Master Search Engine Cheat Sheet
by Joelene Orlando The search engines are somewhat a challenge to
keep up with. They constantly merge, change partnerships,
vary greatly in submission methods and have unpredictable
pricing. It's no wonder that it actually takes
time to get to know each search engine and decide
which ones you will submit to manually and just
hope that your website will get listed in a reasonable
amount of time. Or even get you positive results
for submitting to those specific search engines.
This process is surely a never-ending process
that needs to be updated and verified every couple
of months. eMarketingAnswers has come to your
rescue and has devised a simple Master Search
Engine Cheat Sheet to make your research process
a whole lot easier!
Let's talk a little bit about Search Engines
in general for those of you new to the concept.
Search engines are operated by software programs,
which are the robots and spiders. The robots and
spiders automatically search the web for new,
changed, and outdated pages. Each specific search
engine is programmed with their own set of rules
and unique programming capabilities respectively.
When you submit your website to a search engine,
you are asking that search engine's robot and/or
spider to take a look at your site. Upon submitting
your site, some search engines will list your
site quickly and others take a bit longer, sometimes
up to over a month to index your site. Each search
engine has their own criteria in how they will
rank your site within their index system. For
example, some search engines will look at the
text content of your site, the HTML meta tags,
how many other sites 'link' to yours and how often
the people actually find your site within their
search of the results page. At this time, many
search engines do not read images, flash and sites
that require for you to log in. For most search
engines, to get a successful submission, make
sure you contain more text and content with HTML
to get the most benefit of the search engines
you submit to.
Search
Engine/
Subject Guide
|
Description |
Additional
Queries & Features |
| Yahoo
|
Good for browsing general
topics according to subject |
Own directory listings,
specific submission instructions; follow
them carefully, directory only |
| Google
|
The largest search engine
on the Web & the most popular |
Images, languages, linking
strategy important and spider feature,
search engine and directory |
| Alta
Vista |
One of the largest and
most comprehensive search engines available.
|
Searches the entire HTML
file, images, video, MP#/audio, languages,
both a search engine and directory |
| Lycos
|
Develops and provides
online guides to locate and filter information
on the Internet with specific personalization
capabilities |
Downloads/FTP, maps,
MP3, multimedia, results from own paid
inclusion program, spider programming,
not a search engine, but uses Inktomi
Search Engine |
| HotBot
|
Automatic system (e.g.
Web crawler) for indexing Web sites,
provides more updated sites than many
of the search engines |
Images, video, MP3, audio,
languages, division of Lycos, gets it.s
results from Google, Overture, AllTheWeb,
Inktomi |
| AllTheWeb
|
Own search engine, receives
results from Open Directory, offers
immediate inclusion on submission |
Provides results to Lycos,
HotBot, InfoSpace, Excite, Dogpile and
Excite, no guarantee on how long to
include index |
| Excite
|
A search engine with
extensive personalization capabilities
|
MP3, photos |
| MSN
|
Gets results from Overture,
Inktomi, LookSmart |
|
| Webseek
|
A content based image
and video search and catalog tool for
the Web |
Images, color
Photos, videos, gray images, graphics
|
| Inktomi
|
A search engine base
that supplies results to Yahoo, MSN,
Overture, LookSmart and Hotbot. A very
important search engine database |
Site will immediately
be indexed and rechecked every 48 hours,
spider capabilities |
| Dogpile
|
Combination of a directory
that is automatically updated and uses
a metasearch program (Google, Yahoo,
AltaVista, Looksmart and others) |
Cannot submit directly
to Dogpile |
| Looksmart
|
Combination of pay-per-click
listings and Inktomi search engine results.
Also results from MSN, AltaVista and
Lycos |
Spider capabilities and
MSN.s .directory. results come from
LookSmart, no free submissions |
| bCentral
|
Search Engine submission
goes to Inktomi, used Inktomi paid inclusion
plan |
No guarantees in listing
or results |
| Infospace
|
Receives it.s results
from a long list of 'partners', submission
options are for advertising only |
|
About the Author : Joelene Orlando is
a Web enthusiast and a staff writer/consultant
for eMarketing Answers with a broad knowledge
of topics covering Internet marketing and communication
strategies for both consumer and small business
owners. http://www.emarketinganswers.com
is dedicated to providing free, comprehensive
emarketing resources and online promotion tools.
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