Search Engines Tips
Search
No Further: Google Is the Best Search Engine
Wall Street Journal
Walter Mossberg, my favorite columnist, has scored again by once more agreeing
with me. His favorite search engine is Google. What a surprise, it's
mine too! The interface is clean, it's blindingly fast, the results are
usually relevant, and it offers cached copies of the pages. And you just
have to love any company with two "o's" in their name (my other
favorite site is Yahoo).
Sending
search engine traffic to your site
webmonkey
This is a nice, straightforward article about optimizing your site for search
engines. Topics covered include:
1. Use "crawler pages", also known as "hallway"
pages or site maps
2. Regularly re-submitt these crawler pages to the engines
3. Use meta and title tags and write them to attract traffic
4. Keep pages short and keyword specific
5. Make a "doorway" page for each search keyword or phrase
6. Beware of spamming techniques
Free Web site promotion
knock-knock.com
The developer of this page is also the star of a very well done video on Web
marketing - "Promoting Your Websites" - Judd Robbins. He has
prepared this supplemental page full of links to submission services as well as
free directories and announcement services. Taking advantage of all of
these opportunities is time consuming, but at least you've got all the resources
in one place.
Search Engine
Strategies
123Promote
This page is part of a larger (and useful) workbook on site promotion.
This page compiles 12 really important things to consider in search engine
planning.
Meta Tag Tutorial
123Promote
This is an excellent one page tutorial on the subject and even provides an
example of HTML code to illustrate the principals.
Promotion Profile
123Promote
One of the things that every organization must do for an effective search engine
initiative is analyze their business from a keyword perspective. What
comes out of this analysis is a clear understanding of the words you should be
using to on your Web site to describe your business so that searchers will find
you. This page provides and excellent questionnaire and process.
Content Matters Most
In Search-Engine Placement
Information Week
This is a very good overview of the search engine industry and how it works.
It also reviews the efforts of several companies and how they use search
engines.
Attracting
Search Engines: What Not to Do
Inc.
Very good article on some basic mistakes:
1. Highly graphical/low text home page
2. Frames
3. Dead links
4. Commas in keyword meta tags
Building
traffic using search engines
Inc
A good collection of articles and hints on search engine strategies, meta tags,
and key words.
Brainstorming
for the right keywords
Inc.
This is an excellent and short article that talks about coming up with keywords
for your site and makes the important recommendation that you come up with at
least 50 before you start working on your keyword design. In the second
section, they focus on including possible misspellings of your keywords and how
they can give you an edge. There's an entertaining story about AT&T
and MCI too.
How
to avoid trouble with the engines
Inc.
Pretty good advice to avoid mistakes that will make you look like you're
spamming the search engines:
1. Don't use keywords in your meta tags that aren't relevant. And
don't use them repeatedly (the rule of thumb is seven times as part of various
phrases).
2. Don't have identical doorway pages with just one or two keywords
changed.
Search Engine World
This is a very good site with some excellent discussions about search engine
strategies, tips, tricks and traps. They also have a quarterly newsletter
which is very content rich. Highly recommended.
Bush's
Dubious Victory At Google
Search Engine Watch
This story illustrates a particular ranking algorithm that Google and other
engines use - to consider the text on the page that links to a site, as well as
the text on the actual page listed in the search results.
Top ten reasons
why you aren't in the search engines
Netmechanic
This is a great article with some very useful inside tips to get your site
better treatment with the search engines. Some specific advice includes:
1. Don't expect frames, splash screens or dynamic pages to be indexed
2. Make sure your site is working reliably so that, when the spider from
the search engines visit, there will be something for them to see
3. You didn't even submit the site to search engines.
4. You're on a hosting service that also hosts spammers or adult sites.
5. There might be a big backlog of sites for the engines to visit, or they
might have deleted your page because it was too old, or wasn't up when they
spidered you. Keep submitting your site on a regular basis.
6. There are also some links to other terrific articles.
Search
Engines
PC Magazine
This is a terrific resource for helping you intelligently evaluate the many
search engines that are available to you. They review each engine and
highlight its strengths and weaknesses, and evaluate it based on whether the
query is on a general topic, or a specific one. Highly recommended.
Analysis:
Search Patterns
Ad Week
A good overview of the business of search engine optimization, some of the tools
that are out there, and - at the end - a brief discussion of some of the
techniques to make sure your pages are optimized.
Great
Name, But Will the Search Engines Like It
Afternic.com
A short guide to optimizing your site for search engines. The first few
points relate to embedding keywords in the domain name, but the rest are general
ideas for improving your results.
Selecting
a search engine optimization agency
Clickz.com
This is a short and very good article reviewing what you should be looking for
when you evaluate companies that are offering to improve your search engine
placement. And you are getting those kinds of calls all of the time,
aren't you? There are no standards in the industry, and there are lots of
newcomers - the barriers to entry are non-existent. So be very careful and
have an understanding of the basic issues before you sign up with anyone.
This article does a great job of educating you.
Google Webmaster Questions
Google
There isn't much here, but it does highlight one of the important, and hard to
control, factors in search engine rankings: how many other pages link to yours.
This popularity index has an effect on your results with Google and other
engines.
Notes
and tips for recommending a Web site to Go.com
Go.com
A short, one page discussion specific to this search engine. On this site,
they focus more on meta tags. Warning: avoid overuse of the same key words
in your meta tags.
Submit a Web Site &
Webmaster's FAQ
Hotbot
A very useful guide with some specific tips including increasing the search term
density on your page, use of and limitations on meta tags, time frames for your
site appearing in search results, and specific recommendations for increasing
the relevance of your page.
Webmaster
FAQs
Northern Light
A short discussion of this engine's ranking criteria and other information.
Except for the title of the page, for example, this engine pays little attention
to words mentioned in the meta and alt tags but does use the frequency of the
words appearing in the body of the page.
All I know about search engines
This is a very good compendium of tips for most of the major search engines.
The author summarizes what the engines themselves say, and includes her own
comments. While I don't like the design of this page, the content is very
useful.
How
AltaVista Works
AltaVista
This guide is not only useful for understanding search engines in general, but
provides very detailed instructions on getting your site well indexed by
AltaVista. There are hints on using meta tags, seeing who is linking to
your site and other great ideas. It is very Alta Vista specific, but there
is a lot of general information as well. There's even a page on what can
negatively affect your site's appearance in search engines.
Direct Hit's spider
Direct Hit
This is a short, one page description of the way this search engine works.
Getting Listed on Excite
Excite
A multi-page guide to how this search engine works. There are a couple of
useful tips here, but little that isn't covered elsewhere.
Search Engine Watch
This is a very handy site for users of search engines as well as developers who
want to learn more about getting their sites listed. The site is well
organized and full of information and links to other resources. Highly
recommended.
The
Major Search Engines
Search Engine Watch
Looking for a list of the top search engines? This is the place.
Useful information about each site is also shown.
Netscape Search Engine - Open Directory
Successful
Net search starts with need
USA Today
This is a pretty thorough review of the Internet search engines that are
available, with a little history of each. The article discusses their
strengths and the number of pages indexed. If you're looking for a search
engine, this is a good place to start.
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