Understanding the Game of Search Engines

When I started my e-business, I ask myInktomi's popularity grew several years ago as
web-designer friend to make a site which is reallythey powered the secondary search database
brainstorming. He did me a great favor and reallythat had driven Yahoo. Since then, Yahoo as
made an excellent site. My site's design isswitched to using Google as their secondary
fabulous, it's graphics are mind blowing and codingsearch and backend database, however Inktomi is
is superb. But now what? What I seen in thejust as popular now, as they were several years
coming days, I am not earning a single pennyago, if not more so.
because no one is visiting my site.Their spiders are named "Slurp", and different
I think for a while that why all this is happening,versions of Slurp crawls the web many different
then I make a search on Yahoo and see the firsttimes throughout the month, as Inktomi powers
site which is coming on the top. It doesn't have amany sites search results. There isn't much more
good design like mine but still he is making goodto Inktomi then that. Slurp puts heavy weight on
money. Then I came to know that the site'sTitle and description tags, and will rarely deep
design is meaningless if site's ranking on searchcrawl a site. Slurp usually only spider's pages that
engines is not good.are submitted to its index.
When it comes to search engine every ear justInktomi provides results to a number of sites.
not hears it but listens it's every aspect and trySome of these are America Online, MSN, Hotbot,
to locate it's presence in his site. Well why not itLooksmart, About, Goto, CNet, Geocities, NBCi,
be done as it is the place from where all of usICQ and many more.
get our business.Lycos
Every search engine has it's own criterion ofLycos is one of the oldest search engines on the
ranking and it's clear from the fact that when youInternet today, next to Altavista and Yahoo. Their
do a search on Yahoo or Google or any otherspider, named "T-Rex", crawls the web and
search engines there results vary. Here is theprovides updates to the Lycos index from time
listing of some of the Top Search Engines and ato time. The FAST crawler provides results for
few noteworthy points about all of them. KnowLycos in addition to its own database.
which engines get you more bangs for the buck?The Lycos crawler does not weigh META tags
Googletoo heavily, instead it relies on its own ranking
Google has increased in popularity tenfold the pastalgorithm to rank pages returned in results. The
several years. They have gone from beta testing,URL, META title, text headings, and word
to becoming the Internet's largest index of webfrequency are just a few of the methods Lycos
pages in a very short time. Their spider,uses to rank pages. Lycos does support pages
affectionately named "Googlebot", crawls the webwith Frame content. However, any page that isn't
and provides updates to Google's index aboutat least 75 words in content is not indexed.
once a month.Excite
began as an academic search engine. Google, byExcite has been around the web for many years
far, has a very good algorithm of ranking pagesnow. Much more of a portal than just simply a
returned from a result, probably one of the mainsearch engine, Excite used to be a fairly popular
reasons it has become so popular over the years.search engine, until companies such as Google
Google has several methods which determineseemed to have dominated the search engine
page rank in returned searches.market. As of recently, Excite no longer accepts
Yahoosubmissions of URL's, and appears to no longer
Yahoo! is one of the oldest web directories andspider. To get into the Excite search results, you
portals on the Internet today, and the site wentneed to be either listed with Overture or Inktomi.
live in August of 1994. Yahoo! is a 100% humanLooksmart
edited directory, and provides secondary searchGetting a listed with Looksmart could mean
results using Google.getting a good amount of traffic to your site.
Yahoo! is also one of the largest trafficLooksmart's results appear in many search
generators around, as far as web directories andengines, including AltaVista, MSN, CNN, and many
search engines go. Unfortunately, however, it isothers.
also one of the most difficult to get listed in,Looksmart has two options to submit your site. If
unless of course you pay to submit your site.your site is generally non-business related, you can
Even if you pay it doesn't guarantee you will getsubmit your site to Zeal (Looksmart's sister site),
listed.or if you are a business, you can pay a fee to
Either way, if you suggest a URL, it is "reviewed"have your site listed. Either method will get you
by a Yahoo! editor, and if approved will appear inlisted in Looksmart and its partner sites if you are
the next index update.approved.
AltaVistaOnce you have submitted your site, and it is
Many who have access to web logs may haveapproved for listing it will take up to about 7 days
seen a spider named 'scooter' accessing theirfor your site to be listed on Looksmart and its
pages. Scooter used to be AltaVista's robot.partner sites.
However, since the Feb 2001 site update, aAOL Search
newer form of Scooter is now crawling the web.America Online signed a multiyear pact with
Whichever spider AltaVista uses, it is one of theGoogle for Web search results and accompanying
largest search engines on the net today, next toad-sponsored links, ending relationships with
Google.pay-for-performance service Overture Services
It will usually take several months for AltaVista toand Inktomi, its algorithmic search provider of
index your entire site, although the past fewnearly three years.
months scooter hasn't been deep crawling tooOk, now you have got a better understanding of
well. Unlike Google, AltaVista will only crawl andsearch engine's game and finally you come to
index 1 link deep, so it takes a good amount ofknow which search engine is best for you and
time to index your site depending on how largewhich one is leading in today's Internet World. In
your site is.nutshell, the thing which every e-entrepreneur
AltaVista gets most of its results from its ownwants is Top Search Engine Ranking. Isn't it right?
index, however they do pull the top 5 results ofSo take some time to register with these search
each search from Overture (formerly Goto).engines as soon as possible and watch the traffic
Inktomigrow.