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1. What is a search engine?
Search engines utilize indexing software programs which are often called robots or spiders. These programs constantly "crawl" the Internet in search of new or updated pages.
They will essentially go from site to site until they have visited every web site on the Internet.
When visiting a Web site, the program will record the full text of every page (home and sub-pages) within the site. It will then continue on to visit all external links. Following these external links is how search engines are able to find your site regardless of whether or not you register your URL with them. Submitting your URL, however, does speed up the process.
It notifies an agent to visit and index your site instead of waiting for it to eventually locate you through one of your external links.
Robots will then revisit your site periodically to refresh the recorded information. The revisiting of links is the reason why some search engines don't require you to inform them of dead links. Eventually, their robot would try unsuccessfully to update the information on a dead link and realize it no longer exists.
Finally, an easy way to tell whether a Web index is a search engine as opposed to another type of directory is by the information it requires when adding your URL. A true search engine will only need the Web address. The indexing agent takes care of the rest.
2. General Tips for Getting Listed in Search Engines
Every search engine on the Internet looks at different elements of your web site, so it is highly recommended that you implement as many of these tips as possible.
a. Use keywords in the <TITLE> of your document making it as descriptive as possible.
When visiting your site, an agent will go first to the <TITLE> tag. For clarification purposes, the <TITLE> tag is what a browser will display in its title bar and is not simply the first line of HTML that shows up on your page. (Although your first words of introductory text should be descriptive as well). Search engines will display the text located between the <TITLE> tags when your web page is listed in a search. By making your <TITLE> descriptive, you'll be better off than those who only have keywords within the text of their page. It will also be helpful when people bookmark your web site. If a more descriptive name appears in a person's hot list, it will be easier to find your site at a later date.
Nationwide Home Business Center already adds the <TITLE> tags to your web site for you when you purchased it from us.
b. Descriptive Page Text Search engines assign greater relevancy to text located at the top of a page than to text located in the middle or at the bottom of the page.
The search engines assume that web page authors will present their most important information first. If your page has a main graphic at the top, you should place some descriptive text either underneath or beside the image. The search engines will index this text and assign it a high level of relevancy. Your web site purchased by the NHBC also implements this practice into your web site which has successfully listed many of our distributors at the top of engines.
c. Use <META> tags which allow you to provide even more detail about your Web pages and thereby gain greater control over how your pages are indexed. Not all search engines make use of <META> tags, but adding these tags to your pages will make them more accessible to the search engines that do.
<META> tag codes are inserted within the <HEAD> </HEAD> tags. The basic syntax is:
<META name="description" content="a health and fitness center located in Atlanta">
This will control what appears as the summary of your Web page and will be displayed after the title of your document in the index listing. The content of the description should clearly convey what one can expect to find when linking to your site.
<META name="keywords" content="running, weight control, nutrition, aerobics, cholesterol, Georgia">
This will allow you to provide extra information about your page to the search engines without it being visible to the reader. While search engines do take these keywords into account when indexing your page, they are still going to index the entire contents of your page as many sites do not include <META> tags. Since this is the case, there is no need to be redundant. Include keywords that will not necessarily be derived when a robot visits your site. In other words, "health" and "fitness" need not be included in your list of keywords as it is part of your <TITLE>.
Robots index both the description and keyword <META> tag contents as searchable words. Hence, your site will come up in a search if someone typed in "nutrition" or "health center" from your description. One way to maximize the usefulness of keywords is to incorporate singular and plural cases of words as well as active and passive verbs. For example, diet, diets, and dieting will yield similar but somewhat varying results in a search. Since you're able through tags, why not guarantee you come up on all of them.
Do not excessively repeat keywords in a keyword <META> tag as search engines may penalize you for this and think you are trying to spam their index.
At present, InfoSeek and Lycos are two such examples and others may adopt similar policies in the future.
Who should definitely make use of <META> tags?
Sites using Netscape frames:
The main HTML file contains the <FRAMESET> tags, but fails to provide robots with any real useful information for selecting a Web site's abstract. Therefore you should include a description summarizing the contents of the frames on your page with <META> tags.
Sites using Javascript at the top of their page:
If JavaScript code makes up the first several hundred characters on your page, you should use <META> tags to provide a description for your page.
An indexing agent's search logic is programmed to place more emphasis on the text located at the top of your page than the content it combs through towards the bottom.
Sites created by the Nationwide Home Business Center also come jam-packed with META tags strategically placed to help you get listed on the top of search engine lists.
d. Use ALT tags especially if your site contains multiple photos or graphic-image maps at the top of your home page. Some search engines will take into account the text within an ALT tag when creating your site's description and keywords.
In addition, you will be greatly appreciated by all people who visit your site with their Auto Load Images option turned off or by those who prefer to use character browsers.
