any Inkatomi indexing engine
will assure you get into these listings.
http://help.yahoo.com/help/search/url/
http://howto.yahoo.com/chapters/10/1.html
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/9903-yahoo.html
Side Bar
As you may have
recently read, Yahoo has recently renewed its relationship with Google
and will continue to display Google search engine results at Yahoo.com.
As of October
10th, Yahoo directory results and Google web pages will no longer
be shown separately and will instead be combined to provide new Web
Matches. These Web Matches will be the combined results of both Yahoo
and Google indexes, but displayed using Yahoo's own algorithm. This
combined structure moves away from the previous arrangement whereby
Yahoo only displayed Google results when there were no Yahoo directory
results for a particular search query.
With the new Web
Matches, you will no longer see the Google logo appearing in the top
left of the screen and the only way you will be able to determine that
a result has been drawn from the Yahoo directory, as opposed to Google,
will be a link under the listing that reads "More sites about" and a
red arrow graphic. This link will allow Yahoo users to click through
to the Yahoo directory to view more websites within the same theme.
While the new search results will use a Yahoo algorithm, initial testing
has shown that this algorithm is very similar to Google's own, and in
some cases it can be very difficult to see a difference between the
order of Yahoo's results and those of Google.
Submit
Yahoo Here
Create pages with your key word or phrase in the title tag. Then use you key word or phrase in the description tag and also in the Meta keyword tag. Make sure that you use your key words and phrases as often as possible in the text on your page and as close to the top of the page as possible. Remember spiders do not see graphics so they do not count, only text does. Use alt image tags to introduce a few more occurrences of your key words but do not go over board with these.
MSN says it will only accept one page from a site and then ignore all the rest, we have found that if we submit one page and wait for it to be ranked, they will accept another page immediately after.
MSN Search displays LookSmart directory results *first* in response to search queries made on its site. So in order to come up for keyword searches here, you'll need to be listed in LookSmart. I'd opt for the cheaper $149 listing (a review of your site is guaranteed within 8 weeks)...
Next back-up is INKTOMI results. MSN displays these second (after the LookSmart listings). BUT... they are displayed FIRST when a visitor's search query doesn't return any results from the LookSmart directory (i.e., similar to Yahoo! and Google).
At the present time, you can still submit to Inktomi for free through HotBot...
However, if you really want to see results, you'll need to buy your way into the index. With the "free" route, I found that although I could get my home page listed without difficulty, nothing else seemed to stick in the index for any amount of time. And it's all those Keyword-Focused Content Pages that generate the traffic! So instead, I opted for the Inktomi paid inclusion program through PositionTech... http://www.positiontech.com/ .
For a one year Inktomi subscription (with guaranteed 48 hr. re-crawlings) the cost is $39 for the first URL, and $25 for URLs 2 --> 1,000. PositionTech is the best service I have tested -- their interface is simple and intuitive. They report the number of clicks each page receives (in addition to the 48 hour refreshes) so it's very easy to evaluate the performance of each page within the index. At any time you wish, you may switch a low-performing page for another with more potential from the same domain. I paid to have 8 pages from Ultimatefatburner.com included through PositionTech for a cost of $214 (1 x $39 + 7 x $25).
It usually take them 2-3 days to index and rank a page.
Submit to MSN here
Uses a combination of Open Directory Project http://dmoz.org. and Inktomi http://www.inktomi.com/ data.
AOL is what we at SiteSell call an "aggregator". Like MSN, AOL does not provide its *own* crawler-based results. Instead it simply displays a BLEND of Inktomi listings, Overture Pay-Per-Click listings, and directory listings from The Open Directory... in its own unique way (to make it LOOK like it's actually providing its own original results). The traffic I receive from AOL is a direct result of having pages listed in the Inktomi database through the paid service at PositionTech...
Duplicate sites, pages which refresh to another page and tiny text will lead to exclusion as will text coloured the same as the background to make it invisible.
It uses Inktomi search database. Inktomi gives prominence to keywords in the TITLE, DESCRIPTION and KEYWORD metatags of each page on the site. Repeat your keywords regularly throughout each page in combination with other related phrases. Aim for between 5 and 10% of the words on the page being keywords. Inktomi also reads comment tags but not image ALT tags.
Submit AOL here
Its main listings come from the Open Directory project, and then secondary results come from either Direct Hit or Lycos' own spider. Just follow their simple instructions and don't expect immediate results from your submission. Again, your best bet is to get indexed in the Open Directory project.
Lycos doesn't use Meta tags and ignores Comment tags.
Alt Tags are used by Lycos to rank a page.
Image maps are not recognized by Lycos so make sure you include other links for the spider to follow.
