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About Search Engines - Part 2 Part 2 - The Basics Before you can position your site to do well in the search engines, you need to understand search engine fundamentals. A search engine is a giant database that lists sites on the Internet. You access the database when you enter keyword searches and receive a list of relevant sites. Search sites are the Internet's Yellow Pages Think of a search engine as a giant, automated version of the yellow pages. If you need information on "party planning" from the yellow pages, there are several steps to retrieving it. Go to the yellow pages and look under the alphabetized subject list for "party." Note the subcategories: "party planning" "party - children's", "party - rental equipment", and so on. Examine the companies listed under "party - planning" and decide which company best meets your needs. You can repeat this process online using a search engine. Search Engines Versus Search Directories. People use both search engines and directories without ever realizing there is a difference between the two. Directories (Yahoo, LookSmart, Snap) have human editors who review web pages, rank them, and then organize them into categorized lists with brief descriptions. The categories and descriptions are based on submissions, but are editied by professional editors (real people in the loop reviewing the sites being submitted). Search Engines (AltaVista, Excite, Google) have automated programs called spiders that index sites and score pages based on proprietary guidelines. There is no human judgement involved. Search engines index all the information on all the Web pages they find. The indexes are generated automatically, based on the words and phrases that are found on Web pages. What is a Search Engine? Search engines send automated computer programs (called robots or spiders) to crawl the Internet in search of Web pages. Basically these spiders follow links to travel from URL to URL. When they visit your Web site, the robot indexes (or records) the text of your page or pages (if it is a deep crawling spider) and stores it in the search engine's index. Later, when a user enters a search query at the search engine's Web site, the search engine scans Web pages in its index for pages that provide the best match. In theory, the search engine spider is supposed to be able to find all the sites on the Internet. However, since new sites are being added daily, it's risky to assume that the spider will find you. Expedite the process by submitting your URL to the search engines. What is a Directory? Unlike the automated search engine process, each entry in a directory is first reviewed by a human being. You submit a short description to the directory for your entire site, or editors write one for sites they review. A keyword search will only look for matches in these descriptions, so be careful how you describe your site. Techniques to receive a high search engine rating will not work with a directory. While good content is necessary for search engines, both good content AND visual appeal are mandatory in human-edited directories. Remember, manual review takes time! The typical time lag between submission of a site and its actual listing in Yahoo is five months. You can speed up the process at some directories, but expect to pay for that service. This trend will probably continue. Yahoo!'s Business Express Program, offers express guaranteed consideration of your commercial Web site within seven (7) business days. Looksmart has recently moved to an exclusive pay for listing scheme - all new submissions must pay to have their site reviewed. When you submit to a directory, do it by hand and take your time. You need to impress human reviewers with you site so high-quality content and design are critical to your success. Search Engine and Directory Hierarchy There are literally thousands of search engines on the Internet, but naturally you're most concerned about your ranking on the high-traffic sites. Some of the smaller search engines may not bring you a lot of traffic, but your listing gives you another source of links (which can help in your overall link popularity building). If you can do well on the sites listed below, you will probably do well on others too. Top Search Engines AltaVista Excite InfoSeek- Go Lycos HotBot WebCrawler Northern Light Top Search Directories Yahoo - The biggest search site of all. Do well here. LookSmart Snap AOL   « previous page   next page »