ALT tags are placed after an image file and generally look like the following:
<img src="/images/submits.gif" alt="Submit It! : Web site marketing services and tools.">
e. If your site utilizes frames, you should be aware that search engines treat frames as if they are links within your main page. As a result the engines will review and index your main page and, at a later date, return to index each individual frame just as it will return to index all other internal links within your web site. Therefore, in order to have your main page (typically titled index.htm or ) indexed accurately and efficiently, we recommend that you add some descriptive text between the <noframes> and </noframes> tags of the HTML source coding of your main page. The noframes tags are usually placed below your frame set information.
The frame set information is designated by <frameset> and </frameset>. This text should include your most important keywords and keyword phrases. Adding this text will provide the search engines with content from which to derive keywords for indexing.
After this change has been made to your Web site, the page itself will appear exactly the same to anyone using a browser that supports frames.
However, users of browsers that do not support frames (i.e. Netscape 1.0 or lower) will now be able to successfully view your home page.
3. How long does it take a Search Engine to list my site?
Because there are so many sites on the Internet and everyone wants to be at the top of the search engines result pages, search engines take time to list a site.
The approximate time it may take to be listed varies from engine to engine. It is crucial that you submit your site once and wait, as multiple submissions are treated like spam and you’re listing will be thrown out of the search engines index or not listed at all.
There are no guarantees that you will be listed with a search engine, and if you are listed there are no guarantees you will be at the top of the list.
Below is a list of times it takes s few of the more popular engines to list sites that were successfully submitted and indexed.
1-2 weeks: Altavista, Infoseek
2-4 weeks: Excite, HotBot, Lycos, Webcrawler
6-8 weeks: Yahoo
If after the time listed in the chart above has elapsed and you are still not finding your site listed, you should resubmit your URL to the search engines that do not have your listing.
It often takes more than one submission to get the best results.
On days when the submission level is above normal, a certain number of submissions can be received properly but still not get listed.
If your listing is not appearing on a certain search engine, you should resubmit it.
For the FAQ pages of individual search engines, please see the following links:
Altavista
Excite
Yahoo!
HotBot
Infoseek
Lycos
Webcrawler
4. Why should I submit inside pages of my site?
When considering how many pages of your site to promote, it is important to remember directories generally accept one listing per company.
This is usually your home or main page. Search engines index multiple pages within a site, but you cannot control which pages they will index unless you submit the individual Urls (pages).
The critical pages to submit are your major topic pages, pages with unique content, or pages that describe a specific product or service. For example, a sports store will have separate pages on basketball, baseball and football which should all be submitted.
Another benefit to submitting multiple pages in this example is that the basketball page will appear higher in a search for "basketball" than the sports site home page. These pages should also include descriptive title tags and meta tags.
In order for site visitors to easily navigate your site, these major topic pages should provide clear links to other topic pages and your home page.
5. Do I need to inform search engines and directories of updates to my Web pages?
Here are some general rules and indicators for knowing when you need to make updates to your listings.
For more detailed information on the process involved in making updates to each directory, consult the Submission Hints and Tips accessible within the Submit It! Gold and Pro versions.
For search engines: Make updates to listing:
- If your URL changes, you will need to resubmit. Some search engines have Dead Link forms for you to fill out.
Those that do not will drop the old URL from its records the next time it tries to visit your site at the old address and is unable to find it.
- If the content of your site changes so extensively that the abstract no longer adequately describes your site.
These changes, however, will be taken into account when the indexing agent next visits your site to refresh its information. Resubmitting will hasten this process.
For directories: Make updates to listing:
- If your Web site address (URL), description, or category classification changes, you will need to inform the Webmaster of that directory.
- If your category classification has changed and you are now inaccurately located within the directory's index.
Do not make updates to listing:
- If there has been minor changes made within the site which do not alter the site's description.
If the content or purpose of the site remains the same, you are not misleading anyone who chooses to visit your site based on the original description.
6. How else can I promote my site?
There are a variety of ways you can promote your site both on and off-line.
Remember that getting listed with the search engines is a great first step to take and is like being listed in the white or yellow pages of a phone book used by millions of people, but it is by no means a direct advertisement for your web site!
You still need to draw traffic (people) to your site- and search engines help but, are not going to draw as many people to your web site as an advertisement targeted toward a specific crowd will.
We recommend you try the following:
There are so many ways to go in site promotion, but we suggest you try the ones we listed above! Also, keep in mind that advertising off-line is cheaper because everyone is advertising online- which means it is going to be most costly.
General Rules:
- We do not guarantee that your site will be accepted by the search engines and directories that we submit it to.
- We do not guarantee the ranking or placement of your site within a search
engine or directory.
- We do not control how the different search engines or directories will use the information you provide us with to list you. (For example, they may add your
e-mail address to their mailing lists.)
- We do not control the length of time it takes the different search engines to list your site after we submit to them. (Some list your site immediately, others can take as long as 6 to 8 weeks, while others may take 2 to 3 weeks.)
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