WHAT
A SEARCH ENGINE IS
You
probably already know that search engines are web sites with databases
which people use in order to search for web pages which interest
them. They include Yahoo, Altavista and Google. Some web sites
are almost invisible to the search engines, generally because
their designers have not understood the different search engines’
requirements.
KNOWING
WHICH ARE THE BEST SEARCH ENGINES FOR YOUR SITE
We
keep an up-to-date list of the top search engines, and can advise
on the ones most appropriate for your purposes. Most of the search
engines are general in their purpose, but some engines exist for
specialist interests, such as education or medicine. We can research
these for you and advise you as to which are appropriate for your
site. We also keep tabs on which are, at any time, the most popularly
used search engines, especially by UK users.
KNOWING
HOW DIFFERENT SEARCH ENGINES RATE SITES
Different
search engines index and categorise web pages by any of four different
methods. Many people know about search engines which use meta
tags or a directory structure; fewer know about those which use
external links or, crucially, those which scan the text on your
pages for key words and allocate weightings to them. When we write
your web site, we will ensure that it includes all the information
which all the major search engines require.
HOW
TO SUBMIT TO SEARCH ENGINES
When
a web site is complete, it must be submitted to the search engines.
There are some web sites which will sell you a search engine submission
service to hundreds of engines, using a script (a sort of computer
program). We do not consider that this method is as effective
as manual submission, since many of the top search engines regularly
change their requirements just to avoid this sort of automated
submission.You don’t have to undertake the tedious task of manual
submission to search engines - we will do it for you, for a fee
which will depend on how many search engines you want to include
- the top five, the top fifteen or the top fifty - and, because
once is rarely enough, on how many times you want us to repeat
the submission.Some search engines now offer a paid route to ranking
on their lists. If you can afford it, this is a guarantee of an
early appearance for your site (it can take months for a search
engine submission to be actioned) but it does not guarantee top
rankings - for that, the site must be designed with the rankings
in mind. |
