Features - Keys to Search Engine Success
In this age of the Internet, the search engine still plays an extremely important role in directing
traffic to your website... that is, if you know how to get listed.
While search engines are fantastic portals to finding information on the Internet, they aren't quite
so fantastic when it comes to indexing web sites. Many still use META tags for keyword and description help in indexing
sites but lately, many have switched over to a number of different ways to serve up the best content for what you are
looking for. This is great for large sites with many links posted to them, but bad for small up and coming sites.
What Technologies are Being Used?
As was mentioned, many different services and technologies are being used in search engines today.
A few search engines are using a relatively new tool called DirectHit. This allows the search engine to return results
of sites with many links to them and can perform tasks as complex as also organizing the sites returned in a search by
how popular a listing is on that search engine.
Other searches such as the popular Yahoo! Search use the Inktomi engine for results. This engine
periodically indexes and re-indexes sites on the Internet so most results returned are accurate.
In addition to these two types of search engine helpers, the Open
Directory Project by Netscape is another common (free) service used by search
engines today. It is relatively easy to get listed in this great volunteer-edited index as long as you have solid content. This
project is getting so popular now that there are free CGI scripts out that will actually allow you to place this index on
your own site by going through the actual project so most results retrieved via the Open Directory Project are accurate and
have been checked by real people.
How Do I Get Listed?
Most portals like Yahoo! offer 'Add Your Link' or 'Add Your
Site' pages for you to submit a site so it can be added to that particular index. However, with the exception of places that
add your site within a couple days, these places can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months... or you may not get
listed at all.
You can try out services like WebPosition and 1st Place Ranking that submit your listing to many
search engines. While these work, the price can get fairly expensive so if you're on a tight budget, the key is to just submit,
wait to get listed, and if you're not listed, try again. After the second or third time, you should be guaranteed a spot in the
search engine indexes.
Related Links:
CGI Scripts
R Smith
The XRS Network
Saturday January 8, 2000
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