Search Engine Guide
A comprehensive search engine list can be found at www.searchenginecolossus.com.
They are particularly good at keeping an up to date guide of regional minor
search engines. For our illustrative purposes we will only be discussing the
top performing and well positioned engines as a part of the Net Affinity search
engine list.
Search Engine Guide
Search Engine:
Google
Google is commonly regarded as the champion of all search engines. They serve
up accurate information from one of the largest database networks of cached
sites on the web in lightening fast fashion.
Google sends web site owners a large proportion of search engine traffic. As
such it has a crucial role in the search engine optimization programme at Net
Affinity. Google gives prevalence to websites with clean static coding practice,
optimized content and both creative internal linking structure and inbound links
from quality related web sites.
Google is a search engine, as such it parses the web traversing websites with
its proprietary crawler named 'googlebot'. It follows all href links and while
it can parse dynamic sites for indexing purposes dynamic sites are not the preferred
optimization route as they are poorly positioned in comparison to static sites.
Up till recently Google updated once a month. This was know as
the 'Google Dance'. It typically sent out the spider at the beginning of the
month and at the end of the month it would run its update across each of its
data centres moving the results from www2.google.com to www.google.com. This
process took a few days to consolidate each month and the mixed returned results
is how it came to be know as 'the dance'.
Recently however Google has abandoned the monthly update in favour of a more
frequent update. Every few days a freshbot crawl will update the snippets code
in the returned results. However PR or Page Rank updates appear to remain a
monthly occurrence but there are those in the industry who believe that this
may change sooner rather than later.
Search
Engine: Alta Vista
Once heralded as the largest and most powerful search engine Alta Vista fell
out of favour with internet users when they made the corporate blunder of pursuing
a portal approach and neglecting the accuracy and development of their search
technology. This gave rise to the growth of Google. Alta Vista has rebranded
and has changed ownership twice since then but still struggles to regain market
share. Regardless Alta Vista's Scooter is a popular robot and depending on your
industry Alta Vista sends valuable traffic to websites.
The Alta Vista engine was purchased by the leading CPC (cost per
click) Search Engine, Overture. This consolidation was also to lead to Overture
purchasing FAST's Alltheweb search engine. In turn Overture was recently purchased
by Yahoo!
Search Engine Guide: Yahoo!
Noted for their aggressive marketing in the US and subsequent market dominance
in the world of web directories, Yahoo has become a house hold name even managing
to work its slogan into colloquial language with "Do You Yahoo!".
Popular amongst an older more discerning consumer Yahoo is known
for it's unbiased appraisals of websites in their quality human edited directory.
Yahoo has several related diversifications to its service offerings on their
site including Yahoo Travel, Yahoo Hot Jobs, Yahoo Personals and Yahoo Finance.
A truly world beating internet directory!
Yahoo have moved away from the Google partnership in favour of their own searchable database. The move initially represented an old Inktomi database but it now more inline with the Google results. Yahoo have also launched their own version of Page Rank entitled Web Rank.
Search Engine Guide: MSN
Strange that the worlds largest and most successful software manufacturer should
be so far behind in the search engine wars. Especially when you consider they
have market dominance in the browser market. However Microsoft has made the
development of MSN a top priority and we expect MSN to grow in popularity as
a result in the coming 12 months.
MSN is primarily known for its association with Hotmail, the free
subscription based email account website and for MSN Instant Messenger chat
service. The search results of MSN are a mix of Overture sponsored results,
Looksmart Look Listings and Inktomi results. MSN have launched their own robot
(msnbot) and are currently indexing the web. There has been no official announcement
of a launch date of their new results.
Search Engine: Overture
Overture are the leading CPC engine. That means they are the leading paid for
placement website. Overture feed a substantial number of third party sites with
their search results. To be positioned on Overture Net Affinity will agree the
key terms to be used and establish a budget with the client. Each term within
Overture will have an associated cost per click. That is to say that each time
a web user clicks on your advert the balance of your Overture account depletes.