Lycos cannot analyze the content within your frames, but any text in body of the NOFRAMES Tag section will be indexed.
Link popularity plays a role in the ranking. Sites with more links pointed at them are be rated more relevant than sites without links pointing at them.
Lycos looks for keywords near the top and near the end of your documents. Make sure your keywords show up in the Title tag, the first paragraph, and the last paragraph. Consider having each paragraph have its own Heading tag with Keywords.
Lycos will not accept ANY punctuation. If your URL contains any non-alpha symbols such as $, ?, =, trouble will arise. Avoid special symbols in page names, although a dash "-" or underscore "_" should be OK.
Your home page (Example: www.yourhomepage.com) will often rank higher than your other pages (Example: www.yourhomepage.com./newinfo.htm) regardless of your keyword relevancy. Keep in mind that your home page has the best chance of achieving top ranking on Lycos, so spend most of your efforts there.
Add synonyms of your most important Keywords. Lycos considers synonyms of your Keywords and recognized plurals as synonyms. Consider including your targeted keyword's plural form as synonyms. It is very important that you have synonyms of your Keywords in your sentences and in your heading tags
Submit to Lycos here
The Open Directory is a volunteer-built guide to the web. It provides the main results to the important AOL Search service.
Given this, being listed with the Open Directory is very vital to any site owner. The good news is that submission is absolutely free.
To submit, locate the category you want to be listed in. Then use the "add URL" link that appears at the top of the category page. Fill out the form, and that's it -- you've submitted. If you are accepted, you should see your site appear within about three weeks. If this doesn't happen, then you should resubmit.
Submit to dmoz
AltaVista usually adds a page within a few days. It's best to submit only a few URLs per day to them, even though they appear to accept as many as you try to feed them. For whatever reason, they just don't seem to index them as quickly if you give them a lot at once.
Secrets to submitting to AltaVista search engine:
By placing a keyword at the beginning of the title will help increase relevancy. Alta Vista search engine spiders index tags so you should take advantage of placing a keyword in these tags.
Alta Vista is case sensitive meaning you should list your key words in lowercase and UPPERCASE letters.
Place many keywords in the body of your text to increase relevancy. The first 1000 characters of text should have a lot of keyword phrases, but avoid text that reads like you are Spamming.
Submit to Altavista here
In most cases, HotBot's first page of results comes from the Direct Hit search engine, and then secondary results come from the Inktomi search engine. It gets its directory information from the Open Directory. All you need to submit to Hotbot is your Home Page URL. They will examine and index the entire site. Your best bet to get indexed here is to get into Direct Hit.
Secrets to submitting to Hot Bot search engine:
Titles are most important followed by the Meta tag description and Keywords. Always put the meta tags into your page.
Saturate your text with keyword phrases that are in your meta tags, but don't read like your Spamming. This will increase relevancy.
HotBot does not index Alt image tags but does look at text between comment tags so you can use these to get in more keywords and text.
If you have a frames site make sure you use the "NOFRAMES " tag and put text in those tags letting the spider know what your site is about. HotBot does not spider frames and the only way for the spider to know what is in your site is the " NOFRAMES" tag.
Submit to Hotbot here
Excite claims it takes about two weeks to add a submitted URL to its index. Sometimes, but not always. You'll need to be very persistent with them. But take the time to do it, Excite is the primary search service for the new giant AOL/Netscape.
Secrets to submitting to Excite search engine:
Excite is now reading the Meta Description tag for use in the search listings only.
It will not use the description to determine relevancy.
Excite recognizes synonyms in your text so be sure to include these throughout your text for relevancy.
Excite does not recognize meta tag Keywords, but they do recognize comment tags
Submit to Excite here
It's worth the effort to try to get listed here. It's a speedy search engine, and its spider seems to be quite persistent. On the submit page, you can enter up to 10 URLs at once.
Secrets to submitting to WebCrawler search engine:
Title tags are most important in indexing a page. Use your most important keywords as part of your title.
Saturate the beginning of your body text with keyword phrases to increase relevancy.
WebCrawler spiders index tags so you should take advantage of placing a keyword in these tags.
April 17th 2001: WebCrawler.com has now merged with Excite.com so that the results of each engine are identical even though the look and feel of each site are different. Each engine now shares the same database, so submitting to Excite will also get you listed in WebCrawler with the same rankings.
Submit to Webcrawler here
Direct Hit is a company that works with other search engines to refine their results. It does this by monitoring what users click on from the results they see. Sites that get clicked on more than others rise higher in Direct Hit's rankings. Thus, the service dubs itself a "popularity engine". Follow their instructions and submit your site.
Listing in HotBot improves ranking
Submit to Direct Hit here
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