If your Web site is not found among the first
30 results of a search engine index then the
chances of a website being found are close to non-existent. Why? Most
top search engines only display the first 10 results
to the keywords search phrase. When was the last time you clicked on "Next Ten" more than 3 or 4
times to find a Website?
Let's face it, most
of us are impatient. We want our information,
and we want it now! The higher our income, the more
likely we are to shop or retrieve product information online.
The internet companies that find the
most creative ways to be seen by their potential customers will
win. It is very important these people find your Web site and that is what we hope to help you accomplish
here with our top search engine ranking tips from Optigroove.
Top Search Engine
Ranking Tips For AltaVista:
The AltaVista search engine starts by spidering the Web page you submitted with its spider Scooter. Scooter
may take up to three months to spider and index your entire site, but will usually index your submitted Web
page within a day or two. The more popular your site, the more frequent it will be updated. We also suggest you do not
resubmit the same page twice in any given week.
The AltaVista indexer gives higher priority for keywords located in certain Tags (TITLE Tags and META
Description Tags). A higher priority is given for keywords that are located near the top of the page. AltaVista
also gives a tad higher ranking for keywords appearing closer to each other on the page. Keyword density
and popularity is an important factor with AltaVista.
AltaVista incorporated their own version of Google's PageRank and in our opinion does it much better.
Rankings Priority Rundown:
1. Keyword or phrase appearing in the TITLE
2. Keyword or phrase appearing in the META Description Tag
3. Keyword or phrase appearing near the top of page
4. Individual keywords appear close together
5. Document date of origin: Touch higher for the oldest pages.
6. Document length. Longer documents tend to do better.
Special Alta Vista
Top Search
Engine Ranking Tips:
There are also a couple of "human" eyes from AltaVista that will visit your site once you reach 100 URLs
submitted or 50 URLs under any one subdirectory of a domain. These will read from the AltaVista digital
domain but will be Mozilla browsers of unknown configuration. If you get visited by these browsers - you are
being checked out by a human to make sure you are not spamming the AltaVista index and to compare the
Scooter retrieved page with Mozilla retrieved page.
WARNING: If the robot retrieved Web page does not match the Mozilla retrieved page, your entire site can
be black listed by AltaVista.
Top Search Engine
Ranking Tips For Google:
Google search engine
can be a tough search engine to get listed in because
they use their own proprietary PageRank system which in the past required a link from another page to your submitted
page before they will add it to their index.
Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Stanford Ph.D. candidates, who
developed a technologically advanced method for finding information on the Internet. Google's concept is a
solid one. The best thing about Google is the vast number of URLs included in their index.
Rankings Priority Rundown:
Then make sure you give the page a keyword name like
"apple-pie.html" (i.e., for the keyword "apple pie"). Don't use style sheets to adjust your font sizes or bold
attributes. Instead you should hard code these fonts and bold attributes to get a better ranking with Google.
A recent Google
search engine ranking factor that has been added to the algorithm looks at your page's HTML. Factors such
as what section the word appears within the page, the size of the font, and the use of bold text affect the
ranking of a Web page. Words in tiny font are considered less important in their ranking formula. In addition,
words in the title and heading sections, and words in large font and in bold are given higher rank
consideration.
At the present time the Google index is reported to be refreshed based on popularity. What this means is
that the more popular your Web page is, the more often it will be refreshed. Some pages are refreshed daily
while others can take several months.
Google only crawls and makes searchable the first 110k of a page. Long documents may have substantial
content invisible to Google.
Top Search Engine
Ranking Tips For Lycos:
Lycos (part of the Terra/Lycos Network including Hotbot) is another one of those search engines after the
big bucks. Their network includes Inktomi, Tripod.com, Angelfire.com, MyTime.com
and a bunch more.
Lycos does not consider your META Tags. You should place keywords at the start of your page.
If you using a lot of punctuation in your document it could be part of the reason you're not showing up where
you think you should. Lycos is punctuation intolerant. Don't use punctuation in the URL either.
This is a
guaranteed way not to be indexed by Lycos.
Submit to the Yahoo! Network and your listings will also be included in Lycos. In order to submit directly to
Lycos you will need to create a user account and pay for the listing, but because it is actually powered by Inktomi, you really don't need to pay for the listing.
Lycos search engine
has been around since May 1994, and is one of the oldest of the major search engines. It began as a project at
Carnegie Mellon University. The name Lycos comes from the Latin for "wolf spider."
Lycos lists sites in two main ways. There are search engine listings, and there is an associated directory
called "Web Guides". Sites are automatically listed in these directories using technology from WiseWire, a
company Lycos acquired in early 1998.
Rankings Priority Rundown:
1. Lycos looks for pages that mention these words early on, rather than far down in some sub-section
of the site.
