|
Search engine VS Directory
SearchEngines: 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.
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.
top
How long does it take a Search Engine
to list my site?
Even though your site may show up within a day or two, most of the search
engines take time to list a site. The approximate time it may take a search engine to list your site is:
1-2 weeks: Altavista,
Infoseek
2-4 weeks: Excite,
HotBot, Lycos, Webcrawler
6-8 weeks: Yahoo
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
top
Should I submit doorway or other pages of
my site?
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. 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.
Doorway pages are specially coded to place emphasis on certain keywords
or meta tags to try and ensure higher placement in certain search engines. A doorway page is usually search engine
specific. Do as many as required, just be careful and don't spam the engines.
top
How often should I submit to search engines
and directories?
Here are some general rules and indicators for knowing when you need
to make updates to your listings.
For search engines: Make updates to listing:
- If your URL changes, you will need to resubmit. Some search engines
have Dead Link forms for you to fill out. Those that do not will drop the old URL from its records the next time
it tries to visit your site at the old address and is unable to find it.
- If the content of your site changes so extensively that the abstract
no longer adequately describes your site. These changes, however, will be taken into account when the indexing
agent next visits your site to refresh its information. Resubmitting will hasten this process.
For directories: Make updates to listing:
- If your Web site address (URL), description, or category classification
changes, you will need to inform the webmaster of that directory.
- If your category classification has changed and you are now inaccurately
located within the directory's index.
Do not make updates to listing:
- If there has been minor changes made within the site which do not alter
the site's description. If the content or purpose of the site remains the same, you are not misleading anyone who
chooses to visit your site based on the original description.
top
Can I submit too often?
YES! None of the search engines or directories will tolerate spamming.
This will lead to exclusion entirely and even black listing. A general rule of thumb is not to submit more often
than twice a month. More frequently could cause expulsion.
top
My site isn't listed very high. Why?
There are many reasons that your site may not be showing up well in the
search engines. Search engines send out "robots" or "spiders" that read the information contained
within your page and determine your listing based on that information. Some of the things they look at are your
title tag, page text, meta tags and alt tags. If your site does not contain the information that each search engine
is looking for it will result in a poor listing within the search engines, or worse it could be overlooked entirely.
Because of this we HIGHLY recommend implementing as many (if not all) of these elements as possible within the
pages that you submit.
top
Should I submit to all these FFA and similar
sites?
You are the best person to decide weather your site will
benefit from all the FFA aites and other similar sites. The majority of traffic generated from engines and directories
are generated from the 2 or 3 dozen major engines and directories. Many sites can benefit greatly from FFA type
sites.
top
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.
a. 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> BannerAddict </TITLE>
as the title of BannerAddict's home page, <TITLE> BannerAddict! Promote your Web Site with the FINEST, including
the BannerAddict Web Banner Exchange </TITLE> would be much more descriptive.
b. Descriptive Page
Text Search engines assign greater relevancy to text located at the top of a page than to text located in the middle
or at the bottom of the page. The search engines assume that web page authors will present their most important
information first. If your page has a main graphic at the top, you should place some descriptive text either underneath
or beside the image. The search engines will index this text and assign it a high level of relevancy.
c. 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>
tags. The basic syntax is:
<META
name="description" content="BannerAddict.com is your one stop source for web promotion.">
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="website, promotion, submit, url, internet, tools, webtools, promote, advertise,
publish">
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. Since this is the case, there is no need to be redundant. Include keywords that will not necessarily
be derived when a robot visits your site. Robots index both the description and keyword <META> tag contents
as searchable words. Hence, your site will come up in a search if someone typed in "ecommerce" or "web
hosting" from your description. One way to maximize the usefulness of keywords is to incorporate singular
and plural cases of words as well as active and passive verbs. Since you're able through 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.
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.
d. 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="BannerAddict, website promotion">
e. 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 ) 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.
top
|