Search engine positioning is critical for the easy retrieval of your website by people who seek the information you offer. Your search engine
positioning, therefore, is a vital tool to generate website traffic that would ultimately redound to revenue-generation, and thus profits for you. As a webmaster,
you should be equipped with at least the basic knowledge on how best to position your website in search engines.
In this first part of our series on Search Engine Positioning Tips, we tackle the things that influence specific search engines and/or
directories to list or give a more prominent position for your websites. We discuss which factors they consider as important in including and giving your
site a more favorable placing on their search engines and which are not.
Yahoo! Directory - Yahoo! likes concise, accurate and precise site description. So if you want to be listed
in the number one directory/search engine, you should submit a description that's brief, terse and direct-to-the-point. Your keywords are important,
as is your choice of the appropriate category where to put your site. Popularity of the links included on
your site is also very important. Your site must also be aesthetically-pleasing and they should not have any "Under Construction" links.
Keyword-frequency is not a factor. Always use the plural form of the keywords.
LookSmart - LookSmart is an important search engine as its services are used by other engines like AltaVista,
Excite, iWon and MSN. LookSmart likes websites that have good quality content and look. They also prefer to approve websites that good functionality and interactivity.
Since LookSmart does not use robots, everything indexed into LookSmart is done manually. No meta tags, ALT image tags, HTML comments or image maps
will help boost your ranking here. Your best chance on getting your site listed is to describe your website as accurate as possible. The final decision
is up to the editor. Your website must therefore impress him enough as to be worthy of adding you to their database. Inktomi now provides secondary listings
for Looksmart when no results are returned by Looksmart's primary index.
MSN Search Engine - MSN has partnered with LookSmart where the latter basically evaluates websites for MSN. Take a look at the
LookSmart tips above to find out what they are looking for in a website submission.
Excite - Be clear on the theme on your front page. Use keywords in the title of your front page and use these keywords
in the body of the page when it makes sense to do so. Be careful with spelling, grammar and punctuation on the site so that your intended meaning and purpose
is communicated clearly. The popularity of the links that you put on your site is given considerable importance by Excite.
AltaVista - Put search terms in the title and meta tags. Repeat them frequently in the document. Place the words early
and close to one another in the document. The HTML title is very important and should be unique for every page. AltaVista also likes uncommon words, plain HTML
pages, in-bound links and keywords in the link text. Link popularity is important. Good navigation is also a plus.
Google - For Google, link popularity is the most important consideration. As such, you should try to build your links, ask
other sites to link to you and offer a suggested description that has the terms for which you want to be found. Also, the keywords you use should be consistently
found throughout the website. They should be near each other. Your content should also include keywords in the text or links. Placement
in Google is important as it also provides search results for Yahoo!
Lycos - For your Lycos submission, include keywords in the title tag, and then repeat them in a heading tag and mention them
very early on in the page. Since the first 275 characters of the page will be the description, try to make them contain precisely what
you want the description to say. Also, the keywords should be consistently found throughout the site.
HotBot - HotBot makes extensive use of meta tags, particularly the keywords and description tags, and the title of your
page. However, abusing meta tags or spoofing their search robot may get your website lower rankings or even blacklisted. Limit repeating keywords
in the meta tags. Also, if lots of websites link to your site, then your site will be ranked higher
in HotBot's rankings. Aside from link popularity, HotBot also gives importance to click popularity (HotBot uses DirectHit).
Ask Jeeves - Ask Jeeves maintains a large knowledge base compiled by three sources namely: human editors, popularity
technology (powered by Direct Hit) and E-commerce partners. Human editors consider the following factors: sites that load quickly, sites that are
easy to read and navigate, those that are updated regularly and sites that address a user's question thoroughly. Direct Hit is in charge of link popularity
considerations while its E-commerce partners make approvals using their respective criteria.
IWon Search Engine - IWon makes extensive use of meta tags, particularly the keywords, description tag and the title
of your page. Link popularity is also ranked highly, as well as keywords that are consistently placed throughout your website.
DMOZ Open Directory Project - DMOZ is one of the largest databases that powers multiple search engines. Among the engines
that uses it are Lycos, HotBot, AltaVista, Google, AOL and Netscape. Everything indexed into DMOZ is done by humans. No meta tags, ALT image tags,
HTML comments or image maps will help boost your ranking here. Your best chance on getting your site listed is the accurate and concise description
of your website. We suggest before submitting your site to a category, you contact the editor for that category (indicated at the bottom of each page),
introduce yourself and ask what he values to be considered a good website. Develop a personal contact with the editor and then submit your site,
you'd be surprised how often this technique is used (and works).
We certainly hope that we've been able to help you increase your chances of being listed higher in the search engines. Truly,
good search engine placement goes a long way in helping you crack through thedoor toward unlimited opportunity in cyberspace.