The cost per click will depend on the industry you are in and
the key phrase you wish to be associated with. While the Overture search engine
itself will not generate significant traffic though its syndication of partner
feeds Overture is a very powerful traffic generator. To appear on the Overture
Partners results you must appear in the top 3 listings for the given key phrase.
While Overture is an excellent traffic generator it can be costly
and in certain industries the bidding wars for key terms has meant that only
large advertising budgets will work. For instance if the key term required were
'Casino' the cost per click would be $14 on Overture US. However this is an
extreme, typically for a key term the bids can start at $0.10 and rise to $2.00.
Search Engine: Alltheweb
Now owned by Yahoo, Alltheweb is battling with Google as the search engine with
the largest index of web pages. Both engines have achieved a 3 billion page
index.
Fast, efficient, with content that almost mirrors Google. Unfortunately
to steal a lead on Google you can't just be the same as Google you have to be
twice as good. Alltheweb is an excellent source for images and its categorization
of such in unsurpassed. With the Yahoo team charting the future course of Alltheweb
we expect big things from this search engine.
Search Engine Guide: Looksmart
In the past Looksmart had a wonderful reputation as a directory whos success
was a contender to Yahoo. But only one can win a race and while Looksmart has
varied its service offerings in an array of different billing styles the ailing
directory has now opted for the increasing popular revenue generating scheme
of CPC.
The poor relation to Overture listings and Google Adwords program
Looksmart Looklistings offers a CPC platform. Likened to that of Overture sponsored
results Net Affinity uses the top agreed upon key phrases and places them into
a Looksmart account. For each click received the account balance gets deducted.
Looksmart Looklisting are for those clients with one objective - as much traffic
as possible. As with Google Adwords and Overture campaigns Net Affinity manage
Looksmart Looklistings on the clients behalf, ensuring optimal performance and
value from their budget.
Search Engine: Ask Jeeves
A very popular UK search engine with unique positioning! Ask Jeeves is a popular
choice for websites seeking UK traffic. The price for inclusion is fee based
upon the amount URL's submitted.
Search Engine: Teoma
Owned by Ask Jeeves, Teoma is the replacement of Direct Hit. A search engine
growing in popularity due to its unique Subject Specific Popularity algorithm.
By submitting the URL(s) to Ask Jeeves they are automatically included in the
Teoma index.
Search Engine: AOL
A popular browser and search engine in the US. AOL is powered by its search
partner Google. AOL has a mix of sponsored and organic listings. The organic
is powered by Google's own index while the sponsored is powered by Google Adwords.
This further enhances the importance of search engine optimization in Google.
While AOL does not have a proprietary search facility it receives
huge numbers of visitors in the US. Bear in mind that AOL.com is part of AOL
Time Warner - the largest media company in the world.
Search Engine: Inktomi
Inktomi was purchased by Yahoo and is promising to play an integral part of
the Yahoo search strategy in the future. As we have illustrated above, while
Inktomi don't have a website themselves they power other search engine websites
search functions. The cost for inclusion in the Inktomi powered engines is on
a URL basis. The more URL's submitted there is an sliding scale billing structure.
Search Engine: DMOZ
Human edited the Open Directory Project or DMOZ is a small index of web sites
when compared to key search engines like Google. Nonetheless they are considered
to be a key directory and having a link in DMOZ is a valuable commodity.
Anyone can apply to become an editor of a given category in the
DMOZ or Open Directory Project. The benefit of submission to this directory
is that the link is weighted in the eyes of key search engines such as Google.
Much like having an entry in the Yahoo directory index. However acceptance onto
the directory is not guaranteed and it take months before a site will appear.
Additionally the DMOZ editors will only accept a site submission if it is deemed
to be unique content and adding value to its index. Duplicate sites or affiliate
sites will not be entertained.
Search Engine: Hotbot
One of the final search engines Net Affinity highlight. Hotbot still has a popular
following. Hotbots results are powered by Inktomi, hence another reason why
submission to Inktomi is important.
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