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| What is a Search Engine? |
| A search engine
is a special web site that catalogs other web sites and has search capability.
Their function is to somehow catalog websites into a database and they each have
their own algorithm for searching their databases. A
search engine uses something called a 'spider' or 'robot', which are automated
programs that scour the web jumping from link to link, cataloguing web sites. |
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| What is the difference between
a search engine and a directory? | | A
search engine uses automated 'spiders' or 'robots' to catalog websites. A directory
uses people to go through a web site and catalog the web site. Therefore, Yahoo
is really a directory and not a search engine, as they employ a team of people
to go through every site listed in their database. |
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| How
do I get listed in Search Engines? | Unless
you tell the search engine about your site, they will have a hard time finding
you. There are several ways to get listed in search engines.
- Visit each search engine
and register your site. On each search engine there is a link typically named
'Add URL', 'Suggest A Site', 'Add Page' ...etc. You should click through and follow
the instructions. This method also takes the most time but often allows you to
be most specific about where your listing should be.
- There
are some online web-based services that will register your site in various search
engines for free. For example, Register It! Be aware that many of these services
may say they can submit to over 300 sites, however, many of sites may be multi-level
marketing sites and spam email list collection sites.
- You
can pay a marketing service to help you market your site. As part of the strategy
you can have them worry about how to get your site listed.
- You
can buy special software that will submit your site to various search engines
and directories.
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| How long does it take to
be listed? | | Each
search engines varies in the time it takes for your site to be listed. Usually
directories will take a long time - a couple months, because some personnel at
the company must review your web site. Search engines will list you faster but
it can be from 48 hours to a few weeks. You will have to check with the search
engine itself for this information. Typically you will find some answers in their
FAQ or help section. |
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| How do I get my site to show up
on top of the listing? |
| This is a
tough question. There is no one that can guarantee you top positioning on any
search engine. Each search engine has its own algorithm as to what it deems most
important when cataloguing the content of a particular web page. In addition,
search engines will periodically change their algorithm so what helped you get
higher listing may not always work. You will have to keep up with each search
engine or hire someone to keep up to date for you. However,
there are some strategies in web site design which can help you raise your position.
Read through the Search Engine Optimization Tips. |
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| Why is the title tag important? |
| You should place
a TITLE tag on every web page on your site. Most spiders will first look to the
TITLE tag to decipher the web page content. Therefore, it is advisable to not
use acronyms, and you can even use a few descriptive keywords. Also, some search
engine will penalize you if your TITLE is too long. |
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| What
are META tags and why are they important? | | META
tags should be used on every page of your web site. These are special tags that
sit in between the HEAD tags in your HTML code and are invisible to the viewer.
For example, look at the source code for this web page. Many
search engines will store the META tags in their databases. META tags allow you
to include a description of the particular web page and also store additional
relevant keywords that may or may not exist on your page. However, keep in mind
that many search engines will penalize you if you use repeated keywords. |
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| Why are ALT tags important? |
| We
recommend that you always use ALT tags with your images. There are some search
engines that record this information in their database. There
are some search engines where you can actually search for images - typically using
the ALT tags as references for the search. |
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| Why is having HTML text important? |
| If your web
page is composed only of images, the search engine spider will have no idea what
your content is about, as it typically will look to the HTML text on your page
to try to automatically decipher the web page content. This
is why it is good to have text navigation links (even as a supplement to your
graphical navigation) and text content. Some spiders will weigh sentences with
proper punctuation marks as more relevant than single words. Some spiders consider
text links to be more important. It
is also a good idea to try to raise your HTML text content up on the page as high
as possible. Some search engines limits the kilobytes of data that it will scan
for its database. Therefore, if the spider doesn't see any HTML text, then it
can't figure out your page content. |
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| What is search engine spamming? |
| Each search
engine has a policy on spamming. Spamming is considered the act of abusing the
registration process and the use of some tricks to attempt to raise a web site
position. For
example, it was common in the past to use the background color for additional
HTML text on a page. Since the color of the text matches the background - the
visitor would not see the text. In this way, you can hide all sorts of keywords.
Search engines will automatically drop your web site if you do this.
Another example is repeating
keywords unnecessarily or using keywords that have nothing to do with your content,
just for getting a higher listing. If caught, the search engine will usually drop
your site. If
you are concerned about spamming, you should visit the search engines and read
through the help documentation. Each search engine will have different criteria
and spamming policy. |
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| Can I submit multiple pages? |
| For the most
part the answer to this question is YES. We recommend that you submit a few key
pages of your site to all search engines. However you should be very careful as
any abuse of multiple page registration is considered search engine spamming.
If the search engine catches you spamming then they will drop your site entirely
from the search engine. You should read the search engine's help documentation
to determine at what point they consider a person to be spamming. |
| Why is using frames problematic? |
| Because of the
way frames work in HTML, some search engines will not follow your pages correctly
and your site will not be completely indexed. If you are using frames, then it
is advisable to make sure your site is navigatable without frames, you have an
option for using frames or not, and/or use the NOFRAMES option. |
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