2. Higher priority for keywords that appear in the page TITLE
3. Higher priority for keywords that are closer to the top of the page
4. Higher priority for the number of sites linking to you
Top Search Engine Ranking Tips For Inktomi:
Inktomi (now owned by Yahoo!) powers more search engines including Yahoo! and AltaVista than any other
search results provider. Top Search engines such as HotBot, About, Infospace, Kanoodle and many others all
use Inktomi (Powered by Yahoo!) to help satisfy their visitor's search.
Inktomi powered engines take full advantage of both your META Description and Keywords Tags within your
HTML code. Try to use unique words or phrases as your keywords since Inktomi will score the words higher
in their relevancy rating. Be sure to use descriptive words in your TITLE and META Description Tags and
use them often.
As with other search engines be sure that the words you use in your META Keyword Tags
are words that someone would type in to find your Web site.
Our biggest tip for Inktomi is to submit to Inktomi and wait. It seems Inktomi (when they provided URL
submissions) can take as long as 6 months to index you.
Even after indexing you it doesn't mean you will be
listed there next month. You must keep checking their database for your URLs.
Search Engine Rankings Priority Rundown: (via Inktomi)
1. Keyword Density
2. Site Linkage - a big factor. (based on faulty DirectHit logic, but getting better)
3. Keyword or phrase appearing in the TITLE
4. Keyword or phrase appearing in the META Tags
5. Keyword or phrase appearing near the top of page
6. Keywords that appear in the BODY
7. First the search selects a subset of the sites containing all your keywords and does a simple
ranking based on items 3-6 above.
8. Next it counts the linkages to your site from other sites. The top 100 returned results are then
rearranged according to that linkage factor.
9. Lastly, it takes the top 20 sites and ranks them by the click thrus that Inktomi has registered.
(This is how PPC can help your
organic rankings)
Top
Search Engine Ranking Tips For Yahoo!:
Yahoo!'s directory is not a robot type search engine, but instead a directory
like the Yellow Pages. However, Yahoo!'s main search
page (keyword search) is powered by their slurp robot (which was actually Inktomi) and will search
through their index as well as their directory.
The following will mostly discuss Yahoo!'s directory. For additional information on Yahoo!'s full text search
engine that is not covered here, review the information found under AltaVista, FAST and Inktomi.
Yahoo!'s directory currently charges anywhere from US$299.00 to US$699.00 as an automatic recurring
annual fee. This fee is ONLY a "consideration of your web site for possible inclusion in Yahoo!'s directory".
This fee is non-refundable even if they decide not to include your URL. Only Yahoo! Could get away with
this.
However there is another way to get in Yahoo!'s directory without any fees, but the site you submit must not
be commercial. Here's a link to Yahoo!'s suggest URL information.
One thing to remember in trying to get listed in Yahoo!'s directory is that they are very selective. They will
not include just anyone. A Web site must be both unique in content and fall within their directory structure.
Relevancy of your directory listing is based on the Title and Comments that you give them. Try to use words
people would use to find your Web site both in your Title and Comments.
Around since late
1994,
Yahoo!
is the oldest major Web
site directory. Yahoo! is well-known,
well-used and well-respected.
Yahoo is a
very important top ranking search engine to be listed on.
Yahoo! delivers two types of search results. First they have their own internal Directory and then this is
backed up by their acquired Inktomi search index. Pages that are in their directory as well as in their
robot index have a higher ranking in search results.
Yahoo! Directory Listings operates under the Microsoft concept that you don't have be good, you just have
to be first and the biggest. Their directory for the most part is terrible with dead and decaying links that are
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several years old and out-of-date - their choices for inclusion are notoriously some of the worst particular
sites on the Net under that category. Yahoo!'s directory strength and success as a guide comes from humans. Unlike full text search engines,
Yahoo! does not spider directory Web sites to build listings automatically, using technology. Instead, human
editors provide the brain power and intuition needed to classify the Web's many offerings.
As submissions increase, the guide must either bring
on new editors to process listings, let the backlog grow or simply accept a smaller percentage of listings as
in the past.
Currently, it's the third choice that is being followed. A smaller percentage is getting in.
However, below are some known things that can increase your chances of getting listed in Yahoo!'s
Directory.
Rankings Priority Rundown:
1. $$, the more you give them, the higher your ranking.
2. Keywords appearing in TITLE (user submitted TITLE).
3. Listings are sorted alphabetical by title (in most all cases).
Special Yahoo! Top Search Engine Ranking Tips:
Entry level pages on a domain have the highest chance of getting listed.
Some have suggested that Yahoo! is now a business directory only and new listings are almost required to
have a base level domain
.
Regional Entries. Sites that use the regional (city/country) Yahoo! Sites have a higher chance of getting
listed.
All of the major free hosted sites have been banned. (Tripod, Geocites, Xoom)
Pitching a fit. Yahoo! will occasionally respond to aggressive critical email.
Email response is almost non existent. - If you can find their voice mail number - use it.
If you are still
having a tough time getting your web
pages ranked at the top then let
Optigroove do it for you.
Check out our SEO Services.
